Carlene Nelson
Every experience is different but it is hard not to compare. It's another year for the mission team in Panama - and it is the rainy season! It is REALLY the rainy season. My poncho rarely left its pouch last year but it hangs from the corner of my bunk dripping whenever we return - and it doesn't even dry over night. 
It rained so hard at the clinic at Bongo last week that the pounding on the metal roof made normal conversations impossible. Ribbons of water shot off the edge of the roof spaced by the 3 inch grooves of the corregated metal. The pasture beside the building was taking on the characteristics of a shallow lake by the time the bus with the construction crew on our team arrived for the ride back to Volcan. The tile work at the church is, fortunately, mainly indoors and the rains don't usually arrive until afternoon. Evening walks to the Internet Cafe require rain gear - and it is next door to the camp. The women's showers in our dorm have been unreliable so the female members of the team have developed a real appreciation for some of the life circumstances of those we serve here - no warm showers. The road to the left as we make the final turn to the Bongo Clinic is presently impassable to cars and the local bus- forcing patients to walk and sometimes in the rain. Financial times are harder this year in Panama. We've seen far more horses as a means of transportation. A local politician has brought patients to and from clinic - a pre-election incentive perhaps. True shacks along the Bongo road that were unoccupied last year now house multi-generational families- who wave at us through the bamboo slats that are walls. There are free range chickens everywhere and the family at the corner have a small pig - sometimes on a rope and sometimes free too. Our need for more translators this year has expanded our circle of affiliations - a rotation of 3 Peace Corps volunteers and a German exchange student who had returned to visit her Panamanian host family this summer have become part of our team. They are delightful and it is a reassuring look into the future. It is another year - different yet hopeful!
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