The Water is Wide in Panama

The water will have it's way... every time.
No matter  how much time and money is spent  o fortify what used to be a ribbon of river streaming through our town, and what now  esembles a fortress, a canal, the river still goes where the river will.

Early this morning, the day after last night's sudden flooding in our valley, I took a drive through the valley to take in the after flow.  Literally.  Because some of this river is still flowing where it didn't.

This photo is not mine. But it is exactly what  I faced at 7:00 this morning as I  stood, mouth agape, at the sight of  "The Rock" -- a popular riverside dining spot here in Boquete.

Carrying tree trunks, boulders and debris, the  river snubbed the newly placed wall of boulders, or perhaps it just changed it's course entirely, and slammed into the side of the restaurant, which sits now on a sea of rock and sand, windows gone.
 
Where Nairn and I sat serenely six weeks ago, happily enjoying a riverside lunch, there are now only walls, walls without windows, walls nestled in mud, sand and water.  As I walked away, a gentleman (perhaps the owner?) commented tongue in cheek  "We're temporarily closed for business."

The B&B a hundred yards up from this still had part of the river running through it when I pulled away.

Ditto for the lovely home a few blocks down from our house.  The deep, main river that ran along it's side seems to have stayed its course. However, the river that feeds it, and which winds its way through our neighborhood and behind this lovely stone house, overwhelmed the home entirely and last night it had to be evacuated.  I heard they had to help the gentleman residing there out with a rope.  When we passed, rain still falling, the lights on, door open, mud and water coursing through the causeway.  Boots on, a neighbor and I held onto each other, trudged through the little river, and shut the door.

A neighbor and I shut the door once the water level was safe enough to navigate. Another neighbor parked their car in the driveway to stave off thieves.  As of this morning, there appears to be water still flowing between the main house and casita.

After more than two and a half years here, after floods and mudslides and more floods, I have learned that you can't mess with a river.  Eventually, the river wins.  Below is part of the Boquete Gardens Inn which sits at an altitude over 3,000 feet.  These photos just don't depict the real life drama Larry and I beheld later this day.  The bridge was mostly gone and we heard (unconfirmed) that two cabanas were lost.  Damage throughout the valley is intermittent but serious, damage that lies in the wake of  a sea of rocks.

Mudslide Anyone? Another Natural Distaster Hits Panama

Nothing stops a Panama parade.  Not even a mudslide.

After last year's devastating floods,  near hurricane winds that left us barricaded by felled trees, and the whopping 6.2 earthquake that shook us out of our sleep, I was thinking "Hey. What could possibly happen next?"

Oh, yeah. Mudslides. That's what.

November is a patriotic, parade-filled  month in Panama. The collective anticipation building up to the festivities beats out on steady drums all during October, when every single school sends their marching bands out into the streets for practice, seemingly at random.

It's not uncommon to run smack into a marching band heading straight for your car as you head home from the market. This is when you immediately change course and grab your cell to alert your friends -- "Heads up!  Marching band heading west at the hardware store."  Otherwise, you'll be stuck.

The first parade, on November 3,  celebrates Panama's liberation from Columbia, and is followed by three more parades during the month. This November 3rd was also the day  a force that later became Hurricane Ida came to visit Boquete.

By the night before a parade, our little pueblo was bursting with all the bustle and excitement a small town can muster. 

By mid morning the day of, the village is spilling over with  vendors and banners, flags and ribbons. People arrives in droves, four deep on the sidewalks.   Alleyways become curb-to-curb cars.  When cars get blocked in, folks just set up grills on the backs of their pick-ups and cook.

The children are decked out in extravagant costumes and uniforms, which will inevitably end up drenched because November is still rainy season.  But they march on, dripping, soaked to the bone, cold and shivering.

Early in the morning of the parade,  William and three neighboring boys prepared themselves for the long day ahead.  I dropped them off by the firehouse at 7:00 a.m. where they waited, bored, hungry until their drums began to beat until about 10:00. It's grueling, carrying those drums in the rain for hours and hour.  It was drizzling and I crossed my fingers, trying to will the hard rain to hold off until after 1:00.  No such luck.

Naturally the clouds broke earlier than usual that day.  I had stayed for the entire parade so I could give the boys, now drenched past their skin, a ride home and a hot meal.  Practically every single citizen, including all our officials, was downtown for the parade and probably unaware of the havoc that was about to break loose on us all.


At  that time, we were living  in the modest apartment attached to the main house, still under renovation.  The other boys had stopped home to change, but as the rains grew heavier, I knew they wouldn't make it back for lunch, even though they live only a few houses away.

Rain on a metal roof is loud. But this rain was so hard I commented to Larry that it sounded almost scary.  I decided to take a look outside to check and see if it was coming into our porch.  "Aw Don't worry about it" protested Larry.  But I did worry, because our house sits at the low point of an steep, unpaved mountain road frequented by farmers and native Ngobe-Bugle.

The noise was overpowering as I poked my head out to take a look-see. Our so-called road had become a flowing river of muddy water, a the river that flowed to my gate  and ended at the front door to the main house.  About two or three gallons of rain water had already made their way into our newly finished  living room, so I ran to the front gate and tried, frantically (and a little ridiculously) to shore up the flow with a shovel, or a broom, or my hands. I can't quite recall.

I do, however,  recall Larry's glancing at my pitiful efforts with near disgust.  "Aw Quit it!" he shouted.  "I have it covered!" and off he ran,  returning shortly with some cement blocks that he quickly implemented to successfully re-direct the flow of water in his adept, manly fashion.

Of course at times like these, we Slagles go from happy threesome to the dysfunctional Jerry Springer Show family in three seconds flat.  Larry began shouting at me to get out of his way; William started grabbing at brooms and shovels, underfoot. I started yelling at William "You're not helping!". William was yelling back "I am too helping!". Then Larry yelled at me to "stop yelling at William."

Meanwhile, the Panamanian families up the road are working quietly  to re-direct the small river up the road.

When we get our house squared away, we look up and realize that a piece of the mountain is missing. Where there once was green lush mountainside, the re is now a wide strip of bare land, looking like a big BandAid slapped against the mountain side.


All around us, slices of our valley's mountain walls have let loose and hurled down onto homes, driveways, and roads, carrying with them rocks, banana trees, water, mud and more rocks.  The popular gated community of Valle Escondido was a mess and later evacuated.  The damage to roads and homes was extensive.

As the next day dawned and  the rains continued, our town held it's collective breath waiting to see if more of it's valley would collapse. 

"Well" I thought to myself.  "At least these poor tired kids won't have to march in the Flag Day Parade today."

And how wrong I was.  The parade was on, the children marched, the people watched,and  the hills continued to crumble.

Panama loves a parade.

Rainbow

by William Slagle  (age 10)

Rainbows are beautiful ...
red white pink and blue.
Once in a while I see a beautiful
rainbow out my window.
Single, double, they can be all sizes.
Faint or bright.

Live ... from Hell ... or Something Like It.

Thursday Night, February 5th

Here's a live, in the moment report from the throes of a current storm.

Not ten minutes ago, as Larry and I sat watching a movie, the house filled with a cracking, crashing noise so prolonged we stared at each other, and I wondered in startled silence if this was another earthquake.

We've been in the clutches of tropical storm force winds for two days solid now... fierce, howling, swirling winds oddly mixed with sunshine, rainbows and trees dropping all around. The din has been so deafening at night that I had took the chickens inside to the safety of the kitchen and William into our bed.

Up until about an hour before this writing I had been taking it all in stride. As a veteran of hurricane warnings from my time in Florida, and a lover of drama in general, what's a tropical depression but added excitement and adventure?

However, about an hour before the eerie crashing noise, I became alarmed when the wind became frighteningly close to what I would imagine is full hurricane strength.

After the crushing noise ended with a thud and a shudder, I rushed out doors and beheld what is probably a 100 ft., 100 year old pine tree, maybe 6 ft. around, laying at the foot of our house, full across the driveway, along the front of William's bedroom, stretched beyond our land and on to our neighbor's fence. It stretches the width of our lot and beyond.

We've dealt with bigger, monster trees before, but none so close and so present!

Oh no ... more crashing as I write. I think another tree is falling. Gotta run!
To be continued...

The Aftermath... Monday Noon, February 9

When I last left you hanging in suspense, I was dashing out to investigate another enormous pine tree, this one fallen across from our driveway, just in front on William's bedroom.

Following this one (which followed the one that crashed across our front yard), a close row of four more trees fell in a line ... one; two; three; four ... Down! Like the Rockettes kicking their legs in time. Later on that night, around 3 a.m., a sixth sky scraper pine crashed around the corner and in front of my friend, Ulda's house.
Photos on left.

All tolled, the immediate area surrounding our house lost about 12 large pine trees, all in pretty quick succession. This not counting the on our neighbor's roof, plus more.

The tree that fell in front of William's bed room.

Our Front Yard.

The street where we live.

Clean up begins.


Dangerous wires dangle over Ulda's house, next door.

FEMA could learn much from the folks here in Boquete. After our devastating floods (see previous blog), teams of workers were on the river repairs faster than a dog after a meat truck. As for the tree blocking our driveway, it was least cut enough for us to get out before lunch the following day.

Between the team of workers hired by the owners of the garden property across from our home, and the Nash's men, (the Nash family own the land surrounding ours), there were 11 men wielding machetes and chain saws, each busier than a one-armed base player. Plus... the hardest worker of all who belongs to me... Larry Slagle. It was truly an impressive and of course, still ongoing.

Big thanks to the Beverly Nash for all the support and great workers. And thank to Susan & Glenn for the chain saw and the dinner! (I apparently hold no talent for cooking by candlelight and I have the 1/8 " gash on my pinky to prove it.)

Today, after 5 days of wind, three without power or hot water, the storm has passed. Hot diggity! Alas, there are still those without power now, going on day five.

So ... what to do you do when you are without TV, the Nintendo D.S., a Computer, hot water and lights? Well, you load up on candles and play a good three plus hour game of Monopoly. (William creamed us -- no surprise there.) You wash clothing in the tub. Buy lots of ice and shove it in the freezer. Bathe with a cup and a bucket. Oh boy.

May I just say that I do make one hell of a Pioneer Chick!

Special note to the mother or our new family here... the Cards.
This goes out to Tracey Card's Mom ... relax, your family is all fine. Disasters come in threes ... so now that we've had an Earthquake, a Flood, and Hurricane Winds, I think we're done. Tracey, Connor and Barrett are some of the most popular new additions to our community... so Tracey's mom, NOT to worry. Tracey and boys are covered!

From Shaky Ground To Treading Water

Last week was like living in the Old Testament.

It wasn't enough to brave an earthquake, magnitude 6.2 . (My brother, Nicholas, informs this is 20 times the strength of the 4.2s he's felt in California!) This wasn't my first earthquake. I was,in factl, in Mexico for the Big One in the early 80s. But that in the olds day when nights were a trail of Tequila shots and mornings were a bee line for the aspirin bottle. So I slept through my first temblor.

Cut to now. New life, older me, different story. We were, at 1:10 a.m or so, awaken, shaken and rattled right down to our rebarb. It is impressive to have an entire cement block house moving under you, rumbling all around, walls and windows doing the Merenge. By the time you are shaken awake, you're half way through the event. By the time you realize what's happened, it's over. So the reality sinks in through collective recollection.

I had fallen asleep on the couch, recovering from a mild illness. I ran to Larry, who was praying it wouldn't get worse. "Oh it's an earthquake. Come to bed." I swear Larry wouldn't get ruffled if his hair were on fire! Was he kidding me? I made a dash for William, who was making a dash for me, so we nearly collided in the hallway. And into bed with Larry we all piled!

It turns out, most of my friends have their own earthquake stories, so that was fun to read about in subsequent emails.

But who knew that in the week would later be calling for a bona fide ark? Three days later the rains came! Living in a cloud forest, rain is a daily event. But this rain developed into a storm which turned our river into an angry, growing deluge, taking with it entire trees, homes, roads and bridges.

Some photos, for which I cannot take credit, are posted here. To view all the magnificant, daunting pix, copy this address into your web browser and click "go." http://www.boqueteweather.com/flood.htm

While almost all photos are within less than a mile from our home, we, the Slagles are High and  Dry. Sadly, we have friends and neighbors who will feel the affects for a long time to come. Hundreds of families are left homeless and needy. For some, their businesses and residences are standing, but their back yards and gardens have washed away. Others haven't fared as well and the condition of our bridges will have great bearing on the immediate future.

To wit: Our new bridge (see photos left) was scheduled for inauguration the day before the floods came after a year of waiting. Now it is likely that it will require reinforcements. Meanwhile, the alternate bridges has been seriously damaged or washed away entirely.

A bridge down always affects a community directly, seriously, and for some time.
Of course, we'll keep you posted, and after more than 9 months of life in Panama, we are concerned for what we now consider "our" community.

This blog invited you to "follow along with our Panama Adventure." How are we doing so far?