This is a mandatory blog post for the Wagoner Foreign Study Fellowship.

As mentioned in my previous blog post, I spent some time in Bocas del Toro to myself, walking around the main street of the town and quietly people-watching. It was an overcast Saturday afternoon, and I sat down at the public park to eat a sandwich and watch the locals and tourists around me enjoy a day off.

While parents sat down on one of the many benches relax in the shade of tall tropical trees, small gangs of children played pretend with each other and ran around the playground nearby. People from all over the world were perusing the wares of indigenous vendors for a unique souvenir to bring back home. Haggling isn’t necessarily explicit here, but definitely possible. The streets were empty enough to walk in the middle of them, which gives a view of one side of town to the other.

Here, Latin American time is more apparent. Life moves slowly and the general attitude of people is relaxed and friendly. Everyone knows each other here, which makes the small town feel even cozier. For example, I talked to Randolf, a Bocatorreno (Bocas local), about how the trash problem, small business greed, and development has changed on the island  during his lifetime. People are easy to approach here, and everyone promotes each others’ businesses with stickers and word of mouth. The presence of the ocean must contribute to this somehow – whether people spend their time surfing or driving around people in boat taxis, people float about their daily activities and do not stress about being on time or staying productive.

However, in Panama City, things are different. Although I’m only an hour-long flight away from Bocas, the hustle and bustle of a large city takes over Latin American time. Traffic is persistent and aggressive, and people are always rushing from one place to another. The Panama Canal is always a looming presence, since the city lines the water and you can see large shipping boats constantly waiting their time to pass through. Industry and commerce occupy the downtown area, along with swanky large hotels.

I spend a good amount of my time working in a lab, so I don’t get a chance to observe a daily Panamanian’s life all that often. One thing that is apparent is the huge income inequality here – the glass high-rises don’t describe a huge proportion of the population. I’m still hesitant to walk alone on busy streets in some of the neighborhoods around me, but I can tell that between one street and another, there are totally different avenues of life taking place in a densely packed area.

One of my favorite places that I have gone so far is the Mercado de Abastos, or Wholesale Food Market. Here, informal stands of produce are displayed in an open air market and you get to walk through a maze of freshly picked produce. The more you buy, the cheaper the food is, making for great group-cooking potential. Some farmers are more vocal with their products, while others try and stay cool with a soda and just stare at you. I purchased two ripe avocados carefully selected for me by the shop owner for $1 each. I also purchased a small bag of “mamonchinos,” or rambutan, for a dollar and enjoyed the sour-sweet taste of this hairy and colorful fruit back at my dorm.

A fusion of the city and Bocas happened when I was in Casco Viejo, an incredibly touristy part of Panama City that I spend a lot of time in for its coffee shops and architecture. I happened across a man’s stand that sold some hand-made jewelry and in particular, a shark tooth necklace that caught my eye. His jewelry resembled that of someone I knew in Bocas named Pablo, who handcrafted jewelry from stones and things he collected from all over. I looked up to see someone wearing Bocas del Toro shirt and immediately started talking to him about Pablo, doing marine biology in Bocas, and more. He introduced himself as Tote and told me that he was actually best friends with Pablo (“como uno hermano”) and that his mom’s name is Elena, which is my name in Spanish! His brother is also the one responsible for all the “Sweet Love Bocas” tagging all over the main part of town.

The world became so small all of a sudden. Here in front of me was someone who was born and raised in Bocas del Toro, who knew exactly what I was talking about when I said that Bocas people were some of the friendliest people in Panama. He said the city-dwellers are always focused on profit and money, while Bocas people were more about having a good time and spreading “good energy.”

Another vendor nearby who was from the city came to disagree with him a bit, saying that profit-hungry city people was a huge generalization/stereotype. Regardless, they gave each other a friendly fist-bump and continued to participate in the tourist-jewelry hustle together. I left with a shark tooth necklace from Tote and a little crystal he gifted me for the serendipitous meeting we had.

Panama has a huge natural biodiversity and cultural diversity as well. Between urban and rural, coastal and agricultural, you can see the people become products of their environment (and vice-versa, of course). While admittedly, I am not as comfortable spending time alone in a foreign country unless I feel totally safe (which is usually in more tourist-y, English-heavy areas), the Panamanian spirit is still quite contagious and very different from that of the United States. But more on that in another post!

Here is one of my very delayed posts about a day I had to myself in Bocas del Toro, Panama.

I found myself one Sunday wanting to go on a Big Walk all throughout town to do some random musings and quietly observe the Sunday hum-drum of tourists and locals.

I knew my first stop had to be the cemetery. I drove by it so many times wondering how people here honor those who have passed. Some of the tombs were colored by tiles and fake flowers, since fresh ones are hard to find. Nature was  definitely present, with overgrowing plants and crashing waves right next to this peaceful last resting spot. I remember being surprised by how many foreign names were present in this cemetery, captains and businessmen from all over side-by-side with their local counterparts.

I also walked by this awesome sight:

“Sweet Love Bocas” is the mantra of Bocas del Toro, and you can see this graffiti all over town done by artist Fulo Coqueño.

Of course, I made my way to some of the tourist-y stands to check out molas. Molas are a form of traditional textile art made by the Guna, an indigenous group of Panama. These pieces are made by a reverse appliqué technique where pieces of cloth are sewn into panels with complex and multiple layers that are removed to create intricate designs. Before, the mola used to refer to their traditional dress, but after contact with missionaries, they began to transfer their designs on fabric. This article notes that the textile form was “an art of reaction, a hybrid art stemming from contact and conflict with whites” because the Guna were either forced or wanted to imitate Western clothing. Now, you can find Guna women selling hundreds of molas on the street, each carefully woven (if not sneakily machine stitched) and thought out. Some animals are apparently more symbolic than others in traditional Guna culture, but I was not able to distinguish this during my time there.

After grabbing a sandwich, getting the local’s discount at a boutique on a sarong, and enjoying the company of the town’s park, I did a little bit of grocery shopping. One thing that might strike you as unusual at first is the number of grocery stores here…and the fact that they are all owned by Chinese people. In fact, it is common to just refer to grocery stores as “Chinos” here for that reason. Oftentimes, I will speak to the cashiers and owners in Chinese just to ask them how their days are going. The origin for Chinese people in Panama can be traced back to the 1850s when Chinese laborers helped construct the Panama Canal Railway and later, the Panama Canal.

On my way back to the station trying to catch a taxi, I also got a glimpse of a local artist painting on her front yard. How painter-esque!

I also serendipitously met up with Juan, a waiter from a burger place that I knew from visiting there so often in two months. We got a beer at a local hotel happy hour and ended up talking for two hours about science and human existence. Kind of weird, kind of okay…

And that’s how I ended my solo adventure in Bocas, the last adventure I will have there for now.

I filmed a little here and there while out and about in Bocas del Toro, Panama and wanted to share a glimpse of what life has been like for the past two months. If this is your first time clicking on my blog, I hope you take the time to read over my other posts! The ocean is a beautiful place, and trying to understand it takes a lot of hard work and effort! Thankfully, it’s a lot easier to change every day consumption habits to help conserve these environments for generations to come.

Enjoy!

Yesterday marked the last day I will be in Bocas del Toro working at this field station. Boy has it been a crazy two months!

 

Two days ago, I took my final water samples at a few different sites around the bay. As I was swimming through the water, I was greeted by two (!) large stingrays and feeling nostalgic already.

Not to sound dramatic, but these past two months have been the most difficult I’ve ever had in my entire life. Although I have been dreaming of doing marine biology research at a real institution and laboratory for a while, the day-to-day realities of being in the field and working long, stressful hours definitely took a mental and physical toll on me. I’ve spent an above-average amount of time crying here.

With few exceptions, I have worked 6-day weeks for anywhere in-between 8-16 hours every day. These past two weeks where I was finishing sampling for my project, I spent a lot of time in lab alone sterilizing my equipment for the next day and staring at geckos eating insects that were attracted to the lab lights late at night.  One night, I was so tired from the field that I passed out at 7:00 pm and woke up at 4:30 in the morning to clean and prepare for that day’s sampling in the field. However exhausting, I still felt incredibly motivated to move forward with my project because it was mine (if that makes sense). If I didn’t spend those extra hours, no one was there to provide a safety net. This sense of independence was hard earned, but worth it.

One thing I’ve learned is that no matter how interesting the research is, people matter. My highs and lows were less about the actual data I was collecting, but how people made me feel about core aspects of my personality, intelligence, and work ethic. Fortunately, I had a great cohort of friends to lift my spirits when things were going south, and for them I am so thankful (truly).

I think most people think that I have been on a glorified vacation, but in reality, I think I need a vacation after this trip. I can’t ignore the sheer beauty of the islands and ocean though – I’ll definitely miss them more when I don’t get to see them every day.

I know the tone of this blog post was overwhelmingly sad. And don’t get me wrong- there were many high points all throughout (you might read them in the future since I’m so backlogged on blog posts!) I just think these emotions, feelings, and struggles are worth mentioning because they are so often masked by pretty pictures and whimsical assumptions of a tropical escape. If anything, these two months have put me face to face with the rest of my life, and I’ll be honest, sometimes it was a lot all at once. Onwards I go!

** This blog post was written last Saturday (July 1st) but never posted….sorry for the delay!!**

This last week of lab before everyone left (except for me) moved quite slowly – we finished up a few more sediment decantations (view below!), mangrove root masses, and seagrass samples. Slowly but surely, the lab got packed up into large boxes and I waved goodbye to the group of people I have been working closely with for the last month.

I got left behind to finish my project, which if you recall, got delayed since I needed to receive some filters from Rice (which I did, thanks BioSciences!)

It’s weird to transition from working with the same group of people every day in a room to working all alone. Today was my first *official* day alone, and working on my water samples by myself is a strange feeling. Although there are other people and labs here working (in fact, I’ve been sitting in the same room as two other girls for a few hours), I am much quieter and reserved. This next week will definitely be challenging because I will have little to no help in processing my samples and sterilizing my equipment for my project.

On a brighter note though, yesterday was perfect! Rosalyn and Amanda stayed behind an extra day to explore more of the area and I joined them to Bastimentos Island, a place I hadn’t been to yet.

We spent the morning sweating and hiking up to visit Up in the Hill, an organic farm and coffee shop. At one point, we were met with a surprising guest:

The hike was totally worth it. The farm is a hidden treasure in groves of trees and forest, and we were immediately greeted with the owners’ kids and cats. We took off our shoes and entered the Disney-like, cozy café, surrounded by handmade products and information about chocolate production. Just from looking in the nearby plants, I spotted a red poison dart frog! Since the farm is organic, a lot of rainforest creatures are able to coexist within this plot of land. One of the cats even ran past us with a freshly-caught lizard in its mouth.

We all decided on ordering a cold cacao drink with fresh coconut milk, which was as delicious as it sounds. Rosalyn described a tropical fruit she once had, only to have the owner swiftly hand us that fruit from a nearby tree. It’s known as custard apple in English, and definitely lives up to its name in terms of taste.

After a quick stop to Coco Hill, a vegan/vegetarian friendly restaurant, we made our way to Red Frog Beach, which required a small hike through a reforested rainforest that is part of the the Bastimentos Island National Park.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying the beach. It was so peaceful and fun to jump into the large Caribbean Sea that we almost missed our boat back our main island!