the 20th?

One of the things the kids learn in school is how to make a basic fishing boat!

When it rains you just use the excavator as a tow truck..hahaha

My good friend and amazing captain Chicho....He is crazy

When the rainy season begins the termites lose there minds...its crazy

This little kid had a pet bird attached to his wrist. It was cool

Tuesday the 20th of May……I think
12 days in the city of Cuebrada De Piedra, in the Province of Chiriqui, in the country of Panama. It feels as though it has been 2 months already. The experiences, the people, the ups and the downs are already so numerous it’s hard to keep up. The frustrations of dealing with people in a foreign (to me) country are vast and never ending. Thus lays the challenge my wife and I have set forth on, and a challenge it will be.
The word most used and heard, by me anyway in Panama is “tomorrow”. My good friend who has been here for years and is well versed in how the game is played just smiles at me and says….”just wait”. I believe I will learn the ways as he has and hope to also learn to make value in his mistakes. The truth is I live in a paradise to many including the majority of those who are from this country of Panama. Yes, a paradise that has many challenges and “mountanita’s” to overcome.
I have been fishing only a couple of times and because the water is “green” as most know the fishing is slow. Slow huh...well my good buddy Chicho is quite unhappy with the conditions, yet each day he spearheads the adventure for some lucky “tourista” with hopes of Grande Atun, and Pargo’s the size of a mini cooper. Some days the dreams are fulfilled and other days drag on hour after silent hour in agonizing defeat. Like the sweat that beads down your face in the intense heat, one wipe of a cool cloth is all it will take in hopes of cooling off and letting the blue water return. It’s hard to imagine that it is “winter” here. Winter of course is “rainy season” in these parts and it has begun somewhat vigorously with “jubia” happening more days than not. For me it is refreshing as the evenings are in the high 60’s and low 70’s during and just after the rain. I find it also to be an amazingly beautiful time of year where you can see things that were not quite green the day before blossom into full life in a period of 24 hours as though you were watching time lapse video. The weather, like the fishing is unpredictable and exciting in so many ways. I enjoy every aspect of both here in Panama.
The fishing is dynamic and exciting and one slow day usually offers up at least one unforgettable experience. There are a couple of gentleman from Spain here for a week and although it has been “slow”, they still have managed in three days of fishing to catch 5 40-60lb yellow fin tuna, 4 Cubera snapper, with 2 being nice 30-40lb class fish, several blue trevally’s, a couple of mullet snapper, and some nice sierra mackerel for ceviche’. Not bad for three days of fishing with two guys in my opinion, but what Panama has in store for those who give her the chance is greatness not experienced by many places on this planet. The experience that gives foundation to the meaning of Panama which is “abundance of fish”. I know that the term is used incessantly amongst marketers and magazine articles, but the truth is the truth and I for one am a believer. Will the green water work its way out of Panama’s rich waters soon? Only time will tell, and it will be a good time regardless.
On the building side of things “tomorrow” creeps in at every corner and yet we trudge on with a goal in mind, a giant of a goal that can have only one meaning….”success”. From misplaced “points” from surveyors to roads that are 10’ away from where they were supposed to be, to sub contractors who don’t show up to work for days for various reasons that I am sure to never completely understand is all part of the game. Somehow we have a grated road going down to our house and a belief that the cement mixer we had made in Costa Rica will be here “tomorrow”. Ah, paradise it is in many ways, like the rain hitting the tin roof above my head as though someone was dropping a million little marbles on it. The ‘rhythm of Central America is one I have always had a place for. Panama has been good to me in these first two weeks and the hope for the next to be the same, minus the green water of course.