Today I was sitting peacefully in the house on my bed doing the usual homework and planning on leaving for USMA in about 30 minutes when Jose came running in the house shouting, “Theresa! We have to get out of the house…NOW!” Having no idea what he was talking about, I grabbed everything I thought I might need for class later on and followed him out the door just in time to see a guy wearing a gas mask and carrying what looked like a leaf blower leaking some kind of foggy chemical substance walking toward the front door. Turns out he’s going around the neighborhood fumigating the houses for mosquitoes…something about a dengue epidemic going around. Great. Wanna know my latest bug bite count is as of this morning?
50.
But the good news is, Vanessa thinks that they aren’t mosquito bites (which means the dengue scare factor just dropped) but bites from something she called a “chitra.” After doing some research and looking at some pretty nasty but familiar pictures, I am 99% confident she’s right. Chitras or sand flies are apparently less than one-eighth of an inch long…which explains why I’ve never seen the stupid things. Found this too: “Bites from chitras can leave anything from swollen bumps to angry rashes. The discomfort of each bite lasts far longer than that of a mosquito and the more one scratches, the more one itches. Scratching the bites can lead to sores that last weeks or years and may leave permanent scarring.” Should have bought more toothpaste.
The nasty little culprit: http://www.skyscanner.net/news/sandfly.jpg Thanks to them it kind of looks like my legs have leprosy right now.
As promised, I have a few quick updates about the family vay-kay in Chiriquí, but first I think I should finally introduce you to the Panamanian “fam”:
Vanessa
The best host mom I could ask for…minus her really annoying Blackberry ringtone that sounds like a midget sneezing.
Jose
The fairly annoying at times but overall entertaining host brother that is obsessed with death metal music and speaks about 500 miles an hour.
Clímaco
I mentioned him before briefly, but he’s the soft-spoken, timid cook that lives a six minute walk away. I’ve eaten his rice and beans every day for lunch and dinner and listened to his Nokia ring tone go off every five minutes (are you starting to see that phones = life here?) for almost three months
Annie (aka: masculine aunt or “hombrecito”)
I risked my life snapping this picture. She had no idea it was being taken and still looks like she wants to kill me.
As I said before, we stayed in the mayor’s house and I made some more friends:
Viki, the five-year-old daughter I bonded with while making clay snowmen and playing fashion games on her laptop
And this little guy:
Bron. He may look adorable, but I swear he smelled worse than the room I had to share with Jose during the trip.
Together we ventured up into the mountainous region of Chiriquí, passed the volcán (that’s volcano if you didn’t catch that) and reached the topish area called Cerro Punta. Remember how I was complaining last post about still being hot? Well I spoke too soon. The temperatures up in Cerro Punta were probably in the low 60’s and 50’s…aka: perfect. Of course everyone in the car was dying of cold and kept asking me with amazed eyes “is this what the US is like?!”
We ate some of the best hamburgers I’ve ever had near the top, served piping hot by a bubbly Panamanian woman who cheerfully responded “a la orden!” to every “thank you” that was thrown out.
The beaches here have been beautiful, don’t get me wrong. But there’s something about the mountains that will always win me over.
I ended up heading back to La Villa a day before everyone else to finish a psychology project (ask my brother Mark how much fun it was – he got to be my interviewee) and last minute “tarea” (aka: homework) in casa. I’ve already said goodbye to Geology and Spanish classes (finals start next week) and am definitely mentally ready to touch back down once again in the good ol’ US of A.
But one thing I will definitely miss here: the Panamanian taco stand my friend Jose (yes, there are about 10,000 guys named Jose in La Villa alone I think) introduced me too. Panamanians don’t tolerate spicy foods so don’t picture anything resembling Mexican, but they are sooooooooo good. I’m not ashamed to admit I went two days in a row last weekend.
Hasta ahora…
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| I miss the cool temperatures already |
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