Chris Anderson - Earth Train Panama
Week 6

The Gift of Hard Work

Week six here in Panama was largely a week of hard work and adventure.  The week began with the much planned and talked about tree planting.  Early Monday morning, still bleary eyed, we piled into the truck that took us to the tree planting area and for the rest of the day we focused on cutting and preparing the massive yellow bamboo for planting.  For those of you who have never worked with bamboo, it has a rather nasty habit of inflicting deep gashes from seemingly out of nowhere.  As with chemistry and physics it seems that if it can be made more complicated, it will be made more complicated in the jungle.  Bloodied and weary, we returned back to Centro Madrono where we began a more intensive Spanish learning class taught by Viviana, a Columbian Anthropology student affiliated with Earth Train.  Viviana’s class has been a godsend as it has started me on the path of true comprehension and fluency.  It’s a nice feeling to be able to communicate in a coherent manner rather than flounder helplessly in a sea of incomprehension and ignorance.

            The next two days were much like Monday, tree planting followed by Spanish class.  A change of schedule was offered on Thursday when we traveled to Panama City to re-supply and pick up a man from the airport who was to have our GPS device.  Finally it seemed that we were soon to beginning the GIS mapping of Centro Modrono and surrounding areas.  We should have known it was too good to be true.  The man didn’t have the GPS device and after apparently trying to pass off a computer charger as such. We learned that not all was lost and it would be arriving the following week. 

            It was only after the short stay in the city that I really started to enjoy the week.  We returned to Centro Modrono and immediately started our hike to scout the Carti River for a potential kayaking trip.  To get there we had to hike on a trail known as the Kuna Trail.  It’s a trail spanning the continental divide that the Kuna use to get into Panama proper.  My respect for these people increased exponentially after hiking the difficult trail in five hours that would take them roughly three with more weight and on the verge of malnutrition. The hike was overall a success as we were able to scout the river and decide it is suitable for kayaking and we were treated to a little bit of adventure on the way back to Modrono.  About half way back it was as if the heavens themselves had opened to pour rain down upon us.  This in itself isn’t a very new occurrence; the heavens do it often.  It did, however, make it quite dangerous to cross the rivers.  More than once we found ourselves crossing on treacherous logs.  The hike was overall very scenic, and had I paid more attention, rather than just trying to get through, I’m sure I could have noticed the changes in flora from the Pacific side to the Atlantic side.  I’m definitely looking forward to hiking it again to do just that.

            The next week is looking very good.  We should finally be able to begin the GIS mapping and we will be beginning a kayak trip literally from the Pacific to the Atlantic, something that not many people can claim to have done, but here with Earth Train the chance to do these sorts of things almost seems commonplace.