Reminiscing

 This evening I retreated to the hammock for a little. The sunset painted the few clouds in wonderful hues of yellow, orange and red. In the distance I could hear the roar of the waves breaking on Playa Estero. It was already a little cooler. No mosquitoes. Chicken scurrying around to catch a last worm before retiring in the coup. Weibi, the little dog that adopted me when I first came to panama to stay, laying close by on the earthen floor… lovely situation for pondering, reminiscing…

Then somebody turned on the outside lights - a string of little 0.5 W LED bulbs all around the picknick table and the hammocks.  Among the light bulbs were also colored ones - blue, red, green… That reminded me of my highschool years, when my best friend and I started to work on founding a new highschool fraternity in our hometown. I remembered our “Burschen Strophe”:

Wo zum blauen Himmel ragen

Tauerngipfel stolz und kühn

Morgenrot die Zinnen tragen

Und die Hänge Waldesgrün

Hab’ ich meinen Eid geschworen

Auf das blau-rot-grüne Band

Das sich Küenburg auserkoren

Treue, Gott, und Vaterland

Treue, Gott, und Vaterland

Whao! 40 years later still remember the verse! 

Loyalty, God, and Fatherland! 

Loyalty, God, and Fatherland? Hm… much has changed since then! Much I learned, realized, discovered. Then, I took all that talk, all the conservative ideas very seriously; believed with all my heart these were the right believes, it was the truth, obvious reality!

Now, it’s almost as if I believe the opposite!

Fatherland? The idea of “fatherland” has been used as excuse to start many a war. It is nothing but animal instinct (instinct of survival of myself and my offspring), wrapped in human language. In nature, everything is about competition: competition about territory, about mating partners, food, and so much more. I no longer believe “fatherland” is important. It’s actually detrimental to our survival! Today’s biggest problems cannot be solved by one or another fatherland; but only if ALL people of this planet are working together! As long as we continue with the “us versus them” mentality, we’re continuing to head towards self destruction!

I now believe more in the concept of Mother Earth, than Father Land!

God? Aye aye aye! What nonsense have I been told about that topic! In essence: there is this old fart with grey beard sitting in the sky, watching what I do, writing down all the bad things. Once this world is over, there’s going to be the final judgement, during which “the loving father” decides whether I was good enough to be admitted to his paradise, or whether I’m going to be sent to hell, to be tortured for all eternity. 

Really?!? Split second on this planet determines my fate for eternity? What kind of love is that, to condemn anything to any place, and especially to a hell? Major BS, I would say today! Heck, we don’t have the intellectual capacity to understand much of this world! How foolish to believe we can understand what is outside of this world! 

I now believe, that almost everything that’s happening in this world can be explained by law of nature and cause and effect. There are only three things that seem to be more likely an “outside influence”. These are:

Coincidents - it is way too often that I end up in a situation where it seems important and beneficial that I am there. Either - more earlier in life - for me to learn something, to become aware of something, to practice my skills, hone my talents. Or - more and more later in life - because of who, how, and what I am, believe, like, and do; there’s a contribution needed and I can make it, and the likelihood this contribution will be made is the highest if I am there, and not anybody else.

Ideas - rather than just the product of neurological activity in my brain, it seems more likely, that I’m being given ideas. It’s a way for the outside to inject something new into this system, without breaking any of the rules! And through me, this “something” can now enter this system; and from then on, it is part of the system, and follows the same rules, causes impact and is impacted…

Passion - it seems every person has a topic that is dear to their heart. You may find yourself in a situation, where you are already very tired, ready to call it a day. Then a topic comes up, and suddenly your ears perk up, your eyes open wide, you reawake, are ready to do something. This is your topic! You already had no energy, but now you somehow have a lot of energy again! Where does that energy come from? I choose to believe, your soul is drawing energy from outside of the system, as it is the topic your soul incarnated for to work on…

What is “the outside”? Why is there an outside of the system and a system? I have no idea! And I don’t think we can know! But, anybody can observe these three things mentioned! It seems to point at the fact, that there is “an outside of the system” and that it seems to influence this system a little through these three methods…

You can call this god. But it has absolutely nothing to do with what I have been indoctrinated as youngster to believe god would be…

Finally, Loyalty? Loyalty to whom, to what, and in what way, shape, or form? In the context of the fraternity, of course, it was loyalty to the fraternity, to the purported definition of god, to the fatherland, to conservative ideas, to your friends, your family, your wife… This is a very dangerous, slippery slope!

I now believe, that most things for which Loyalty is demanded turn out to be wrong! Today, the only thing I am loyal to is the idea, that we are the tools the universe uses to continue the development of this creation. That it’s not so important what’s happening TO me (to anyone); but that what matters is, what’s happening THROUGH me (through each of us)! It’s not about me - I’m about it!

Did I abandon the things I swore to upkeep? 

The things in the original, narrow minded definition: yes! Definitely! 

But, the same things in a wider, wiser definition, I support fully, completely, and wholeheartedly!

All that, triggered by blue, red, green LED bulbs, in a place a world away from my old hometown, at a time a lifetime away from my teenage years…

Priorities

Quite late in my life - feels way too late! - I realized the difference between hotels and hostals. 

I was travelling a lot for work and for fun. And always stayed in a hotel. In my 50s I was introduced to AirBnB - the original one, before they lost their way and changed their mission from facilitating personal intercultural connection into maximizing profit. And finally, at almost 60, I stayed in a hostal. In Austria the name is (used to be): youth hostal. So I thought: well, I‘m an old fart now, but if they do not kick me out, I’ll try it!

They didn’t kick me out!

My experience was life-changing! (Ha! Now we’re owner-opperating a hostal in Santa Catalina, Veraguas, Panama! So, definitely life-changing!)

You see, in a hotel nobody is talking to anybody. Everybody has their invisible, protective wall around them. If I sometimes tried to start a conversation in the best case a 3 sentence smalltalk ensued, in a tone and facial body language that made it clear it wasn’t appreciated but just barely tolerated. Most often, the folks looked at me as if saying: why do you talk to me? Are you weird? What do you want from me? These were not questions, but statements - despite the sentence structure and punctuation!

In a hostal it is the opposite! Everybody talks to everybody! If you don’t, you are weird! In the last few years I met so many amazing, interesting and interested people! The places I’ve visited are no longer bringing a smile to my face, when remembering or looking at pictures. The people I met, however, surely do!

There’s only one problem: they all have only single beds! And when travelling with your partner, it sucks to have to spend the night separated! Especially when you get older, because you are much more aware of how little time we have on this planet, how little of that little time is still ahead of you, and - most of all - that it is not guaranteed that your partner is still going to be on your side the day after tomorrow.

With that in mind, when the floorplan of our hostal necessitated two bunkbeds parallel to each other next to each other, I suggested to Iris, to make it a doublebed bunkbed instead of two single bunkbeds. I thought, couples would appreciate this opportunity a lot, especially those, who are on longer trips - some of them are travelling for several

Bunkbed with queensize mattress

Today, again, a couple inquired about beds. When hearing that two single beds cost them 20$, and the one double bed costs 22$, they decided to take the single beds. They saved 2 dollars per night! Whao! With minimum wage income of 15$/hour, that is somewhere around 8 minutes of work.

When folks are young, time doesn’t matter, and time with your partner is taken for granted. Being older, having had more experiences and less time left, time - especially time with my partner! - is more important than good food, than seeing another sight, more important than pretty much anything!

I guess, priorities change with time…

Water problems

We tried to fill the new reserve water tank today. It filled well. But, a few minutes later the tank toppled over!

foundation not level and/or firm enough

Let’s start at the beginning…

One of the challenges of living in Panama is that services we take for granted in Europe and largely in the US too, are not available 24/7. The internet via fibreoptics is the exception - that’s super reliable! We had onle 2outages in more than 2 years. It is faster and better than the internet connection my family has in rural Austria!

Well, electricity and water are a totally different story!

The water association that supplies the hostal sends water only every morning from about 6 to about 10. If you want to have water during the other hours of the day, you need to have a reserve water tank. And, if that tank is not placed about 2 m (7 ft) above the highest shower head, you also need a pump.

We had 2 such tanks installed, with a combined volume of about 2,100 liters (600 gallons). And we had a pump installed as well.

During the high season we had at times 15+ guests staying with us, plus us two, and 2 workers. It turned out, the capacity of these tanks was not enough! Every evening the tanks were empty, and during the night there was no water for the toilets or the sinks.

So we replaced the 1100 liter tank with a 1700 liter one, and tried to find space for more tanks. Instead of only the swimming pool tank, we placed two more drinking water tanks next to the pool, and created an involved system of tubes from and to where the original water supply was connected to the system in the house.

Tank farm - pool tank, plus two reserve water tanks

Reserve tanks on and under platform, pool tank to the left

With that, I thought, we should be ready for the next main season…

It’s the low season right now, and we have only one guest. So the original 1000 liter tank was quite sufficient. But, yesterday, our neighbor told us, that power company cut the power supply to the association’s water turbine! Apparently, they didn’t pay the electricity bill for 3 months! Today would be the last time we would receive water, until that situation is cleared up!

So we got up early this morning and started filling all our reserve tanks. 5400 liters (1400 gallons)! That should keep us hydrated for a week or so. Hopefully they will have figured out a solution to get the water flowing again by then!

Well, once the first tank was filled, it toppled over!🤦‍♂️ 1,700 kg leaning against the washing machine and the drain pipe from the second floor! 😫

Luckily, the other big tank wasn’t full yet, so I was able to find a way to pump the water from the damaged tank into the other one. Phew! But 1700 liters less in reserve… 🤷‍♂️😩

Let’s see if the damaged tank is salvageable. First, i need to put a concrete slap, to ensure nothing is moving anymore, then try to straighten out the tank’s side, and probably also adjust the tubing as the level has changed… 

There I was, thinking I would retire and have an easy life! 😝 Instead I ended up getting sucked into building two homes, and operating a hostal, plus helping run a restaurant! 🤦‍♂️🤪🤷‍♂️

Well, one day, maybe, retirement hits me too… 👍😊👍

Regrets…

 The topic of regrets comes up every now and then in conversations. And so far, there is not much in my life that I regret. Having had to leave my daughter and son in Austria when I migrated to the US after the divorce was the only thing that would come to mind…

Today, I realized another thing that I regret…

When we came home to the hostal this evening after closing the restaurant we found all the guests gathered around the kitchen table chatting, having fun, planning the evening together. They decided to go to the beach together to see if they might encounter luminescent plankton… What a great experience for them! Different nations, different walks of life, joining on an adventure together!

This makes me so happy! As this was the big goal behind the effort of building this hostal! All the hard work over the last three years, the stresses and challenges, it all paid off! The experiment succeeded! Yeay!

So what’s the regret, you might ask. Well, most of my career I was a consultant/contractor. I was always travelling. And almost always solo. I used to say, the only bad thing about this type of work is, that I have to eat alone every night…

Today I realized, I should have looked for hostals, instead of hotels!!! Then I would always have come home to a bunch of interesting and interested people, instead of an empty hotel room. I could have shared the meal time with other travellers, exchanged stories and ideas, built friendships with people from all over the planet! Not having thought of this earlier, that is my other regret!

About sustainability and environmental impact of Hostal/Homestay Un Mundo

When designing and building our Hostal/Homestay Un Mundo in Santa Catalina, Soná, Veraguas, Panama I had sustainability and environmental impact in the forefront of my mind. 

there’s only 1 world. we have only 1 planet to live on. we’re only 1 people. let’s all work together, not against each other!

Hostalworld, which is one of the booking site on which we are listed, sent an email today encouraging their partners to think more about these topics. The recommendations they gave are good, yet only a small part of what we tried to do here. I thought I write a little bit about these topics various ways we made sustainability and impact a driving and deciding factor…

They also did some research comparing hostals with hotels, and found, based on their estimates, that hotels have 4 times as much of a negative impact. This report can be found here. The exact number, of course, is dependent on the quality of the estimates. But, it’s pretty obvious that if the average persons per room (and bathroom) is higher, the per bed amount of material and energy used for construction is smaller, and operations and maintenance of that space is less involved as well.

In our case, though, we applied a building style and used materials during construction that have a much better sustainability score than the typical or average construction.

Here some aspects:

* We don’t use concrete walls, but wood - concrete is a very strong CO2 source. Also, concrete soaks up the heat of the sun, turning rooms into baking ovens. Wood, on the other hand, acts as an insulation!

* Our walls are not solid, but are mostly thin lattice with quite wide gaps. There’s always a breeze in the room. And the cool night air can easily enter the room. To protect against mosquitoes we wrapped the whole house in insect screens.

* Roofs in Panama are mostly made of sheet metal. Ever touched some metal that was laying in the sun for a while? It gets very quickly very hot! If the roof touches the concrete all that heat gets absorbed and stored by the concrete. We have the roof far removed from concrete. Although the mansard apartment gets very hot during the day, by 18:00 it’s already cooled down enough to be comfortable again. And during the night I need a sheet to cover because it’s too cold without it!

* Our wood was resourced at the closest sawmill, which gets its wood from the forest behind their house. With that the transportation distances for the wood was minimal.

all the wood is sourced locally or repurposed

* We use only local wood (except the doors, which are prefabricated, made of pine, and transported). For walls that can get wet from the rain we use teak. For other purposes we used whatever type the sawmill had available that day.

* While we bought lots of normal boards, too, we also used many “chapones” - these are the first pieces of wood sawed off a log. They are rounded and with bark. Usually, these boards are discarded. We removed the bark, and cut lattice from them, with which we built the side walls. That wood, thus, is not rotting putting the carbon in the form of CO2 back into the atmosphere, instead the carbon stays bound as wood in our walls.

* Virtually all other hotels and hostals in the area need air conditioning to achieve a comfortable sleeping environment. We don’t need a/c - thus, our electricity bill is around 40$/month, instead of 300$ or more.

* The high humidity in the air causes mold and mildew, if there’s no air is not moving. Usually, people fight this by using harsh chemicals frequently on all surfaces. By having a very airy wall design, the air is always moving, so we do not need to apply such chemicals - which is healthier for the inhabitants and better for the environment, too.

large windows add to the breeziness of the rooms

long time no post…

 I haven’t written anything in a long while! I guess, it was just too busy a time, the last few months…

With mid December the rainy season came to an end, and with the dry season came the season for tourists. On the northern hemisphere, this is the cold time, and many people flock to the tropics to avoid the ice and snow. 

By mid January we had our first dormitory, two of the toilets and one of the showers ready, so we decided to try to put it on Hostalworld and AirBnB. 

curtains to add privacy

very rustic, but functional

Whao! We very quickly got many guests! And, what is even more exciting, many of them extended several days beyond what they booked!

Even though we still were working on the second, larger dormitory, and there was a lot of dust and materials between the entrance to the floor and the ready dormitory, the feedback we received was very positive. 

upstairs are dormitories, downstairs a private room and dormitory for workers and volunteers

I tried to build in a way that allows us to get by without air condition and that folks are not locked away and isolated from the world. There are big spaces between the lattice that make up the wall on one side, and on the other side there’s more window than wall. We wrapped the whole house in mosquito netting, to ensure that no insects crawl around the people while sleeping. Still, there’s a breeze in the room all the time, and in the night the cool, fresh air fills the room. 

It all was an experiment. I am happy it worked out well! Most of our guests appreciate the design a lot. You can hear the sounds of the night like in a tent, but with the comfort of a real bed…

Having many guests in the hostal, often many guests also in the evenings at the restaurant, and continuing the work at the hostal, driving to the 2 1/2 hr away Santiago to find materials for the construction and ingredients for the restaurant, it was a super busy time!

There’s much more to talk about! I guess, I’ll write some more posts later…

sunset at the village beach

For now: greetings from lovely Santa Catalina, Soná, Veraguas, Panamá…

Trump - beloved the world around…

There’s a custom for new year’s celebrations in Panama to build a puppet and burn it around midnight on 31st of December.

Well, the people in Panama didn’t appreciate Trump’s last brainless comment in a string of such, where he mused about taking control of the Panama Canal. I happen to drive by a pair of such puppets today, ready to be burnt…

 

On first sight maybe amusing. But knowing how Panamanians feel about the canal, this is a clear signal to Trump about what would expect him should he be stupid enough (which he often proved to be) to try to follow through with this idea: All the people of Panama resisting! 

Panama has no military. But he would have to fight all the civilians! Men, women, and children! Would his military comply with his orders? Would turn them into war criminals right away… If they would, how would the Europeans react? How would Russia react to a break in Nato? How would the Chinese react? 

Many questions, which nobody at this time can answer for sure. But I hope we never have to find out in reality…

Sounds a bit sarcastic, but still: happy new year! Happy new quarter century!