Like a Hola in my Head

Hola, amigas y amigos y familia!

Saying “hola” instead of “hello” is just one of the things that remind me I live in Central America.  Of course, there are other signs.

Like, this morning I was out on the porch drinking my coffee.  I hadn’t had enough coffee yet to be able to raise my

pumpkin head – my neck just couldn’t support it.  So, I settled for looking at the bricks and my feet.  But instead of my adorable feet, with their Flintstone big toes, there appeared below, feet belonging to a Neanderthal Man.  I tried to run away but they followed me, those hairy, callused meat-pads.  After I woke up (I quickly crashed into the side of the house because I still couldn’t raise my head) I realized that the feet were attached to my very own ankles.

After dismissing the alien transplant theories, and the idea that a crazy Panamanian cult needed my beautiful Caucasian feet for some sort of sacrifice to Volcan Baru, in whose shadow I live, I accepted that the feet were actually mine.  It was unnerving.  My toe knuckles each had sprouted little, wispy, black hairs.  Likewise, the tops of my feet had grown a comb-over’s worth of black hairs.

As I drank more coffee I was able to raise my head enough to examine my ankles which are peppered with tiny bug bites…and hair.  All of these new developments are, of course, the result of the onset of “GP” or Geriatric Puberty – and also of not wearing shoes.  I’m not always barefooted, that would be unwise, but in and around the house there is no reason to get dressed up.  Besides, every time I put on socks my little dog, Betty thinks we are going for a walk.

Another, related sign that I live in Panama is the constant itching that occurs between my calves and my caveman feet.  I guess “Medical Professionals” would call that area the “Ankle” but, it’s more of the Cankle.  Anyway, it is not my custom to

wear crew socks and no shoes, consequently my tiny, dancer-like cankles are either in the process of being feasted upon by “little buggers” (That’s what I call them just before I flatten their little bodies against my bronzed skin), OR my bites are in the process of healing, which takes about…, well… I guess I don’t know how long it takes because I constantly itch.

Eventually, I know my cavalier attitude towards shoes will come back to bite me (or more accurately – sting me) in the

form of a scorpion.  But, evolution is a curious thing, and by not wearing shoes the soles of my feet will slowly turn into a thick, rubbery under-coating (I can throw it in if you don’t tell my manager) which will protect me from the scorpion’s stinger.

 

I have a friend, or shall I say ‘had a friend’, who just got stung on the leg, or shall I say on the ‘stump’, and he lived (right up until he didn’t).  I know it hurts, but there is no evidence that it can kill you (God rest his sole, er, ah..soul)

Another sign that I live in the tropics, is that little rack of clothes drying on my porch.  The other day I went to visit a friend (Her husband had just passed away) and to show my respects I brought a couple loads of laundry.  Well, for some reason their dryer stopped working (welcome to Panama), and I had to bring my wet

clothes back home with me (How rude!)

After borrowing a bunch of plastic hangers from her I hung my laundry on any place that looked like it would hold, including my little drying rack.  Low and behold, the next morning, most of it was still there, AND almost dry!  Strangely, later that day, I found two of my socks in the empty lot next door.  They weren’t together, but they were a pair. 

 

I’m guessing the Volcano cultists discarded them as they ran from the crime scene with my feet.

                                           DP

Pooped Out

        

 

       Today I could write about the wind, and how it blows constantly in this, the dry season.  The banana palms, at least the young plants, are supple and bend easily.  They are small enough that their root systems have plenty of room to grow unfettered.  But as the palms grow, things underground get crowded, and the thick roots get tangled and climb in and out over and around each other.  That is when, if the ground is still saturated from the torrential rains of the past season, a strong gust of warm summer wind can catch one of the great palms, with fronds, some as fat and wide as an automobile, and topple one of the giants.  And as these plants, some of them 30 feet tall, come crashing down they often up-root one or two others who slowly tilt, then lay down in the darkness.

 

       There in the morning they lay, like napping sisters in the sun, until the old gardener, in his wide brimmed hat, goes to work with his ancient machete putting the old girls out of their misery.  Those of the sisterhood still standing, look down in veneration and whisper reverent lament for their fallen kin. As they are chopped into manageable size and thrown over the bent, boney shoulders of the gardener the sisters wave a final goodbye to each other.

       I could wax poetically about the sounds of the morning, and how the wind picks them up and swipes them against the side of my house, smearing them down the wall and over me like a calligrapher’s brush.  I could wax. But I’d rather shave.

So...

The other day I bought groceries at The Alto Dorado Market, where I have learned never to buy meats that aren’t already sealed in plastic and frozen solid.  I passed the “fresh” meat display to where the eggs are stacked (note: it is very hard to stack eggs unless they are in cartons).  As any

experienced shopper knows, it is a good idea to open the carton to make sure some ham-fisted idiot before you didn’t slam another carton on top of your pick and break one of your delicate ovules. 

                   Now, one of the

advantages of living where I do, is that the surrounding hillsides are teeming with fincas, small farms that bring fruits, vegetables, and eggs to the market daily.  Here you will not find perfectly shaped apples or pears.  Carrots are big, fat tubers with dirt still in their creases and their long, wispy beards still attached to their John Kerry chins.  Potatoes, or papas, are little, round, and dirty (Midget Porn) with more eyes than the flies that live in the fresh meat display.

       Where was I?  Oh yeah.

       So I open the carton and one of the eggs still has a chicken butt feather stuck to it with a little chicken butt fluid.

     You know how when you hold a beautiful, cooing baby in your arms, and she holds on to your finger with those tiny,

delicate hands?  You know how that child looks into your eyes with complete innocence and trust, then gets the most adorable little grin on its face?  You know how at that moment you feel so big and so small at the same time. 

  

The last thing on your mind is the incredible, deep, thundering pain of that child pushing through a flesh and bone canal, then squishing through the mother’s vagina like a bowling ball, followed by the plopping out of the tissue and blood of the placenta?  You know how you’re not thinking about that?

Well, guess what?...

 

 

                                     

                                                    Heh, heh, Classic.

                                       

 

  

  HAPPY NEW YEAR 

DP