Cacao, Mourning and TV

Raw blocks of  processed cacao (chocolate)

Here is the Real Deal. Pure cacao chocolate. 100% pure and uncut. The taste is amazing - a short burst of heavy chocolate, with a tinge of bitter. Then the cocoa butter (oil) melts and smooths everything out into a heavenly swirl. Shortly thereafter the caffeine (8 x more than coffee) kicks in.

Flag of the Ngobe people

These blocks were gifts from the aptly named Quebrada Cacao community for my assistance to them.

At the same meeting, I was given an honorary Ngobe name: UnchikraKwaribo

I think it means something like "large friend with no fur". The Ngobe call 'em like they see 'em.

The Ngobe Comarca flag of my adopted nation is proudly shown here.

Every morning over breakfast, I watch the local Panama news channel. Some observations after 3 months:
There are no partisan commentators giving opinion instead of fact. This is “straight” news, with interviews of the parties involved – like US news used to be. 
Ample time is given to “Denuncios” (denouncements), where average citizens sound off about local problems they’d like to see fixed.
There is ALWAYS a corruption trial or scandal going on. To a lesser extent, I’m guessing that the corruption in US is just better hidden.
There are frequent “PSAs”, reminding folks of all the things the government is doing for them : new roads, bridges, subsidized propane and rice, free Christmas hams, cheaper bus fares, etc. There are even teasers for planned projects (which may or may not actually materialize). Of course, these always end with the incumbent President’s smiling face – a form of free political ad. 
Commercial advertisements seem mostly for food and cleaning products and remind me of US ads in the 50’s and 60’s – they are longer and feature a housewife extolling the product virtues. Oddly, the women in these ads all live in large, modern, well decorated homes and the women are all white or light skinned with blonde hair – representing about 9% of the population.
News anchors tend to be white women with blonde hair and Hispanic men.

I saw some slick new construction tech in Valle Risco yesterday. Walls are built with these interlocking panels which are filled with concrete. Electric and plumbing slide through lateral holes in the panels.
Some of you may remember the Techos de Esperanza project from last year. The Panamanian government is building thousands of these small homes around the country in rural areas. They are well built with indoor plumbing and excellent electric service. But they have some problems : Soil here is mostly clay and does not percolate, so septic tanks back up. Also, lack of windows means all internal and external doors must be open to catch a breeze. In addition, some are built in villages without good water or electric service.

Panamanians had a day of mourning Dec 20th - remembering the US Invasion (aka Operation Just Cause) 28 years ago. The US military attacked with 23,000 ground troops, artillery, tanks and helicopter gun ships to oust President Noriega, a rogue CIA operative. 
About 1,000 Panamanian civilians were killed in the crossfire, with 2500 injured and 1900 captured. The US occupied in force for 30 days while searching for the elusive Noriega.
Not exactly our finest hour.

Due to the relatively low water pressure of gravity fed water systems and the greatly differing elevations of houses within a community prevalent here in the mountainous jungle area of Bocas del Toro, Panama, houses at lower elevations get tons of water and those above often get little or none. 
The solution is to restrict flow to the lower houses, either with proper reduced pipe size or with these home-made flow restrictors. It's just an ordinary faucet washer inserted into the line, but it does the trick. 
The only problem I had when I used them in Torti was that folks at lower elevation would get greedy and remove them. This time I'm hoping that epoxy glue will prevent removal - only time will tell.

A Plan to Help 1100 People

Community meeting in Barriada Santos

Far too long since my last blog. Panama has suffered a rain event of near Bibilical proportions – over 80 hours of non-stop rain. The timing was fortuitous, as it gave me time to complete my grant application. After planning with five local communities, crunching materials estimates, filling multiple spreadsheets, figuring delivery, transport and construction schedules, completing a 14 page application and then re-entering ALL the information into the PC online grants portal, my PCPP grant application is at last submitted for approval.

If approved, we will provide new water service to about 500 people who have never had water at their homes and upgrade water service to another 600 folks, as well as providing training to the water committees and communities.
We’ll be building 5 new spring boxes, 2 water storage tanks, laying a total of about 9 KM of PVC pipe, making a river crossing bridge and running household lines directly to the homes.

One of many mudslides from the recent rains

I’ve now visited 11 of the 16 water systems on my list. I’ll still visit the sites, but won’t be able to help them directly. Sadly, I have reached the maximum grant amount, so the remaining villages will have to wait for the next volunteer.

After 4 days of solid rain, I was finally able to get back out to the campo. Rivers way over their banks, huge fallen trees and mud slides all over. Not to mention a foot of mud in all the footpaths.
The upside was a monster rainbow.

Remember the "Black Lagoon" and its festering septic waters? Well, the recent hard rains have flushed it out into the Bocas Bay. Now, it's the Chocolate Lagoon.

Long lines to get the free Christmas hams

Panama subsidizes a lot of things for "the people", like propane and rice. They also do lots of giveaways - school backpacks for kids and sporting goods. One of the most unique is a Christmas Ham. They range from 6 to 8 lbs. They are free to "jubilados" (men over 60 and women over 55). $4 for the less elderly. One per family. No idea how that is enforced. 

Folks were lined up around the block today to get one.
From what I was told, Christmas Ham (MUST be topped with pineapple) is as deeply traditional as our Thanksgiving Turkey.
It also seems that many of these hams will be consumed on Mothers' Day, which was Friday (Dec 8) here in Panama.

From the 1890's to 1979, United Fruit (now Chiquita) shipped all their bananas from the plantations in Changuinola to the port in Almirante via railway. For some reason(s), they decided that shipping via containers on trucks was a better route and the old tracks were abandoned. I'm guessing this involved less handling of the fruit and avoiding the horrendous maintenance of the RR. Now, all that remains of the tracks are the bridge over the river and various other re-purposed uses. One of which is a small road bridge on the road to Valle Risco.

Extra large diagram of the project 

It was a long meeting with the Barriada Santos community this morning to present the tentative plan for the renovation and upgrade of their water system. While most everyone in the community speaks Spanish, many prefer to use "their own language" of Ngäbere. Since I only know "good morning" (Ñan törö deka) and "see you later" (Jatwaita mare) - there is no Hello or Good-Bye – so, everything had to be translated back and forth. 
But, big smiles prevailed and the project is a GO from the community. Fortunately, all the folks I work with directly on the project are fine with Spanish.

Water waste is a HUGE problem in this area

Another village water system visit. Palo Seco suffers from a chronic lack of maintenance and water waste. Time to wake the folks up - clean water doesn't happen by itself !!