Annalisa en Panamá

I arrived back in Pennsylvania a little less than a week ago, and I slipped back into my previous life almost like I'd never been away.  I mean, I had to unpack a bunch of things we'd boxed up and stuck in the basement, and there are changes to buildings or roads that are completely new to me, but there's much that feels so familiar. So like home .  There are things about being home that I appreciate all the more for not having them (cool spring days, and cooler nights!  Sidewalks!).  But of course, there are amazing things about Panama that my little Lancaster town doesn't have, and so here's a retrospective of the things that most wowed me about my nine months on the isthmus. I wrote much of the words below while I was still there, so words like "here" mean Panama, not Pennsylvania. Birds : Seeing them and also hearing them. I was not at all a birdwatcher (or a bird listener, either), but here they are so ever-present that I've gotten to know many of...

The end-of-my-Fulbright paperwork was much easier than the paperwork beforehand.  Here is what it looked like. STEP When I prepared to head to Panama, I enrolled in STEP (the State Department "Smart Traveler Enrollment Program").  Because of this, I got occasional helpful emails about consular visits to Panama, upcoming protests (to avoid), etc.  So one indication of the trip winding down was an email that reminded me,  "Your Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) subscription  to Panama, U.S. Embassy Panama City will expire in 30 days.    Click here to extend this subscription by one year." I think enrolling in STEP probably took 5 minutes; super easy.  Un-enrolling was easier yet: I just deleted two emails like the above one. Immigration Card Another good-bye moment was giving my cedula  (ID card) back.  The work to get that ID card in the first place was fierce.  It included a bunch of FBI paperwork and getting apostilles (doc...

The first words of the book, which I typed into my computer back in August 2024, were "For me, it all started with the dumpster/cube."    Today, just before noon, I typed, "... in a way that feels like a perfect way to conclude this book, it's a cube that comes full circle." One idea for what the cover might look like,  maybe. With that, I am DONE!!    Okay, by that, I mean I'm done with the first draft.  I'm not done with the book itself by a long shot; there are going to be months and months of revisions ahead of me.  (Even that last sentence: two "ways" too close together-- ugh! ).  I have to redo, or even create, a bunch of figures.  I have to find a publisher who actually wants to publish it.  I have to pull together an accompanying website that includes color versions of some the images and video versions of others, and I have to figure out the best way to QR-code link to them in the book.  There is a LOT of work left to do. R...

 Forecast:  88°/76° and partly with thundershowers likely;  Humidity : 90% Sunrise  5:58 am.,  Sunset  6:30 p.m. I knew Panama would be hot, and I knew Panama would be rainy.  Panama is also humid, very humid.  Just how humid is it? The gray line in the graph below shows the average humidity by month: in March and April, it dips to a low of just above 70%, but for much of the year, it's 80-90% humidity.   It's so humid, that in our air-conditioned bedroom, the humidity is still 68%. Photo evidence: it's moist here. It's so humid, that sometimes after I go for a run or a long walk, instead of doing a breath meditation or listening meditation, I do a sweat meditation.   It's so humid that when my husband gets off his bike and starts walking, his Garmin stops working: he's so sweaty it can't read his pulse. If an *exercise watch* can't keep up with the heat and humidity, imagine how hard it is for mere mortals like us! It's so hum...

Juntos Podemos (which translates to "Together we can") is a school in Curundú, a very poor and crime-ridden neighborhood in the city of Panama. The neighborhood was once thriving: across the street from the school is the former Olympic Stadium, and the building itself is in the now-defunct offices of Gulf Oil, which left the place about 40 years ago. You can still see the Gulf logo on the front stairs. Juntos Podemos bought this building about 20 years ago and started a bilingual school.  Inside, the school has decorated and painted the walls with brightly colored and cheerful murals.  The cafeteria inside the school Another view of the cafeteria, with doors that lead into classrooms on two floors. There are about 250 children who come on Saturdays; they get food and activities and of course a bit of bible outreach.  While I was visiting (on a Wednesday), a brother/sister who normally come on Saturday were there to get school shoes, which the school gives away when they h...

I'm trying to squeeze in All The Adventures in my short time remaining here, and so last Sunday I skipped church (!) to go on a fishing adventure in Lake Gatun.  That's the lake that was formed in the middle of Panama by damming the Gatun River with a big dam called the Gatun Dam.  (Sense a pattern here?) Damming the river not only kept the erratic rains from creating huge river surges that would have flooded and eroded the canal, it also meant that now the whole middle of the canal is a wide lake where boats can pass one another.  One of my daughters thought the canal would look like a skinny channel all the way across: it doesn't.  It has skinny channels at either end, where the locks are, but in the middle there's a lake surrounded by a beautiful rainforest preserve. That's where we went fishing, and where we got to see MASSIVE container ships passing through. My boat mates.  They were almost all newbies to fishing, like me. I brought my swimsuit, just in cas...

This past weekend, I traveled all the way from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic side.  It's a lot easier to do in Panama than in the U.S., that's for sure!  Even with Panama roads, driving from Panama City to Portobello, which includes a bunch of driving along the Caribbean shore, took about 2 or 2.5 hours. I was going as part of a road trip to see Portobello's annual "Congos y Diablos" festival, which celebrates the history of the area from the point of view of the formerly enslaved people. It's a raucous celebration.  The "Congos" part of the title refers to the Congolese who were brought to the country as slaves, and the "Diablos" are the Spanish overseers.  Before the festival started, we got to explore a bit of the history of Portobello itself, a city founded in the 1500's.  One of the beautiful old buildings has been preserved and turned into an interactive museum.   Clearly, we need to play the drums.  We did it.  "El fin d...