That Thursday morning, I woke up in my hammock suspended across the dock to the sound of pattering rain. Gloomy skies lingered overhead.

Slowly the others came to life, criss-crossing between the schoolhouses where we’d left most of our gear. I packed up all my stuff before setting it aside amongst the many pelican bags in the schoolhouse. Sitting out eating my porridge, the emergence of a small inflatable boat coming up to shore caught my eye. It caught my eye because most of the locals travelled in cayuco, a wooden canoe, and this little boat wasn’t carrying any locals, but instead four plain looking white men. With these communities being so isolated, you get used to not seeing any white people except those that come with you. Curiosity got the best of me, and I walked up towards where they were docking behind one of the casitas. As they emerged from behind shrubbery and wood planking, I saw rain jackets resembling my own, sunglasses, and cream covered noses.

‘Hey man, do you know what time the shop opens?’ one of them said, gesturing towards the shop next to us.

‘I am not sure actually,’ I said. ‘I can try to find out for you though. You guys surfers?’

‘Yeah man. Usually the lady at the shop here just charges us five bucks to dock the boat’

‘Nice. I will ask around.’

Poking my head into the shop, I found the owner, a woman I had befriended during the week. She actually recognised me from the last time I had come into their community all that time ago, and even welcomed me to watch the futbol in her shop the day before. I was able to communicate her message to the surfers. They were heading to the beach across the other side of the peninsula, which was notorious for its brutal and dangerous swells. The riptides got so tenuous that FD actually had a policy for no swimming at the beach after an incident in the past. I had met a local at the beach that told me they regularly get professionals coming through the area to ride the choppy, steep waves. On a few occasions even some professionals had met an untimely end.

As a medic, people sometimes ask me how these high-risk recreational behaviours make me feel. In honest truth, I like it. I like the idea that people should have the liberty to pursue those things in life that bring them joy, even if they carry risk or harm to their health. Life is for living after all, and to me there is no point in anything if people can’t do the things they love. The waves at that beach looked violent even to an untrained observer like me, and these surf bros were well equipped to make their own risk assessments with eyes wide open. Physicians can be a very judgmental bunch, but we’ve all got our vices. I’m an advocate for people taking care of their health, but I’m not interested in protecting everyone with bubble wrap. 

Certainly these surfers were engaging in a high risk exercise. High risk enough even, that one of my colleagues, the acting lead who was a young physician like myself from the UK, felt compelled to give them extra words of caution.

‘The waves out there are really bad,’ she said in her soft English accent. ‘You should really be careful.’

One of the surfers, a burly enough looking lad with shaggy hair, failed at masking his complete disregard for her commentary.

‘Thanks,’ he said before promptly turning away.

Let’s just say my colleague was not particularly pleased with the exchange, which I didn’t find surprising. I had had my own subtle clashes with her over my time here of a similar nature. Some medics, regardless of how pleasant they are, just can’t seem to shake their medical protector complexes. I wondered to myself if she’d ever get tired of telling people what to do. It certainly made working under her less enjoyable than it could have been. Such is life though, and I know well enough to just smile and wave.

That morning, we were expecting to have two home visits come pick us up from the dock early. As we waited and waited, they never turned up, so we spent a few hours essentially doing not much and sitting around in the rain and chatting. I took the chance to walk up the dock and hangout with our captains. Today it was Tati, and my boy Willy, who I knew well from last time around.

‘Tell me Tati,’ I said. ‘From where we’re sitting, how do you gauge the status of the canal outside the bay? Is it something you listen for in the wind? The clouds?’

Tati was a relatively quiet man, and he took a long pause before answering.

‘Not quite Juan. Many years of experience… It’s difficult to explain. I have been on these waters my whole life, and so some things you just know. Sometimes it helps to look here, at the shore,’ he said, pointing to our left at the muddy banks. ‘When the Ocean swells, it gets big. You’ll see it rise here. You should also see the ripples of the currents here kissing the shore. You see how it is now? There’s not much swelling or ripples even though it’s raining. Things are fine now. Calm. Tranquilito.’

Tranquilito it was. Under thickened skies, when the moment came to sail after the house visits never showed (for whatever unknown reason), the water was a far cry difference from what I remembered. Overall the three and a half days we spent in Ensenada on this trip were probably the most tranquilito of any clinic I had ever done. On top of that, I got to share it with the next generation of upcoming physicians with the same dreams that I dream. That afternoon after returning to base, we re-stocked all the equipment before vibing out until dinner. This dinner was actually going to be a special affair, celebrating the birthday of our fearless leader and medical director, Fermin.

After the dinner bell rang, we gathered to eat as music bumped away. A birthday cake then came out, and rambunctious conversations echoed from all directions. There were even a few elixirs passed around. A makeshift dance floor opened between dining tables and without evolving into a full blown dance party, the subtle sway of grooving bodies filled the air. Distracted by the goings on, I noticed at one point I had a missed call from my mom. She often called just to say hello, so I responded with a text. It was around this time my entire trip got turned on its head.

J – Hola Mamita. Todo bien? Estoy ocupado. I’m busy

…

M – Todo bien mi amor! We’re going to Qatar for the final!

…

J – No way! La concha del pato. Fuck.

The festivities around me quickly faded as I zeroed in on what I was reading. The World Cup final, in Qatar no less…Good God! Imagine being there… How my heart had yearned to be with family throughout the entirety of the World Cup run.

As I started telling those around me about my family’s last minute decision. Ber, Fermin, Coco, and even the non-Argentinien staff’s eyes filled with a joyous envy. That text was all I had, but I could extrapolate that the tickets probably came through my brother, a sports lawyer with contacts all over. I was so happy for them, but sighed, knowing the feeling of missing out all too well at this stage in my career. My last two Christmases, all the birthdays, every large gathering my friends had over long weekends or the yearly summer trips to the cottage. Adding another event to that list was par for the course. Still, the questions came rapid fire from those around me as I did my best to keep them at bay. I

‘How’d they get tickets with the game only in three days?’

‘They’re flying out when?’

‘How much did it cost?’

‘Are you going?’

‘No certainly not,’ I said. ‘There’s no way… or wait, hold on…’ I thought to myself.

Am I going?

‘You have to go,’ Fermin said.

‘Como no vas a ir Juan? How can you not go,’ Bernardita said, ‘and with your family!’

A realisation dawned on me. I was a volunteer after all. The rules of engagement here had changed. There were other doctors, and quite a few. The clinics had all been quiet as hell since I got here with ample time to spare. To boot, here was the Medical Director giving me the green light.

‘I have to go,’ I thought to myself.

I sent a text to my mom and to my brother.

‘Give me an hour.’

The journey was going to be difficult, not to mention expensive. I did have savings, and what the hell are savings for if not for this? No matter, I thought. I’ll figure it out. I ran to get my tablet and began searching for ways to make the voyage work. It was now getting late on Thursday night, with the match on Sunday, and too late to catch a ride anywhere until morning. This meant my only chance to land in Qatar before the match would have been to leave the next day from Panama City on the only flight to Madrid before connecting to Qatar. That was going to be a tough sell.

Flights from Bocas to Panama City were thin, especially on short notice, as they happened once a day on small capacity aircraft out of a single landing strip on the island. The online portal for those flights is so obscure that it doesn’t come up on your standard flight search engines. I tried and I tried to find a flight with no avail, and even entertained other connections to get me to the city in nearby Changuinola or David with no luck. I was snookered. While I clicked stressfully and the festivities continued to evolve around me, the staff kept coming by to check on me. When I told them it wouldn’t work, I had more and more circulating around me pouring over maps and suggesting different ways to improvise.

‘Did you try the Copa airlines flight from David to Panama?’ someone said.

‘No they discontinued that,’ said another.

‘I used to work at the airstrip,’ said Kevin, our director of finance, and also a futbol fanatic pulling for Argentina. During my time we became friends, regularly talking about the matches, Lionel Scaloni’s tactics, the matchups, and all things in between. He had a vested interest in living this moment vicariously through me. ‘You can always just show up and try to catch a seat on the plane if someone doesn’t show up. It happens all the time.’

‘What about crossing over to Costa Rica?’ Coco suggested. ‘Try flights to San Jose from Changuinola or David.’

After a series of clicks and clacks I kept meeting the same fate. Nothing on short notice.

‘There’s just no way to get to a big enough airport on such short notice to fly out to Madrid tomorrow afternoon,’ I said. ‘There are no flights.’

‘How about getting to San Jose by bus?’ Kevin said.

‘By bus? Surely that would take too long to get there in time no?’ I answered. That would be through the mountains all the way from mainland here into the Costa Rican capital. That bus runs on single lane highways though rainforest reserves and the likelihood of getting held up or delayed makes it wholly unpredictable on a time crunch.

‘You let me figure that out,’ Kevin said. ‘I am going to make a call and come right back Juan. We’re getting you to that final.’

Before I could look up he had disappeared, almost like the butler from that movie Mr Deeds.

Turns out my time in Panama would be unexpectedly cut short, and not exactly the way I anticipated. In the end, we ironed out a plan. It was going to be a quick turnaround that left me with little time for contemplation, and cost me a fair chunk of change in the process (as if I cared am I right?). Without dwindling on the possibility of failure, I unceremoniously packed my bag and left my things ready before I put my head down, setting the alarm to wake me before sunrise.