My imaginary quarrels with the resident pseudo-primate were replaced the next morning by much more occidental worries. I had been putting off a lot of work for commitments I still had back in Ireland and now it was time to make due. For starters I was chairing a humanitarian medicine conference that was going to be hosted virtually over a span of five days starting the following Monday. Since I had originally planned to stay in Panama for only six weeks, I had expected to be in Ireland to fulfil my duties, not halfway across the world with dodgy jungle internet and burst tropical showers that resembled jet engines roaring against the sheet metal roofing of my casita. Nonetheless, I was still somehow managing to keep my head afloat coordinating a lot of movement from abroad through an endless stream of ‘sounds good to me’ and ‘please don’t hesitate to contact me’ emails plus weekly zoom calls with my fellow organizers and admin personnel from the college. The event was now fast approaching, and I spent way too much time trying to troubleshoot Microsoft teams to find the ins and outs of the platform we would be using. Unfortunately it sucked out a lot of my time on those off days, while the rest of the team was planning for future clinics or attending to matters pertaining to our work. I also had another lovely surprise that had slipped past my radar to stew on: my final med long case exam.
The blessed final med long case. The bane of many an Irish medical student, had now gone online in the era of Coronavirus. A generic alert from administration brought to my attention that my long case was scheduled for the following Wednesday, smack dab in the middle of my last deployment. I saw about getting it moved and then discarded any further thought on the matter for another time. It’s crazy to think how I existed in parallel worlds down here. On the one hand I was walking barefoot all day, dodging anthills, snakes, and looking up for descending kinkajous, and on the other hand I was stressing about zoom conferences and Microsoft teams breakout rooms. I honestly much prefer the former. No amount of snakes would make me want to drown myself like incompetence with technology can.
Another odd duality about Floating Doctors life was or sheer capacity for debauchery at the weekends. We were fifteen minutes boat ride from a proper tourist town, with bars and diving centres that littered the coast. The endless barrage of being offered boat rides to the see the dolphins as I walked through Bocas to get my laundry every Friday never ceased to startle me. I don’t know what it was, something about my body language or my general presence, but even when we walked as a group with Sam and Nicole (the other whites), I was always the one targeted; they locked onto me like heat seeking missiles from a distance. No thank you sir, I don’t need a boat ride to go snorkeling that leaves in fifteen minutes. No sir I have already eaten, but your restaurant looks great. No sir I don’t want cannabis or cocaine, it’s nine-thirty in the morning for goodness sake!
The weekends, now that we had a larger group staying on base, were full of craic. It made it tremendously difficult for me to keep up with my journals, hence my repetitive tardiness over the last month (sorry Flay). Friday evening we went out for Sangria and then hit the town, making sure to check the spots with extended happy hours. As luck would have it, Kelly was borrowing a weed whacker from base which she forgot when she went home after the first locale, so I carried it with me from one bar to the next looking like a b-movie serial killer out for flesh with a rusty handheld lawnmower. Saturday we all spent the night at a friend’s house, which happened more by surprise than by design, and Sunday we completed our good times by getting lunch in town and some hair of the dog on our way back to base. I didn’t really contemplate until now how bizarre it all was, that I essentially went from trust-fund tourist to jungle hopping medic and back again throughout the whole month. It really is a crazy life. I had already learned many of the local sayings, and in particular I was really fond of what they call the three lies of Bocas Del Toro. They are the three lies that everybody tells when they are here.
- I love you
- I’m not drinking anymore
- I am leaving tomorrow
Already once I had meant to leave and changed course. Definitely said I was finished with the boxed wine only to find myself holding a new cup filled with more on several occasions. I was two thirds of the way to the holy trinity. The only thing missing from this tale has been a love interest to fulfill the third lie. Will he find one? Only time will tell. Stay tuned to find out. Perhaps he already has…
Monday marked the beginning of my last week. It was set to bring a new set of interesting challenges. For starters, I spent two hours of Monday differed away from all things tangible in exchange for the virtual. One of our conference speakers was a securities specialist for Medicines Sans Frontieres. He had experience working in post genocide Rwanda (believe it or not, after the slaughtering of 800 000 people over 100 days things did not just go back to normal), Chechnya during the Chechen wars, and in Myanmar throughout the Rohingyan refugee crisis. He spoke a lot about the ethical dilemmas that are faced by humanitarians during their missions in those parts of the world. In particular he shared stories of political pressure, neutrality, and limited resources against a level of human suffering that even I myself cannot fathom. His talk was so inspiring, it brought me some much needed humility. The work that we were doing here in Panama was important, no doubt; but still, no matter where I found myself within these mountains or these islands, there was nobody that wanted me dead, no landmines, bombs, or political pressures that made things impossible for us to do our work. I was never more than eight hours away from a good plate of food and a cold drink if I really wanted one. The same cannot be said of millions of people around the world still in 2021. It fanned that fire within me to seek more, as much as it might break my worrying mother’s heart. While I am sure that my destiny is now inextricably linked to the people of these islands, there is still so much that needs to be done.
All that being said, right here and now, there are people that need still help, and they don’t live in Chechnya, Myanmnar, or Rwanda. They live right here in Panama.
At 7am on Tuesday morning our boat sailed out for my last deployment. Cayo de Agua was our next stop.
