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The Toyota diesel pickup chugs to a start and I’m off on my morning run for nourishment at Olga’s. Sun’s in my face so I put on the shades and roll down the hill and into town. Life is good in Boquete, Panama. Olga’s - officially Punta del Encuentra (Meeting Point) - is the unofficial morning meeting place for local expats and travelers to Boquete. Every morning there will be a few regulars, a few travelers - some with backpacks, and a few would-be expats scouting the place out, many looking to buy property. Kind of like the weather here SSDD - Same Stuff, Different Day. But also as the clouds are quite different today from yesterday, so the differences in the people from day-to-day give a sense of variety from the uniform. The first choice is whether to go it alone with my book-of-the-month - I read just a few pages a day, before someone will sit down with me or a conversation will start with another table, or I will join one of the other expats already here. I’ve got about twenty pages to go in Wilbur Smith’s “Elephant Song,” so I’ll sit at my regular table, do my daily accounting and then read some. I’m ‘building a house.’ I was ‘having a house built,’ but my builder went belly-up. So, having taken over the construction, I do my expense accounting each day. Takes 10 to 15 minutes. From ‘client’ I’ve now become ‘paymaster,’ ‘jefe’ (chief), and ‘gofer’ - gofer cement, gofer tile, blah blah. Coffee arrives courtesy of Olga. A hug, a latin-greeting kiss on the cheek (I love this way of greeting). “Que vas a comer, mi amor?” she asks. “Omelete, sin papas, por favor, mi carina.” I answer. She spots the bowl of processed sugar in front of me and replaces it with the "turbinado" sugar I prefer. I get back into Elephant Song. Quick-paced action, particularly at the end of the book. My omelet comes. Eat a bite. Find my place on the page. Eat another bite, find my place again. Eat bite, find place. Eat, find. Eat, find. A couple sits down at the only other table in this section. Eat, find. They talk for a bit. He says “Do you live here?” “Yup.” “How long?” “Two and a half years.” “Like it?” “Yup. Love it.” “How come?” Blah, blah, blah. Three years ago I was here. I was asking these same questions. I was getting the same answers I was now giving. So I think, “Am I on some kind of weird merry-go-round?” I excuse myself and go get another cup of coffee from the coffee maker on the main terrace. The big table is full. Regulars, with a couple new folks. This is the social table. (It’s been called “mesa bochincheros” - the gossip table, but that’s for fun. It’s just an ad hoc group that enjoys a social breakfast. Olga's daughter Lici comes through the door, says hello gives me the latin hug/kiss and sits down with me. She's in college taking a pre-psychiatry major. We talk about books. DaVinci Code, Aztec, Angels & Demons, Pompeii, River God. She gets up to serve the table that just came in. Finishing at
a little after 9am, I say “Hasta luego” to the folks at the neighboring
table and head off to pick up Pamela and Carmen. Pamela is my translator
and secretary on the construction site and on the farm that Phyllis and
I own. Carmen is our housekeeper. She comes twice a week.
“Who needs what?” Pamela takes down the list. Gasoline for the generator, “What again? What are you guys doing, drinking it?” I ask, (but with a wink). Turns out the generator, going most of the day, uses a lot of gas - at $2.43 a gallon, we use about $8 a day. Pamela and I now travel about 15Km across the Boquete valley to the farm. We pick up the 2-cycle gas mixture and weed-eater at the house, as Juan asked for it to clear weeds between the coffee trees. Juan is our farm manager. He lives on the farm with his wife and family of nine kids. The farm is in a jungle valley, bordered by a year-round stream. I go there twice or three times a week during the rainy season (because there’s few of the vegetables I sell growing in the rainy season) and four or five times a week during the dry season. Every time I go, I see the jungle wrapping around the valley and think I’m in the middle of some Indiana Jones movie. We wave and smile at the cute Ngobe-Bugle indian kids staying on the farm next to ours, as we travel the 400 meters of right-of-way to the farm. The girls are all wearing their traditional colorful muu-muu-type dresses. They’re quite shy, but having seen us many times smile back, their eyes still give evidence to their shyness. The farm is an organic farm, dedicated to multi-cropping coffee, strawberries, lettuce, citrus, bananas, avocado and a variety of other berries, fruits and vegetables. The coffee is shaded by citrus, banana/plantain and second-growth forest to provide an ecology we hope is sustainable for the people, and the plants and critters that live here. I’ve noticed that while we have some bugs they’re never out of control. There are never too many. I’m guessing that in a proper balance, the birds, lizards, spiders, etc., provide the culling. Fact is, I’m thrilled to be able to walk about in a jungle environment without having to worry about bringing along the Deep Woods Off or DEET. Arriving there. We deliver the weed-eater, the 2-cycle gas mixture, and a pair of shoes I bought yesterday for one of his sons, Narciso (who, I think wrecked the last pair playing soccer, or something). Narciso needs the shoes for school. The kids wear uniforms to school. We find that Juan is working with his machete on the weeds at the far end of the farm. OK, he’s about 200 yards down the creek. (The farm’s not big). We give him the weed eater, give Livia, his wife, the shoes and get in return a bag of zarzamora - a blackberry-like berry. Zarzamora can be eaten raw; it’s also excellent as a sherbet with a bit of orange or lime squeezed in. Juan has a request too. Coming in off the road we noticed water gushing up from the middle of the road. Someone had broken the water feed to the farm. Probably a heavily-laden farm truck. We need to get some of the thicker gauge 3” PVC pipe to repair it. Need gasoline.
Need PVC. Pamela says she needs lunch. Lunch first. It’s 12:45.
Gasoline is easy. We fill up the 7 gallon tank, strap it in the bed of the pickup, get the receipt, and we’re off to the house construction site again. It’s 2 PM. Our bellies are full. We’re on top of the game. What’s needed to be done has almost been done. We’re also tired. The drone of the Toyota’s diesel engine seems to have some hypnotic affect. We’re now slower than we were in the morning. Pamela’s eyes droop and she hides a yawn. I suppress mine. Bump, bump, bump up the decent, but rain-deprecated road. Even during the day one can see progress on the site. It’s satisfactory, but it’s not enough to really cause one to sincerely believe that soon you’ll actually be living there. My mind is full of “this & thats” that have to happen before we can actually move in. One of these is NOT electricity to the house. Though we require electricity very shortly after moving in, we’re prepared to deal without it for some short period of time - say a week, maybe two. The house is about 350 meters from the road. We'll need eight poles, the electric company says. They've committed to have it in by July 21st. We'll see. While on site, I have to make a call to get access to a bigger generator - one that can power a welder, for Oscar, the railing guy. I walk 50 feet to the highest point on our ridge in order to get a cellular signal and make the call. Looking to the west, I see Volcan Baru, about 5 to 7 miles away. To the north is Cerro Azul (Blue Mountain) about a mile away. To the east is the continental divide, here called Cordillerra Central. There's a lot
of activity on the site. A lot of noise. The generator is the source of
most of it. Today is a working day. I prefer coming to the site on Saturday
afternoon or Sunday when the place is quiet. Just birds. Sometimes cicadas.
I haven't seen the monkeys, but my neighbor has photos of them stealing
oranges. Capuchins. White-faced: a foot and a half tall without the tail.
At home, Phyllis is reading. “How did the creative writing class go?” I ask. “Really good. Nairn read us her short story and Howard had some really good haikus he wrote. But some of the writers in the group didn't bring anything at all. I may have to beat them.” she says. “What's for dinner?” “What do we have?” “I'll grill the tuna. Do you want hamburger?” “That sounds good. I'll make a salad from the veggies that Carmen cut up.” “Wine?” “Por Favor.” “Nairn and Larry asked us over for dinner on Friday and to take a tour of their new house. Are we free?” “Sounds good to me.” “Judy is having one of her dinner and dancing nights on Saturday.” “I've always liked those. Sure.” “And I'd like to have Aideen and Liam and the kids over for Sunday barbecue. What do you think?” “I think they're a bad influence, feckin Irish. Is Monday a holiday? We'll need it to be if we don't steer clear of the Bushmill's or the Paddy's Irish whisky” says I. We eat, discuss the day's happening and decisions on the house that still need to be made. We make none and retire to our separate diversions. She to DirectTV and “her man” - the FBI guy. Me to the Internet. Later we'll watch “Discovery,” Travel and Adventure,” “Animal Planet,” or some such program together. Sleep comes easily. Tika, the cat, jumps on the bed. She'll wait her 7 hours before rousting me and I'll make her do it for an hour before giving her satisfaction - which is to say, food. But tomorrow could be different if we chose. We could go to a beach on the Pacific, or go river rafting or tubing, or go to the hot springs, or climb Volcan Baru, or do a tree trek - a canopy tour through the cloud forest. We could even go to the Atlantic (Carribean) coast and return the same day. But we won't. We'll wait for visitors to come and do these things with them. Just like we did in Colorado. To contact Kent Click Here The following is Kent's previous article for the magazine:
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Two
Days At The Beach - 