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 !!