A Day in the Life of Alyx: Panama Edition
Rio Sereno, Panama. Food too good to be true, dogs named after coffee drinks, and views that would make Window’s computer backgrounds jealous. Our hosts have already accepted us as their children and I’ve learned to respond quickly to “niña.” Riding in a truck bed is a daily norm and mispronouncing words is a certainty. On our team of six, the three boys are staying at our host’s house and us three girls are staying next door at our host’s sister’s house. Thankfully, both houses offer enough beds for us each to have our own.
A typical day starts with a walk over to our host’s house from where we’re staying. Imagine stepping out of your home and the first thing you see is this; surrounding you is lush greenery and brightly-colored flowers and off in the distance behind the morning’s fog you see a beautiful mountain range and, to the far right, a volcano standing tall above the rest. Yep. That’s my view. Every. Single. Morning.
(Despite your jealousy of the scene I’ve just described, please continue reading.)
Breakfast starts at 7:00am at our host’s house. Sometimes, it starts closer to 7:05am if certain people (me) are running a little behind that morning (hard to imagine, I know.) There are six of us, plus the host family, so we have a wooden dining table and a white foldable table pushed together with a variety of chairs surrounding both. After breakfast is cleaned up and the dishes are done, we climb into the bed of a truck to head to the family’s coffee bean farm to get dirty and apply a little elbow grease as we work on the task at hand; hog wrestling.
Nah, I’m just kidding. What need would there be to wrestle hogs on a coffee bean farm anyway? We’ve been working on building housing barracks for the indigenous workers who tend to the farm year-round. Our host family has a vision of providing secure, safe housing for these people, because the condition of the housing they’re living in currently can be described as deplorable at best. Leaning shacks with dirt floors are wedged between a fire pit in the front yard and a small clothes line the back. It’s a sad lifestyle to see, but I have yet to meet a Panamanian who isn’t thankful for what they have.There’s something to be learned from that.
Each day’s tasks vary as there are many projects involved in building a house. Recently, my tasks have consisted of mixing concrete, spackling to prep for paint, painting interior and exterior walls, and cutting/cleaning the bamboo that will work as the upper part of the interior walls. We work on the housing project until 12:30pm, then we make our way back to our host’s for an always delicious, home-cooked meal. We try our best to avoid napping after such a wonderful feast and make our way back to the property to continue working until roughly 4:30pm where we then head back for dinner. During dinner, we recently started doing something, my teammate, Anthony’s family practiced every evening at dinner; stating our highs and lows of the day. It’s a good way to “check-in” with everyone and will bring more opportunity for us all to open up and become more close-knit as a family.
Our time after dinner looks different each night. Dance Dance Revolution is a common pass time as it is our host’s 13-year-old son’s favorite game. If we’re not getting our daily cardio from dancing, we’re usually sitting at the table outside listening to Mike play guitar or playing with one of the family’s dogs; Cappuccino, Macchiato, Mamoo, Linda and a cat we call Mini. We do have Wifi at both locations, but we’re working on being more diligent about enjoying the people in front of us rather than engaging in our devices. We played KEMPS as a team one night. As it turns out, we’re all fairly competitive and as far as card games go it got pretty intense. Let’s just say for the health and sanity of our team, we don’t play that game anymore…
Then, at the end of each night, the six of us sit down and have Feedback. This is a time where we offer both positive and constructive criticism to our other teammates. Feedback is a healthy communication device that allows us to point out each other’s weaknesses in love and call each other higher. The goal is for each of us to walk away from Feedback feeling uplifted and empowered; not hurt or offended.
We’re aware that not every ministry site will be able to offer us Wifi, comfy beds, flushing toilets, and filling meals, but right now we’re taking it all in and remaining thankful where God has us. My future blogs will be more pertaining to what God is doing through my team and I spiritually and emotionally, but I wanted my first blog from Panama to paint a picture of what daily, practical life looks like so far.
Thank you to those of you who are following my journey through my blog and are investing in the ministry God has called me to. Please leave comments or message me directly! Chances are, I’d love to hear from you! 😉
Your friend and sister in Christ,
Alyx
