“Oh, don’t worry, that’ll never happen!”

(Note: these upcoming few blogs are a wrap up of the last month worth of events that have passed since I’ve been in Panama but have been too busy/lazy/whatever to write about. Better late than never, eh?)

Yeah, I think I’ve heard that one too many times here in Panama only to have it become completely false in the following 24 hours. Next time you hear someone say, “Oh, that’ll never happen” I would caution you to expect the worse. But not just because I’m known for pessimism, rather because the inevitable following statement will be, “Huh, that’s so weird. It’s usually never like this!”

Oh, you don’t say?

For starters, the very first day we were here I asked the locals about stormy weather since there had been some random precipitation since we got there and they replied that it’s almost never anything too intense, it usually just blows over. So you can imagine my surprise that first Sunday afternoon, shortly after church had just finished, when there came a thunderstorm so fierce you could hear trees toppling down the street. The main doors of the church even flew open and knocked over the plate of food I was holding in the kitchen. I’m still not sure if I was more angry or more excited? I think my favorite part is when, out of nowhere, you hear the loudest snap of thunder even if it’s not raining anywhere near you. Like this one time just last week when it set off a few car alarms in the parking lot. Now that’s hardcore!

Later that Sunday night we heard reports that the local tribes, who were right down the river from us, had been severely thrashed by the storm. It turns out a couple of their structures were completely destroyed and one man was even trapped under his collapsed roof for most of the night but remained unharmed. Honestly, it was a huge miracle that no one was injured and, more so,  the structures that fell down were actually already in the process of being replaced with new ones anyway.

So our team of photographers had there very first impromptu assignment:
clear the rubble!

We had to walk about half an hour up the river to a place where they cross on these ever-so-shaky boats. I guess we can chalk that one up to our lack of experience in little river boats or maybe just the fact that we over packed every one of them with our large group. Anyways, once we got there we went right to work on dismantling the remnants of the fallen structures which really only consisted of a pile of palm tree roof shingles/branches. The main goal was to move the huge existing pile down the hill a bit to another huge pile. Sounds pretty simple, right? Yeah, that’s what we thought. So to make it more interesting there were also cockroaches, killer bees, scorpions and spiders thrown in the mix. Mind you, no one actually had any gloves!

King of the trash heap!

Just when we were entering the final stretch of cleaning, we were approached by a group of men from the tribe that “needed 8 strong men.” Too bad men have always been the one thing in short supply in our group. So to compensate we sent me, Jason, and 10 or so women (that equals out, right?). . So we’re told that we’re going on just a little hike up the river to… move a rock? Yeah. Apparently a boulder had rolled on to the local water supply pipe, which sits in the river, during the height of the storm the night before. So we start trekking towards the rock (My favorite part about this story is that there’s  never any clear understanding of what we’re being called to do until it’s right in front of us). 20 minutes in we’re all thirsty seeings how it’s the hot/humid jungle and we’re not exactly acclimated to the new climate yet (or ever). Too bad not one single one of us brought out water bottles because we were told it was just a few minutes walk away. Honestly, the mental picture I had painted was, “oh, it’s just on the over side of the village, kinda like walking down the street to next block, right?” Wrong! It’s another 20 minutes from where we’re at. But, again, that’d be too easy. So to take it a little more interesting we spent the rest of the hike hearing from the front, “don’t touch that plant, it’s poisonous.” Granted, that would be totally helpful… had I seen to which plant the guide was referring. Instead, what happened was domino-style communication of “something’s poisonous” from the front to the back and “what did he say?!” from the back to the front. Thoroughly enjoyable experience, wouldn’t trade it for the world.

I can’t tell you how excited I was when we realized we arrived at the big boulder and discovered it was wedged in the nice, refreshingly inviting river (ok, it was more of a stream at this point). I dutifully jumped in to help tackle the beast, but to no prevail. Rocks are heavy! Even ones that look little. The locals set to work on fashioning some large tree branches for prying it loose while some of the girls on our team tried to clear the surrounding rocks and rubble.

Me not moving a boulder...

Fast forward past our struggling and tinkering for half an hour to the part where we barely free the pipe but come nowhere near actually moving the boulder.

All the tribesmen thank us for our unsuccessful attempt and inform us that they will gather all of their men for a second attempt tomorrow (I can’t help but think there’s a bit of smack talk in their tone, lol). Overall, the day was worthwhile though. If nothing else, to let the surrounding communities know that the Church cares about them and is willing to send a bunch of white people to get their hands dirty for a day.

Oh, the second story involving the title phrase was in reference to the two earthquakes we had in the first few weeks. Our leader, Susi Childers, was flying to Panama a bit later than the rest of the group and was talking with the person on the plane next to her about her home in Hawaii. One of the things that came up was earthquakes and how Hawaii seems to have a decent amount of those. “Oh, we never get those in Panama,” the person responds. Guess what that means? Buckle up because you’re about to get some! Sure enough, only a day or two after Susi arrived in Panama there’s a 6.2 magnitude earthquake off the northeast coast. Apparently it was enough to wake the girls and freak them out. Us boys just kept on sleeping… so typical.

So yeah, I’m officially on the lookout next time anyone uses the phrase “Don’t worry, that usually never happens here.”

Reflection points:

• We’re so small and fragile in the scope of God’s creation, it’s amazing that we somehow manage to forget that
• Thunder/lightning: way cooler in Panama
• Earthquakes: overrated, so far…
• God’s timing is perfect (coincidental, if you will)
• He’s a protector and cares about all tribes and tongues and nations
• Panama’s humidity > Hawaii’s