This has been one of the craziest few days of my life.

Sunday, 6:00a.  I wake up, groggy because I slept late last night and kept waking up thinking that the water would once again enter the house.  Before I fell asleep, we swept the entire house until about 2:00a, after we tried to go on our rescue mission to see about the people that no one has been able to get in touch in the community.  There were about 50 people we weren’t able to get in touch with and with the rising flood, it didn’t look like another night passing without any contact with the outside world would be a good idea.  In fact, at times, I couldn’t help but think of the worst scenario coming true.

I do the zombie walk back and forth from one end of the community to the other where the water has been flooding in on both sides and thank God that the water has subsided a good 50 yards on the south end, 10 yards on the north end.  Unfortunately, the people we are most worried about are on the north end, and are still flooded.

It’s easy to say that miles upon square miles are flooded in, but even that would be an exaggeration.  Imagine a whole forest under water, which is what was going on as the riverbank had broken and was now 10 feet wide by 5 feet deep, rushing the river water into the town.

At 8:00a I attend my meeting via Skype with Peace Corps Panama Headquarters and head out.   After the call, I head out with Emilio, a guy they call Puma (what a cool nickname), and three guys who I still don’t know from Adam.  We get in a smaller boat than the one yesterday and begin to navigate around the flooded plantation where I was able to walk around just one week ago.  I look like an idiot with my umbrella as everyone else was getting wet, and it probably looked like I was Miss Daisy being rowed in a boat by Donald Duck.  I looked that ridiculous.  As I contemplated putting my umbrella away, the current of the river and a metal arch that is used hold up a cord that transports bananas decides to make the decision for me and catches my umbrella and plants me face down in the dirty water from the river, now mixed with chemicals (insecticide and such) from the banana plantation.  I spit for 5 minutes straight, making sure that not one drop enters my mouth.  This really sucks, I say to myself as the others laugh.  The current picks up.

The next thing I know, we are trying to stop the boat from moving down with the current too far.  We paddle towards the right bank and grab onto the leaves on top of a drowning banana tree.  One guy falls off and we struggle to hold on tight as we are struggling due to the pain in our stomachs from laughing.  We are off to a great start.

We paddle a little back upstream against the current and drop off three people and pick up another guy, who I also don’t know and can’t distinguish from Adam.  We begin our adventure.

We float down stream for 5 minutes, make a left, then float with the current for about another 15 minutes until we make a series of maneuvers that I wont forget.  The first maneuver was hitting a random banana tree sticking out from the ground.  We all jerk forward and the entire boat turns around so now we are paddling backwards.  One of the guys on the end decides to muscle up and grab the next banana tree to turn the boat back around.  He succeeds and now we are facing forward again.  Although the whole maneuver was cool, I have no idea why we didn’t just all turn around.  I think it had something to do with the guy in the rear and steering.  If that wasn’t the case, that was a stupid waste of energy, otherwise, it was incredible.

The second maneuver was getting through a bamboo arch forest.  I don’t know how to explain it, but the clearing through the spider web of bamboo was 3 feet high.  We all had to get down below the rim of the boat in order to make sure our eyes didn’t get poked out, and steer the boat using the bamboo staffs to get through.  At some points it was impossible to get through and we had to monkey bar our way back in order to find another hole to get through.  That was even more fun than the 180 degree flip.

The third maneuver was a one-two combo of grossness.  It was literally our efforts to get all the bugs off of each other and the boat.  Unfortunately, when the rains come and flood the ground, the ants, spiders, centipedes, and mutant bugs make their way to high ground.  As we cleared the bamboo forest, ants the size of the tip of my forefinger, spiders the size of the face of the watch, pincher bugs the size of my thumb, and other bugs that were hard to see at times crawled around us as we kept paddling.  This was terrible because some of them liked to bite, and I guess they had a way of communicating with the outside world because a bee flew by and I got stung again.  Back to back days of bee stings.  A la chucha! Que pasa con estes bichos! Son locos! I say out loud.  Fortunately, we escape and get all the bugs out with minimal bites, I counted 12 on me, all in places I don’t want to mention.

We make another left and a quick right and drift with the current for a few more minutes until we see two people, one on the left and one on the right screaming at the one on the left to cross.  The guy on the right is Alvaro, I giant of a man with the biggest hands I have ever shaken.  Why he is naked though, I have no idea, and it’s overwhelming how big his… hands, are as he waves to us with a big grin on his face.  After we rescue the guy on the left, and dock the boat, we get off the boat and walk in mud that reminds us more of fondue chocolate than anything else.  It was so soaked in water that it had the texture of cream.  I enjoy walking around the soft mud until I notice a whole bunch of tiny bugs jumping around my feet.  I freak out for a second and just decide to accept the reality that I am in the Peace Corps and this should be the smallest of my worries.  So I continue to slide around as if I was playing ice hockey once again.  It was awesome.  We talk for about 20 minutes checking to see if he has potable water and food, which he has 4 gallons of and just enough to get by.

We get back in the boat to head to Rufina’s place, who I’ve been most worried about to now.  As we weave around the plantation to find a route to her house, we see how much the water has risen by looking at the wall.  The worst of what we expected was found true, as the water had flooded over 6 feet of their house.  The thing that gave me relief was when I saw their heads pop up one by one.  What a sight for sore eyes as I had been worried about them for several days now.

We enter the house as we pull up in the boat to the entrance, which is about 3 feet off of the ground.  On top of that, there is a watermark that is five feet above ground, reaching to the point right below my chin.  Everything has been soaked and is ruined and the refrigerator, stove, and other furniture are elevated, but hopeless.  They are all busy cleaning the mess from the river, and the kids are having a blast playing with their wet cards.  They laugh as they see me and pick up their cards to chase each other around the slippery floor.  They use me as a post to block each other from getting to another.  As we leave, I tell them to be safe, hop back on the boat, and we begin our way back.  We have found12 people, and if at all possible, would be great to find another 40 or so that are still missing.

We paddle upstream and have a hard time fighting the current.  On the way, we fight water spiders, water lizards, and just plain dirty water.  It’s pretty gross and I get the chills just thinking about it.  Also, we see an abandoned house covered in mud and a chicken coup with 5 chickens stacked on the lowest point as they have all drowned and flushed out with the water.  It’s a pretty sad sight, even though it made me laugh.  Someone just lost a good portion of their food.

The guy I don’t know from Adam suggests that we try and bring back some Platanos (giant banana’s that are fried for food) and we begin our search.  We end up spotting a bunch of bananas on a tree about 15 feet from the newly formed bank.  He gets out to grab them it off the tree and three steps off the boat, he jumps back onto the boat in one quick leap.  The boat shakes nearly knocking Puma off the rear end.  He spotted a snake and did not want to risk it, but we need the food because the community is quickly running out and every little thing would help.  We try throwing sticks and an old rubber boot that had a hole in it, but no success.  We give up frustrated and re-start our journey.

As we continue to struggle up river, we continue to combat giant ants, pincher bugs, and spiders until we reach a road.  We are finally here, I think, ready to get out of the boat.  I find out that I am not going back to sight, but that we are on our way to another town nearby.  We get off and walk around trying to get across, but after walking 50 yards or so, we realize that we cannot make it.  We are in thigh deep water and wade back to the boat.

After hopping back in, we continue to struggle as we paddle upstream until we hit a steel walking plank, which is normally 6 feet above ground.  The rain had stopped and we were still flooded over 6 feet in some places.  We “dock” and get out to drag the boat over the plank, but it’s heavy.  Spiders, centipedes, and ants start crawling up my feet and legs and while I am struggling to get the boat over, one ends up on my ear and begins to make its way into it.  I try to ignore it, but after it started poking deeper into my ear, I drop my portion of the boat and it slides back to square one as I freak out making sure the spider didn’t get in and lay eggs in the 1.5 seconds it attacked me.  Both frustrated at the fact that the boat was back to where it began and laughing at the fact that I just freaked out, we began again.  We finally get the boat over after using several banana tree trunks as a lever.  We continue to paddle upstream and hit two more of these terrible bridges, one of which only took us 3 minutes to get across and the other that took us just as long as the first one.  We are exhausted and hungry as the time is nearing 2:00p and we have been out since 8:30a without a meal all day.  The rain begins to pour again.

We finally make our way back to the road, this time about 300 yards from the town (we were several miles away earlier).  There are 8 guys just assessing the damage, watching the water rise and lower.  When they see us approaching, they laugh and help us get over yet another steel bridge, but with their help, it’s easy.  They help us push and pull the boat through 40 feet of mud up onto the street, and we contemplate what to do after this.  My feet are hurting as they have been wet for the past 72 hours straight.  I tell them that we should wait until a tractor comes around so that we can load up onto that and use it to transport the boat to the river.  We end up waiting 10 minutes (which is no time at all) and get the help of a tractor with 10 more people on it to help us move the boat that sticks out of it’s trailer as we chug along the road.  We go up a small hill and put the boat into the water when we end up coming to a 30 foot point in the road where the water has completely destroyed the road and the water was still rushing through it.  They organize a contraption and tell me to zip line across this cord that was used by the Banana company to transport the bananas to the cleaning and packing centers.  I put one foot on the plank they attached and with both hands, I hold on tight as they push me across.  I make it safely and all the onlookers from my town (about 200) applaud me.  They all follow and with one guy, they push him and leave him in the middle for about 20 seconds until he almost slips, then pulls him across safely.  We laugh hard collectively for a good minute as he pretends to beat up the guy that was pulling the cord.

I walk over to the school to organize a few more things, eat lunch, and get organized as I receive word that I need to get out.  The head office is too worried for me to simply stay in site.  I have fought these past few days to just remain in site so that I could work with my community and now they won’t take no for an answer.  I needed to get out.  They told me that they have tried to get helicopters and boats to come out, but due to the bad weather, not even the government was able to send anything.  I agree to get out any way I can and pack my things.  After organizing a few other things for my community (like an emergency response team, a community clean up group, and a relief help group) I sit for a minute to think about what’s going on and then a helicopter shows up.  I’m slightly confused as I thought they weren’t sending flights, but end up running up to the helicopter after it lands and they ask me where they were.  I tell them and some guy gets out.  I ask him where the food is, and he says its coming.  I look at the empty chopper and think that he’s one of those bureaucrat types sitting comfortably back home on a mountain of food.  I find out that he is the Disputado of the Bocas Region (like Panamanian Congress).  He came just in time to watch Sinaproc (the Panamanian disaster relief agency – think Red Cross) bring food.  They are in a huge yellow Catapiller truck with some food, definitely not enough though.  They attempt several times to cross the broken road with the flood water flowing through it as I tell them that they shouldn’t cross.  They don’t listen, and after they make it all the way in, they get stuck.  Que tontos! I shout.  They begin to use the same zip line that I got across on and began to transport food on it from the truck to our side of town.  It’s raining hard again.

For 40 minutes they begin to get the food onto our side and as this goes on, the congressman signals to me that he is leaving shortly.   As soon as he gives me the signal that he will shortly be leaving, some guy on the other side of the roads yells for me.  I have no idea who he is, but he is waving me across.  I tell him that there is no way I am going to get across with my bag and that I will just go back with the congressperson.  He insists that he needs to extract me so I secure my pack and hold on with two hands, as there is no footrest anymore.  They push me across and I zip across quickly.  When I get to the other side, the 400 people from town applaud me and tell me not to forget them.  I tell them of course I will not forget them and blow them kisses.  They all laugh.  The man who called me over was sent from the Smithsonian who had contacted the others in the Bocas del Toro province and found out they were safe.  He then sent someone to get me out.

We cram into the small Suzuki SUV (think of a wimpy Rav4, but much wimpier).  We end up driving through 4 feet of water and I don’t think that we are going to make it as the engine and transmission are probably getting flooded.  I express my fears and while we were talking about whether we would make it, we pass by people standing on their roofs because of the floods, cows passing us on the road, and people trying to wade through the water as it continues to pour.  45 minutes of driving and we finally arrive to Changuinola.  The first thing I do is eat, then I walk over to the Sinaproc office to see if there is anything I could do and to explain to them that there is not nearly enough food.  Unfortunately, there is no water in town and the grocery stores are quickly running out of food.  The roads have closed in due to landslides and avalanches, cutting Bocas del Toro from the rest of the country.  There is no fresh water (except the rain which comes and goes), gas is running out quickly, and there is limited food – especially in the smaller, more remote sites.  We (Nico, the regional leader and myself, tell them that we will be back tomorrow.  It’s 10:00p and I am exhausted.  I go to sleep.

5:30a.  I rub my eyes and I am tired.  The sun still hasn’t come out yet.  This is going to be a long day, but I have no idea what it will look like.  Nico, Janelle (another Peace Corps volunteer) and myself all head out to the Sinaproc head quarters.  There is no one there except for a few people organizing the food, getting ready for the day to begin.  My intention in going is to petition for food to be sent to my town as there is only enough for the 200 people in the school and the 800 people outside the school will end up suffering shortly as water has been cut off and the food in the stores were nearly completely bought out.  Plus, there are an additional 7000 people that live even further inland.

I had arranged to get on a helicopter that would drop off some food the day before, but they told me they weren’t going where I wanted to go, so I sat around with the others and just waited.  I am not going to waste another day when my community needs food, I tell myself.  As I contemplate on what to do, something crawls on my neck and I shake my head to see if it falls off.  It doesn’t budge.  I take my hand to my neck and bam I get stung again!  I got stung three times in three days be three different bees.  This has to be a world record.  I can’t believe this and thank God that I am not allergic to bees, otherwise, I would’ve swollen up and exploded by now.

I resolve to get something done so I ask them what they need at Sinaproc.  They go down a list and say that they need fuel for the helicopters.  It’s starting to get busier as the clock turns 9:00a and a light bulb strikes.  I tell Harlow (one of the heads of Sinaproc in Changuinola) that I need access to the Internet.  He takes me into an air-conditioned office where I begin to type away.  I think of people who I can contact and I call my friend Veronica, who I met at some art party in Panama City.  I know that she has some contacts as she is a humanitarian at heart and loves to help people.  She has expressed her compassion for people and her passion to give them support several times in the past and her mom started a non-profit called Casa Esperanza (House of Hope) in Panama.  I tell her what’s going on and she tells me that she knows a guy who owns 9 helicopters and will call him as well as powerful people in the government (one guy is running for president) and another is the vice-president of Panama who would probably be able to help.  She tells me she will call me back as soon as she gets some information.   After I hang up with her, I call my friend Matt and tell him about the situation.  Matt was nice enough to let me stay over his place in the city while I had dengue and is currently working for the largest real estate developer in the country.  Knowing Matt, I knew that we would want to help if there was a need so I tell him that I would write so that he could get the word out about the need for fuel and try to get some helicopters to bring some over.

After I made contact, I continued with my quest to get food sent to my town.  Everything is disorganized and everyone is out of control.  It takes me two hours to realize that for anything to get done, you have to tell at least 6 people in order to get them to understand and to act upon the information.  Now I am starting to make movements.  I go back and forth talking to the ‘right’ people and get them to send a truck to my town.  I found out later though, that someone ‘hijacked’ the truck by taking it to their own town.

I get a call from the Representative from the town and he tells me that he is in Changuinola.  He tells me that he has money, but needs a way to get the food back to town.  I work my magic, talk to the right people, and end up asking the governess for a truck.  She says ok, and I hand over the slip of paper that would get them the truck to take the food over.  I breathe a sigh of relief now that my town will have sufficient food.

I see that the news reporters are stationed out in front of the Municipal building and walk over to talk to the reporter there.  We shoot the breeze for a minute or two and then he starts to get ready to go on air.  I ask him if he wants the new numbers and he tells me yes, the number of people affected had risen from 8,000 people to 13,000 in the last three hours.  It’s now 3:00p.  He goes on, and uses the information I give him, as well as asking people to send fuel, as we need it.  I was able to get the reported to talk about the needs of the fuel.

By now, people are asking me what to do.  I guess since they see me talking to all the people that call the shots, they think that I am in charge.  Of the two hundred or so people working, I was easily perceived as in the top ten decision makers.  I could do stuff like this, I think to myself.

I get a call from Veronica and she tells me that she was able to get in touch with a presidential candidate, a guy named Rafu who owns 9 helicopters, and the vice-president of Panama.  The helicopters of the politicians, as she found out, were only good to transport people, not products, and could only fit 4 passengers.  They would be useless as transport vehicles.  All of Rafu’s helicopters were donated to be used for the relief effort and were already being used.   The best I did for the day was get close, but not across the finish line.  I was disappointed.

On a positive note, I find out that Veronica had been able to get the message out to TV and had been working hard to find a way to get fuel out.  She tells me how pissed off she is that they can’t get the fuel to a place so close and I agree along with her.  The entire day she had been working hard to get both the helicopters and the news of the necessity of fuel on television, as it would create pressure for it to be sent.  It was fun to work with her through it all and although we weren’t able to get the fuel, we were able to accomplish a lot that day.

It’s 4:00p, I haven’t eaten all day long and I am hungry.  I had told another volunteer Ben, who was on his way from his site to bring a list of people in his site that were displaced.  He brings it and I tell the right people that they need food there and they tell me that they will get on it.  We go eat lunch, head back, and eat dinner with the rest of the volunteers who have now consolidated in Changuinola, and go to sleep.

The next day, we are told we are going to get evacuated.  We walk to the airport and in three shifts, we are to get evacuated on a small propeller plane to David, Panama’s second largest town.  While waiting for the second plane, Ben starts freaking out about his town because the central town of Las Tablas is holding all the food.  Ben is a funny tall kid from Texas who is always positive and gets excited about everything; a ball of energy that was hard to control in a crisis.  I tell him to calm down and we talk to the appropriate people until I decide that it would just be better to talk to the people I have developed relationships at Sinaproc the day before.  We get a ride over and talk to them for a minute and I leave Ben at the radio control center and walk to the Municipal building where all the major decisions are made.  I talk to four people this time and explain the situation to each of them, wait for a few minutes, and then get taken to the command center where all the logistics are mandated.  I explain the situation and they decide to send a couple of people to hand out the food there.  Mission accomplished.

We head out on a 6 passenger propeller plane, land safely in David, I get shown on TV, and I rest.  It’s been a crazy few days.