Pickle in Panama: What I'm Working With

By now I have been to the toma of Taimati a couple of times (note: toma being the term used for our aqueduct’s water capture point). In the case of my community the toma is a large concrete box built onto the side of a small cascade in the bend of a river called the Rio Julian Martin. Our first trip out there was quite a doozy. After the community took a vote that repairing our aqueduct would be a priority for my two years here, I knew I needed to see the source of our aqueduct. Most people see the source of the aqueduct well before this time, but I had heard that it was very far away and nobody seemed too enthusiastic about taking an unnecessary trip out there. Having established the necessity of the trip with this vote, I spoke with the aqueduct’s plumber and we decided to set out. Of course our first day it rained the night before so we postponed, but finally our day came to go visit this legendary toma.

To make sure we got off to a good start I woke up at 6 a.m. and we were ready to go by 7. I sported long pants, and quick dry shirt, and my rubber boots that I bought here in country ready to conquer the trail! We set off at a pretty good pace and I took photos of the areas that could use some improvement along the way. Now when I say along the way, I mean aLONG the way. It took us every bit of three and a half hours to finally arrive at the toma. Once arriving there I snacked on some beef jerky, aired out my feet, and tried to mentally prepare for the trip back. I should add a note about my previously mentioned outfit, specifically the boots. I bought these rubber boots here in Panama, a country where a 5’10” man is particularly tall and for some reason even the tall people have small feet. I am not sure the $12 boot manufacturer was entirely competent in shoe making seeing as how it would seem the technique for larger size shoes was to maintain width and just lengthen them. These boots have never felt good. Not during training, not during my first months, and certainly not on the toma trip. I had heard that they would break in, but they never did (luckily my site is dry enough that I did not need to wear them often outside of this walk). As per the usual, after 30 minutes of the hike my feet were hurting and after an hour and a half into the return trip they were screaming! I had to take breaks to only mentally cope with how badly my feet were hurting. I finally made it back to Taimati, took my shoes off, and rested the 8+ new blisters I had acquired on my feet.

The next days, since I couldn’t really go anywhere very quickly, I spent thinking about the size of the challenge ahead of me. The problem with the aqueduct, as I had been informed, was that the river crossings were not built very well, so when the river rises in the wet season the tubes are pushed apart. It becomes difficult to get water to town if your aqueduct more closely resembles the end scene of a game of Jenga strewn along the riverbed. There are also many air release points along the tubing to allow air blockages to escape and the water to flow freely (good). These air release points are in the form of holes put into the tubes with sticks sharpened and then shoved into them (bad). I had figured fixing these two things would be fairly simple, besides I had seen both of these basic concepts in training and thought how hard could it be? Now as I sat upon my plastic chair I realized the problems. Logistically getting to my site is hard enough, and now to bring 100 lb cement bags along a trail for 3 hours AFTER getting them to my site still dry would be a-whole-nother level of difficulty. Along with this add in the fact that my aqueduct is, for the first two and a half hours from the tank, 4” tubing and for the last half hour 6” tubing and all of the sudden costs are through the roof! I eventually talked to my Program Director and she said that we should just start out basic, doing a survey of the line and getting some data that we could bring to other organizations, such as Engineers Without Borders, and see if they could assist in the projects.

Since then I have been thwarted in the acquisition of some the necessary tools to start an official survey of the aqueduct line, but I did manage to borrow a GPS and got some basic data about the aqueduct. In case you were wondering, one direction from my tank to the toma, is 10.7 kilometers long. That’s 6.65 miles for all you Americans out there, or 2537037.4 PICAs…whatever that is. Also of note: with a very kind Christmas gift of some money from my grandparents I was able to purchase some quality water-proof hiking boots and my second trip resulted in exhaustion but no pain from the shoes! I will attempt to keep you updated on exactly what is happening with the aqueduct as we go along, but it may appear to be a long and arduous process.