Water architecture and management

 Forecast: 86°/76° with thundershowers in the afternoon; 

Humidity:  93%

Sunrise 6:07 am., Sunset 6:12 p.m.

I might have mentioned once or twice that it rains a lot here. If you're wondering whether that's true, . . . well, . . . it is. The fact that it rains a lot here has influenced both the architecture and the built landscape a lot. Here's some examples of how it looks different walking around Panama than walking around Pennsylvania, just because of how people here deal constantly with the rain.

For one thing, there are these culverts everywhere.

A culvert with a recent rainfall running through it.

A culvert next to a building.

A culvert in the grassy strip near the side of the road.
(It's a bit overgrown, but that really is a concrete culvert,
and not just a grass-and-dirt ditch).

If there's a soccer field, it has a culvert running around the edge between it and a sidewalk or another field or whatever.  If there's a playground, there's culverts nearby or even running through the middle.  

On a nearby walking/jogging path, there are a bunch
of things that look like speed bumps. 
They're not worried I'm running too fast, though!
Rather, this is a bump for a pipe that lets water run under the path. 

For another thing, stuff grows really well here, which means that keeping things trimmed is a constant job.  Back in Pennsylvania, if it rains a bunch, we wait until the grass dries before we break out the lawn mowers.  Hah! In Panama, there has been no such luxury.  Instead, crews with gas-powered weed whackers tackle the lawn.  Since using weed whackers is messier, louder, and more likely to fling stuff at your body than a lawn mower is, the crew wears full-body protective clothing, including thick aprons, masks, and head gear.  (Let me remind you that it's very hot and humid here: these guys wear heavy clothes in 90° weather.  Sheesh!)  

Grounds crew cutting the grass, wearing heavy clothes.

The weed whackers aren't just for lawns near houses; I've seen crews with weed whackers cutting back vegetation by the side of the road and down large hill sides near a river. If you don't beat down the stuff that grows, I imagine you soon get the dense forests that Panama is famous for. 

Here, it's easy to see which part gets whacked (down to the ground),
and which part then becomes almost-impenetrable forest.

School buses and a couple of trucks I've seen have these air tubes that come up the side of the vehicle, so when they drive through deep water the engine can still get oxygen and doesn't stall out.  

This bus can drive through streets that turn into rivers.

And of course, the rain and intense sun combine to influence an architecture where buildings have large overhangs, protecting windows and doors from the elements. 

The house around the corner from me
(with an unused bus stop just down hill a bit).

My own AirBnB has huge overhangs; 
straight ahead is a covered patio I like to sit on. 

There are some bus stops that don't have covers, but many bus stops I've seen have big, sloping metal roofs.

Also, almost nothing here is built with wood.  The roof of the garage by my house is a metal one, and the beams--which would probably be wooden beams if this were in Pennsylvania--are made of metal.  

It's not just that wood warps when it gets wet; it's also that dampness encourages insects to eat wood.  Former Fulbrighters cautioned us, for example:

Termites may be found in wooden doors and furniture, evidenced by little piles of sawdust. The English department at the University of Panama had to remain closed/virtual for an additional year after the pandemic to fund raise for new desks after they were all eaten by terminates while the schools were closed. Panama's humid climate makes it a perfect host for these types of bugs.

I haven't yet seen any wooden floors in houses or offices I've been in--only tile floors. That makes it harder to exercise: when I'm trying to do pushups or other floor work on tile, getting sweaty means the floor gets really, really slippery.  I have to be a lot more careful about my workouts here!

Having said that,  a woman I met at an event recently was gushing about how nice it's going to get soon.  October will be very rainy, yes, but November and December are usually beautiful, she assures me.  It'll be interesting to see what "seasons" look like when I'm this close to the equator.