#26 - So long, farewell

28/02/2011

So this was our final day of civilisation before we go off into the unknown.
Apparently as the weeks go by the communities we work with will become more and more remote, but I'm fairly sure we won't have wireless internet access, hot showers or panini machines in any of the places.

It's Andy's birthday so the girls decorated the kitchen and cooked chocolate-chip pancakes for us all which was a good effort - I had three pancakes. He received some serious and some novelty gifts, of which three were pairs of his boxer shorts hidden in different locations including the freezer.

It was a day off so Andy, Jess, Lisette, Bonnie, Christina and I decided to hitch a lift with Ryan to Bouquete, a town around an hour and a half away. It is responsible for 65% of Panama's coffee production so we decided to designate the afternoon to doing a tour of one of the coffee plantations.

We were dropped in the town centre, and it started raining. None of us were prepared for such an eventuality, so Ryan directed us to a second-hand clothes store before driving off.
The store was certainly a second-hand clothes store; however what we didn't realise was that it was American themed. We all walked in in t-shirts, and walked out with a retro polyester sports jacket.
Mine is from an American Football team called the Yellow Jackets (though the jacket itself is red, that's Americans for you) and says 'Coach Angelo' on it. It's so awesome. We did all look pretty stupid walking round in jackets coloured red, purple, green and blue but they were only $10.

After that malarkey, we went to a pizzeria and got there at 11:30 - we were then told it opened at 12. So we walked a little further and found a hotel to get a coffee. The setting was really weird - the restaurant area had a stream running through it with a bridge which was pretty cool.
We then returned to the pizzeria and ordered what turned out to be far from inspiring pizzas - at least they were cheap. Andy and I had a beer with it, definitely our last for the next 5 weeks as drinking alcohol is frowned upon in the indigenous Christian communities.

Bonnie, Andy and I  then made our way to Cafe Ruiz, a massive local producer with a brilliant reputation and which is exported far and wide (the others were put off by the $30 price tag, but it was worth it for a 3-hour tour and we came for a coffee tour so we were damn well going to have one).
The tour was brilliant, partly due to the interesting content and partly due to the charismatic guide Carlos. He spoke perfect English and had a sharp sense of humour which extended to British-style mockery. Over the course of the trip, he repeatedly made digs at Starbucks (for all the sweet additives they put in drinks, fair point) and Nescafe (who buy the poor quality beans and are thus known by coffee producers as 'No-es-cafe' or 'Is not coffee').

We were taken to the fields where they grow the beans, the factory where they water, ferment, dry and store the beans and finally the roasting place. It finished with a tasting session which was absolutely delicious - I then bought a coffee afterwards which was also excellent. Coffee in England is going to be a real comedown from here.

After that finished, we were transported home but Ryan had dropped the 4x4 he took us in at the garage for repairs.
The vehicle he took us home in had 4 spaces for 6 people, so Andy and I went in the flatbed in the back with tarpaulin to cover us. The journey back was uncomfortable, wet, windy and nauseous but we made it.
We then had a lovely meal of Thai chicken and potato, finished with a birthday cake featuring pink icing which was lush.

The evening has been spent finishing packing (though I did most of it yesterday, the very definition of efficiency) and eating and saying our farewells by email and Facebook.
And now it's 11:30pm and we have to leave the house at 5:40am, so I had better leave it here.

I've really enjoyed my time in Volcan and will be glad to return to stability here in five weeks time, and one of the benefits of living at the OM house has been being able to update this blog every night.
However from now on, internet access is likely to be limited to a maximum of once a week so this blog now enters a new phase of consolidation and tranquility.
I will do my upmost to provide a weekly retrospective but this may not even be possible, so I apologise in advance if this turns out to be the case.

So until I next have access to the internet, and who knows when that is, it is a sad farewell.
I am off into the sticks to spread the Gospel and take great comfort from the fact that whatever happens in these few weeks, I will come out the other side a stronger person. If I die during this time, then thanks for reading this final post.

In the words of William Shakespeare, who I'm proud to say was born very close to my birthtown, "parting is such sweet sorrow".

And on that note, we shall temporarily part.

JG