Thick Black Plastic

By our guests: Marijke Groenendijk and Bas Warmenhoven

So there you are in Panama, visiting your family (-in-law), and what are you doing then? Not only the garden variety holiday activities like reading books and swimming, you are also expected to put in some working hours at the finca, which is the property of Tanager Tourism. One of our activities to help Loes was a visit to Quebro to transport some black plastic from a bankrupt shrimp farm. This plastic had already earned a good reputation in Quebro and around and had been sighted on many a roof as a reparation patch and also on the backs of several horses.

There are photos to of this event (but with dutch texts)!

www.flickr.com/photos/tanagertourism

Loes had planned to drive the pick-up truck to Quebro to pick up the plastic together with us and Justino, one of the finca’s employees. As the plastic had become a valued commodity, two other inhabitants of Palmilla were also interested to add some of the black plastic to their inventories. So the six of us drove the 25 kilometres (15 miles) to Quebro together in the pick-up.

The road to Quebro is an easy drive, just like many of Panama’s roads. This stretch of road does however include a number of huecos (pot holes) of an impressive size. One of the pot holes reached halfway across the road, causing the lane on our side of the road to disappear completely in a big hole. The last part of the drive up to the former shrimp farm, which we believe has not passed the stage of the construction of a dozen large hatching ponds, was on a road with big holes that contained water up to 30 centimeters (1 foot) deep. For Bas, who had been driving the pick-up multiple times before, this presented a new challenge. Fortunately, we did not get stuck and the mud splashes landed outside our vehicle.

When we arrived at the shrimp farm, the next challenge was reversing the car across the narrow dike between the ponds. The tall vegetation made it difficult to see the tracks of cars that previously drove up there. When the car was parked properly, the work could start.

The first thing we all saw clearly was that we were not the first to use the thick plastic. Some of the ponds were still filled with 2,5 metres (8 feet) of water, whereas in others the water level had dropped to fairly low or had completely disappeared as a result of the removal of the plastic on the bottom of the ponds. Big sections had been cut out of the plastic.

The challenge of the job turned out to be the weight of big cut-out sections of the plastic, combined with the slippery mud on the bottom of the ponds. Although the pond from which we took our pieces of plastic had almost dried up, the mud was very slippery and sometimes all six of us needed to be involved to drag a piece of plastic up to the dike. Here, the steep, muddy slope caused many slipping and several people ended up taking a mud bath. Fortunately it was a warm day and we could take a bath in one of the intact ponds to clean ourselves.

Finally we folded six pieces of plastic in a manner that allowed them to fit in the back of the pick-up, with on top of them the men who had worked so hard to gather the plastic. After dropping off each of them with their plastic at their houses, it was time for a well-deserved (cold) shower!

The plastic for Tanager Tourism has now been placed on the roof of the finca workshop and a tiny part on the ‘roof’ of the nursery.

We are looking back to a great holiday!