Communing with nature in Chepo

Jaime Figueroa Navarro

In my childhood years it did not rain in summer and the calm breeze was so refreshing that we never longed for the air conditioner.

In those days we respected nature and the isthmus was adorned with colossal forests chiselled with exotic fruits, small birds of  an interminable trowel of colors, monumental and leafy trees. At dawn we would wake up with the humming of little roosters instead of the roar of “Diablos Rojos”.

We delighted ourselves in the clean waters of the Mamoní river, where we refreshed every morning, frightening the thousands of sardines that we used to feed with breadcrumbs after a succulent breakfast that consisted of gilded scrambled eggs from the backyard chickens, corn tortillas, michita bread and fried plantains, white coffee and cashew tree juice (chicha de marañon) at La Garita, the property at the left hand side of a hill, at the entrance of the town that my great-great-grandfather, the Austrian doctor, Dr. Joseph Katrochwill, gave to my great-grandmother as a gift on one of his trips to Jesus Maria,  at the end of the XIX  century.

The Figueroa “aunts”, a handful of good-natured ladies,  single sisters of my father, spent the summers in Chepo from the beginnings of the last century. Their annual peregrination, after the  Christmas holiday, included the rent of two kids who transported all the utensils, suitcases and endless ironwork things that were kept with special care in a quarter, barred by an enormous yale padlock in their green-colored two story wood house, in the middle of the hill. Outside, darkened by an imposing Star Apple Tree , Oncha’s kitchen. Oncha was  the cook, whose husband, Joaquin, had arrived on foot from his native Colombia through Darién.

In those days, president Ernestito de la Guardia Navarro impelled the agrarian reform in that area of the country with large posters that announced the 1960 census to determine the possessions of the farmers and villagers.

Thursday night films of Cantinflas, Tin Tan and Clavillazo were played at the town theaters at 5 cents each, overwhelmed by strawberry snow cone capped with a double amount of condensed milk, also at 5 cents. The only way of communication with  the capital, exclusively in emergency cases and,  using key words instead of complete sentences, was through the expensive telegraph.

The town’s slaughter house was located at the edge of the property, where Oncha would buy everyday from the butcher Cruz Navarro, two whole fillets for twenty cents apound and would prepare for us  on the wood fire, smoky meat dipped in tomato sauce.

Many years later, the lack of electricity made us buy a kerosene refrigerator which was  the talk of the town. Until that moment, we had to eat all the meat.  The greens house had three huge reddish “tinajas” overflowing the purest water.

The most outstanding moment of the week was on Friday evenings when my father arrived after operating  on a patient at the Panama Hospital, located in the Hatillo of Bella Vista and the white elephant, Santo Tomás Hospital.  The honking of the horn of his blue Chrysler New Yorker, announced his weekend visit, accompanied by cakes, medicines, food and lots of love.

Our dear mother, Mercedes, was also an eldest sister, joining us in adventures and delighting us in tender moments that can only be shared and enjoyed in the dawn of life and it’s then we discover the uniqueness of the maternal love. Memories of  the old days, dear Chepo and isthmian green.