Lovely Laundry

We had a request from a wonderful reader (thanks Dad Cropper) to tell a little bit about how Panamanians deal with laundry. Well, what an interesting subject it is, I have spend many hours contemplating laundry since I got here...

Lets start with a photo to grease the imagination:

This is me, washing laundry at our host family house. Yup, I am sitting on a block of wood (cushioned by my life preserver for long term rear end happiness). There is soapy water in the tub at my feet. Off to the left is the water spigot...the only water source near the house. All water for house use is hauled from this spigot about 20 feet away from the house. This spigot and cement pad is also where the family shower (note...there are no curtains or anything to block the view and it is in full view of the house and walkway....yup, I have been taking showers after dark.) Now, to be fair...if my house were as isolated as theirs, showers in the open air would be fine when I didn't have guests.

OK, back to laundry. Yes, there are laundry machines in Panama, some just like the ones in your house. However, some are smaller than the ones that we are used to in the states...about 1/3 the size and the spinner part is separate from the washing part. Many houses that have a washer do not have a drier. Most clothes are line dried with a careful eye on the sky so the clothes come down before rain. There are many women that do laundry by hand in sinks, tubs and creeks. I say women because laundry is considered women's work by men and women alike (unless the men live alone).

So, I have been in Panama for 4 months now, and have done laundry at 5 different host houses...and have received help or instructions at all of them. I think that Panamanians like having opportunities to teach me new things. At one house I even choose to do laundry for the first time on a day when the lady of the house would not be around to offer help....but the man of the house filled in for her. He offered me advice or more soap at least 4 times. So here is what I have learned:
You must use a lot of laundry soap...laundry without suds is not getting clean. Lots of suds. Even though everything will be sudsy, you should apply more soap directly to any spots or stains.

You need a scrub brush with stiff plastic bristles. Every piece of clothing should get every surface brushed vigorously with the plastic brush. You use a wooden board to support the clothes while you scrub. Some women scrub so that the suds fly 4-5 feet with every stroke.

Socks get extra attention. They usually get scrubbed and then turned inside out and scrubbed again. I think that my socks have grown at least one size from the scrubbing. Also, anything that is white could be subjected to a bleaching. (I have specifically requested that Kevin not buy any more white socks or clothing, since whether or not his socks are still white reflects on how good a wife I am around here...and I am not that good a wife when it comes to white laundry.)

So, once everything is scrubbed within an inch of it's life it is hung to dry. I am not a heavily religious person, but I have been known to offer a prayer that goes "Please God, just let the sun shine long enough to dry the cotton stuff before that grey cloud gets here!". With good strong sun our quick dry clothing drys in a couple of hours...cotton takes longer. Much of the day the sun beats straight down...no angle at all, so it does not hit the sides of the clothing only the top edge. If there is a breeze that seems better, but breeze is usually a predictor of rain, so it is a mixed blessing.

If there is not enough sun things just don't dry. Three days after a washing I have had things still a bit damp...just damp enough to start mildew/mold if folded and put away. The humidity in the air can be enough to stop the drying process completely. After more than 12-24 hours clothes get a musty smell. Sun helps to kill the smell, but you probably don't have sun or you wouldn't have the smell in the first place. People in areas with electricity will sometimes hang things behind a refrigerator and use the heat of the fridge to promote drying.

Overall, laundry takes us 2-3 hours in a day 2x a week. For most families laundry is a major task for the alma de casa (soul of the house or housewife) taking up complete mornings a couple days a week. It is serious business, because cleanliness is something that Panamanians value. Cleanliness is something that is not limited by monetary resources (yes it is easier with money but possible for everyone), just effort.

Island Life Pictures

So, you may be wondering just what it looks like here on the island. Well, the following photos are an indication. As you look and them and become convinced that we live in paradise, I ask you to remember the other photos you have seen on this blog....muddy feet from muddy trails that are the only way to get around, scorpions, no electricity. And rememer....rain is not very photogenic most of the time...so there are no photos of an agua cero (Spanish for hard as heck rain) to balence out your view.

Sunrise over the beach.

Looking East at another island.

Yup, sometimes it is a bit too pretty.

A typical fishing boat on our island.

Part of the view from our first host family house...just outside the door.

Myst

If you’ve never played the Myst problem solving computer game, I recommend it. The puzzles and mysteries are interesting, the graphics aren’t bad (of course, it is 10+ years old now) and best of all, you’ll get an idea of our work here on the island. Unlike most other popular computer games, the objective is to wander around and learn new things, and best of all, you don’t die in Myst. It is initially an empty world, full of beautiful scenery, with strange and wonderful things waiting to be discovered; over time, you receive messages that guide your explorations as you solve mysteries and eventually the game.

We don’t generally receive cryptic messages through the space-time continuum (although checking the cell phone every two to three days to see what messages have been left sometimes feels close), but the path finding, discovering new places, listening to noises, and solving mysteries is very similar.

For example, the other day, April took a path off the main trail up a steep hill to visit a house; we knew the family, but hadn’t yet visited their house, and wanted to pay a courtesy call. From their yard, she suddenly spotted another house on the next hill over, behind a stretch of trail we’d passed numerous times, thought we knew, and where we’d never seen a side path. Aha, a mystery to solve, a new path to find, and a new family to talk to. By following some side trails, and then smaller, almost hidden paths, we eventually found our way up to that house, and the oldest woman on the island (86 years old, and until about 10 years ago, hauled water up the hill from the creek every day).

When returning to the island the last time, from the boat we spotted a house overlooking the water, on a point of land behind the school where we didn’t know anybody lived, so we were curious to find the house and talk to the owner. It turned out the house was sold last year and nobody knows who the new owner is or how to contact them. But we did manage to find the path to the house, hidden in tall grass between the school fence and a rice field, after discovering several other houses on other paths nearby. And we really liked this owner-less house. It has four rooms, a porch, and a great view, and just needs doors, a shower, a latrine, and water. While we were sitting there enjoying solitude, the view and contemplating the options of living there, a neighbor walked through and told us of a back path to the house (okay, so that part was kind of Myst-like, with a sudden information presentation). So the next day we returned via that back path, and were surprised to hear music coming from the house. There were three guys clearing the yard, apparently because the owner was coming that weekend. What sweet coincidence, and another clue towards solving the mystery of the ownerless house. (Although she didn’t show up that weekend.)

There are about 130 adults on the island in about 75 houses, of which we think we’ve visited 60+. We were luckily given a list of all the registered voters from the last election (May 2004), thanks to my guide. However, the names are in order by the equivalent of Social Security Number, so we’ve been working the puzzles of geographical community on the island, spouses, parents / children, and relatives. The relationships are actually a bit easier than it would be in the US, because naming convention here is [Given Name] [Father’s Last Name] [Mother’s Last Name]. So José Abrego Madrid is the son of Hector Abrego Campos and Cecilia Madrid Apericio. But given the small number of families on the island, there are a lot of relatives.

Besides spotting hidden paths and places and solving mysteries, there is one more Myst-like aspect of the island. When you play Myst, you definitely need to turn on your computer speakers, because the background noises can provide subtle hints to where you are and what you’re doing (especially in the sequel games). One of the main sounds I recall from the game is the sounds lapping water and bird calls, and we definitely have those most places we go on the island. The mysterious sounds can lead you to points of interest; for instance, the Music House, as we called it, hidden from the main trail by a hill of thick brush, coconuts, and palm trees, but audible every time we passed. We finally found the path to it in the backyard of the neighbor’s house.

Thinking about our community “research” as solving a mystery over the course of our first several months (and possibly entire two years: we’ve heard rumors of trails that cross the center of the island and a house located in there, but we’re leaving that exploration for the dry season) makes the lengthy walks and hidden frustrations just a bit more enjoyable. What new sight may be around that next bend that we haven’t seen before, or what new answer might we find from a totally unexpected source?

Will we know everything about our own real-life Myst in just two years? Doubtful. But playing the game can be a lot quicker, so have fun.

What you can send for us....

We are sad to report that April’s Grandpa Dierks is going through chemotherapy. This is his second fight with lung cancer and at the moment the cancer has the upper hand. They are doing all they can for him and his spirits are fairly high…which will not surprise anyone who has met him.

Many of you have asked what you could do for us or send us, well here is something you can do. If you would like to send Grandpa Dierks a card in the mail it would brighten his day and make us pretty happy as well (and hey – no international postage costs!). If you are interested, his address is:
Paul “Grandpa” Dierks
12140 Rhonda Terrace
Seminole, FL 33772
In your card please explain who you are, and how you know us. Thanks to all who send cards!

Hurricane? What Hurricane??

Well, you may have heard about the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and wondered just what these mean for those poor Peace Corps Volunteers in Central America? Heck, even WE heard about them and we get almost no news...well we get news via radio daily in very fast Spanish but we always wonder just exactly was said.

As for the current hurricane, Felix, I don´t know anything for sure, but I am guessing that those in Honduras (217 vols), Belize (62 vols), Guatamala (179 vols) and Nicaragua (172 vols) have probably been put on alert or consoladated to a safe place until after the storm passes. I hope that they and thier communities come throught this hurricane without major difficulty.

As for Panama, we are not in the path of the major hurricane routes. We don´t tend to get hit by the hurricanes which tend to run through farther north. We may or may not get rain from the storms (I am still confused by the various answers I get in Spanish about if the rain we had a little while back was just normal or due to the last hurricane.)

Here in Panama we do occasionally get inpressive rain, and flooding is a more common problem than hurricanes. It should help our moms to relaxe to know that flooding is not a major issue on the island as there is not much distance between any point of land and the gulf so water drains quickly here. In many ways we feel very safe on our island...crime is almost unheard of, it is a small town feel, and the most sever weather threat is lightning...and we are not going to go standing on the peaks durring storms.

Take care....may you get the rain you need and not much more.