Building plans...

Those who know us are aware that we built a house in Mozambique, which we designed ourselves. The construction was a long andpainfu lprocess and in the end we kicked out the builder and finished and renovated the house ourselves and with another builder. That house is for sale by the way.

And now we are about to embark on a similar process. We have finally been allowed to open a bank account and have transferred the money needed to pay for the land to Panama. So we are nearly the owners of 8 hectares of Panama and we are now more actively looking for an architect and a builder.

During our visit to Chiriqui (see previous blog) we encountered an American couple that was building a house they designed themselves in Barqueta. They invited us to come and have a look, which we did. We immediately noted that builders here are far better trained that in Mozambique and the quality of the workmanship is a lot higher. This American couple was happy with the Panamenian builder they had contracted and said the construction costs were below 300 USS/m2. Another couple were also building in that area, but they were far less satisfied with their contractor and suggested that they paid a lot more than 300 US$/m2. A cheaper contractor that is also better? Seems to be too good to be true.

Anyway, we now have contact with two Panamenian architects and we showed both of them a photo of the area and gave them some sketches of what we had in mind and asked them to come up with a plan. One of them came to see the place for himself (on our costs) and showed some sketches and interesting variations on what we suggested. Unfortunately, his quote was more than twice as high as what we told him we had budgeted for. So that was a bit of a non-starter. He wanted to do all the plans for the project at once (and get paid for them, of course), while we are looking at a phased approach, in which the length of each phase will be determined by how fast we can refill our pockets after paying for the previous phase. So we are looking for someone else.

The second architect is architect by training, but works for an NGO. So she has not too much time for our project. However, see introduced us to a Panamanian couple, both architects who have developed a system that is both flexible and economical and can make use of recycled materials. The system can be used to build up to four floors. These architects have put their money where there mouth is and live in a house built with this system and have used recycled materials wherever possible. The husband of this team has already been nominated best Panamanian architect once.

The house, or rather houses, they live in three or four units that have been connected, hve a very nice atmosphere. This is difficult to explain and it is also difficult to judge a design from a house that is being lived in. The finishing details can really make or break a house. In this case they have used pieces of broken tiles to make mosaics that give each floor a theme. So the ground floor is adorned with mosaics of the earth, the first floor has mosaics of animals and trees etc. Even the burglar bars are made in the shape of insects, branches and birds. All of this gives the house a special atmosphere that is independent of the actual design, but makes it very attractive.

The architects are also practical. They prefer working with concrete, alumin(i)um and other materials that need little maintenance. The other architect suggested to place a tree in a patio enclosed by the building, but these guys said that this looks good, but requires a lot of work. Trees have a habit of growing roots and branches where they are least welcome, they sway in the wind, dropping leaves and entire branches, damaging your building etc. A beautiful plan if you have enough money to hire a gardener to attend to that tree only.

We like the design, but it needs a few alterations. We want it at least one foot higher because Kees (6’1) had to stoop regularly to avoid hitting his head. We also want the pillars to bee a little bit further apart, to create more space. That probably makes the building slightly more expensive, but also much roomier. We houden iedereen op de hoogte.

Some may have seen the beautiful pink kitchen on our Yahoo photo album. That kitchen belongs to the house we are buying. The house actually belongs to someone else, or rather, to the inheritants of someone else and the process to buy this house might take a while. But as soon as we can occupy the house, we will start repairing and rebuilding it and the kitchen will at least be painted.

Monkeys and Turtles in Chiriqui province

About a week ago we travelled to Chiriqui. Because of our activities with the Apenheul Primate Centre and Summit Gardens, we also came into contact with the NGO CREA (www.crea.org) and Susan and David Waligoora. The latter two are Americans building a house in Barqueta, which is situated on the coast south of the city David. Close by is the wildlife refuge Barqueta which consists mostly of mangrove and secondary forests and beaches. It is one of the few places where squirrel monkeys still occur and turtles use the beaches to lay their eggs. However, according to David and Sue, the protection of this refuge is less than perfect. So we wanted to have a look and see if we could somehow help and if we could bring tourists to this area.

Well, do not get up your hopes just yet, the place is not very suitable for tourists at the moment. There is a choice between an expensive beach resort ($ 125/night) or a cheap room without mosquito net and communal and not too clean sanitary facilities. Sand flies and mosquitoes are active from 4 pm until 9 am in most places and 24 hours a day in shady areas such as forests, so you are continually applying repellent and still swatting at the ones that try to bite you on your face.

But the local community is very friendly. The family that runs the cheaper accommodation is also involved in protection of turtles. The husband is a fanatical runner and every day on his early morning beach run checks for new turtle nests. Those are dug op and the eggs are reburied in a protected area. Unfortunately, they sometimes do not release the hatchlings immediately, but prefer to wait until a second nest hatches so that they can release a larger number at once and invite school children to watch and help. While we were there, the hatchlings from the first nest, which had hatched 36 hours before release, looked dehydrated and behaved rather disoriented. But that might be a small price to pay for the awareness that is being raised among the future generation.

The beach at Barqueta is not great. A lot of sand, yes, but the surf is too strong for a pleasant and safe swim and too close to the beach for surfing. Therefore, the reserve is the only tourist attraction in the area. But the reserve is not very accessible. There is one circular trail, which is not easy to find. Walking it at a normal pace will take you all of 15 minutes and even if you stop to study every little brown bird, as Kees likes to do, it still won’t take more than a good hour. It took us more time to find the trail than to walk it twice….

The first day we couldn’t even find the trail, let alone any monkeys. But in the afternoon the owners of the beach cottage took us along to an unprotected bit of mangrove creek that they use to clean their catch of fish. They said there were always monkeys in that area, even squirrel monkeys. We did see (and hear) howler monkeys, but no squirrel monkeys that day. We thought that that was not much of a problem, because we had found the one and lonely park warden earlier that day and agreed that he would take us to an island in the reserve where we would certainly see them.

Unfortunately there appeared to have been some misunderstanding; the park warden took us to the trail mentioned above (which is indeed on an island, seeing as it is surrounded by smallish mangrove creeks), rather than to the island we wanted to go to. The warden is actually quite busy during this time of year, he has to monitor and protect turtle nests inside the reserve, so maybe he just didn’t have the time to go on an expedition.

But Kees at least was happy because he saw a male yellow-billed cotinga (Carpodectus antoniae), which is rare in Panama.

Cleaning up

We arrived in panama with two laptops and one portable hard drive, together providing 160 Gb of storage. The five year old laptop also contained a back up of the information from our even older desktop computer. (The latter was donated to a museum for their display of Stone Age office equipment before we left Mozambique) When our old laptop showed signs of an imminent crash, we copied the folder ‘my documents’ to the portable hard drive.

The remaining hard disc space had thus clogged up rather badly and I decided to see if I could clean up a little bit. Since there were back-ups nested in back-ups, I first hunted for duplicate files. Below follows a brief account of what I found:

In the folder ‘Back up Laptop’ I found a folder ‘Work Kees’. In this folder I found three folders named FAO 1, 2 and 3 (I had three contracts with FAO). Each of these folders contained a folder called ‘Proagri2’ of 34 Mb as well as reports from my colleagues Carol Djeddah and Paulo Israel. I had also started to collect useful back ground information about Mozambique in a folder. This folder also contained a folder ‘Proagri2’ and copies of the Djeddah and Israel reports.

Then I had a look in the folder ‘Back-up Desktop’. Lo and behold, I found the folders FAO1,2 and 3,complete with their subfolder ‘proagri2’ and the Djeddah and Israel rapports, as well as a similarly endowed folder with useful background information about Mozambique. Another folder on the portable hard drive was titled Mozambique and contained a folder named ‘Work Kees’. And, this is becoming somewhat repetitive, that folder contained the folders FAO1, 2 and 3 and a folder with background information about Mozambique. Each of these contained, you guessed it, a folder named ‘Proagri2’ and the reports of Djeddah and Israel.

Our portable hard disk thus contained 12 copies of the folder ‘Proagri 2’. Now we are talking about the five-year Agricultural Strategy documents for Mozambique, so it is important information, but I admit that twelve copies on the same drive is somewhat exaggerated. And now Loes tells me that there are probably a copy or two of the same folder hidden in her folders. This is worse than cleaning up your desk.

Travelling

One of the advantages of working in the tourism sector is that you get to visit places for work that other people visit for holidays. And you might be one of the first to be there. At the moment we are looking around in the area for people/organizations with whom we can join collaborate. We prefer to work with community initiatives. Last week we visited a small association on ‘Isla Gobernadora’.

Isla Gobernadora is an island situated on the western side of the Gulf of Montijo, close to Santa Catalina (which is on the main land). The association on Isla Gobernadora is supported by a Peace Corps Volunteer. They are almost ready to receive visitors, but no-one knows about their activities. The association does not have the capital to send the boat to Santa Catalina to try and lure tourists to their island. That would be difficult anyway because none of the members speaks English and few tourists speak Spanish. There are quite a few tourists in Santa Catalina because it is one of the best surfing spots in Central America.

But now we can tell you from experience that it is worth your while to go to Isla Gobernadora. It is a fairly typical tropical island with coconut palms, fishing boats, deserted beaches, jungle and one public phone that is often out of order. The people are very friendly and take life one day at the time. Many inhabitants have changed from agriculture to fisheries because that means they only have to work when they need money and the work isn’t so heavy. It is, in other words, a very good place to de-stress in a hammock.

A double room at Mario’s costs seven USD (special offer for us) and the only functional restaurant prepares chicken or fish for 1.5 USD. If you want to eat iguana (bred by the restaurant owners) you will pay more, but hey, at least this delicacy(?) is available at the island! So, despite the relatively expensive trip (30 USD for the boat, but it takes up to 8 people, so if you are with a group, it only costs 3.5USD/person) staying at Isla Gobernadora can be relaxing as well as cheap.

But, like we said, few people get there because it is not mentioned in any guide. And, contrary to their claims, many backpackers are not adventurous at all. So far not one has had the bright idea to rent a boat and have a look at this beautiful island right under their noses in stead of slavishly following their travel book.

That is a problem that we will also have to solve. How do we get people to visit our place without having to wait for the next edition of a travel guide to appear? What we will try is to organize regular transport from Santa Catalina to our place. Many tourists already visit Santa Catalina and this way they get to see the Gulf of Montijo and they do not have to go back the same way they came. On top of that, they can drop of at Isla Gobernadora before continuing to our place (or to Santa Catalina). We plan to organize two trips per week during the coming holiday season and see how it goes.