Yesterday was market day for gringos at the Picipi across the bridge from Suenos. Organic veggies, homemade breads and marmelades, handcrafted coffees from the mountains around Boquete (one of which won a gold medal in Japan a couple of years ago and sold for more than $100/lb.), local books being sold by local authors, water purification systems, handicrafts of all kinds from all over Central and South America.
I recognized one of the vendors. He is an indigenous Kuna from the San Blas Archipelago along the eastern coast of Panama. There are 365 islands in the archipelago, stretching most of the way from the northern end of the Panama Canal to Colombia. He didn't give me a first name; his apellido or last name is Lopez. We had met at breakfast a few days prior, the only patrons sitting on the patio of a small family restaurant that I have adopted because I rarely see gringos there. Senor Lopez told me a bit of his history, having left San Blas some 22 years before to seek a living elsewhere. He lived in Panama City for a while before moving to David to live with his uncle for 5 years, then on to Boquete where he lives in a little one-bedroom stucco duplex on the river, close to the bridge, that costs him $130/month. He works 7 days/week as a cook at a local restaurant, sells hand-embroidered molas at the market for his mother and sister back in San Blas, and watches a booth for an Ecuadorean friend from time-to-time during the week.
I met him again this morning and invited him to lunch with me in the same place where we had met. After lunch, I decided that it was time for me to return to write the blogpost. However, on the way back to the hostel, Senor Lopez asked me to step into his house and write down the translations for various words and phrases that he uses to sell the Kuna molas. I gave him not only the correctlt written word or phrase, but also the way that you would write it in Spanish to correctly pronounce it in English, like s-i-d for "seed" or b-a-y for "by".
He is a man of good heart, one of those people who has a shy smile that comes from a sincere place. He is quiet-spoken and neither completely open nor guarded, but available. I sat with him awhile during the time that he was watching his friend's booth, watching and listening to him both then and when his friend returned. He seems imbued with trustworthiness.
I also met Willie right after breakfast yesterday morning. Willie is a graying, long-haired, ex-Rainbow Gathering hippie-turned-evangelist from LA who has been living in Mexico and Central America for years. Within a couple of minutes, he was already inviting me to meet him at noon after the market at the 2-for-1 Tuesday beer gathering at one of the local ex-pat bars named Mike's. He must have meant Panamanian noon (similar to Ashland noon) because he wasn't around when I showed up. I lolligagged a bit but didn't buy because I didn't want to drink two beers by myself in the early afternoon, so I wandered down the street to Amigos Restaurant where they had the same type 2-for-1 special going all day. The ping-pong table next to the patio, though, induced me to believe that I could possibly drink a couple of cervezas if I could find an opponent to sweat some of it out of me....and I did find one: Willie! Turns out that he was more than able to kick my butt at ping pong, but we laced our match with liberal doses of conversation that involved equal parts religion, philosophy, humor, and personal history.....ok, maybe it was a bit heavier on the humor than the other parts because every time he went into scripture, I went into puns, put-ons, and parody which sent him into paroxysms of laughter followed by a sportive response. We kept it up for a couple of hours before I said my goodbyes and went to find dinner.
Two such very different encounters, but I am hopeful to continue the friendships with both for the remaining week that I have in Boquete.
No comments:
Post a Comment