Welp, I officially completed the hardest workout of my life on Thursday night.  Or at least in recent memory.  Maybe just since the first day of capoeira.  But whatever, it sucked or was great, depending if you’re a normal person or one of those crazy folks who thrives on pain and that pukey feeling you get when it’s a bazillion degrees outside and you’re doing sit-ups for your “cool down” because a big guy named Monkey told you to.  What have I gotten myself into?

I’ll get to that in a minute though.  First, let’s talk about something happy.  Wednesday was nice.  We had music practice for capoeira, and I had my second lesson playing the berimbau, a Brazilian instrument that looks like an overgrown bow (as in, bow and arrow, but no arrow) with a goard attached to the bottom.  You balance this huge crazy thing on your pinky finger, stabilize it with a couple of other fingers. You then use your thumb and pointer finger to hold a flat round stone and press it against the wire-type thing on the bow-like part.  There are Portuguese names for all of these things, but I’ll be durned if I know them.  So then, using your other hand, you hit the wire with a stick, and you also hold a little basket filled with seeds that you shake to make another sound.  It’s all quite complicated.  It takes a lot of coordination just to hold all the parts, and then you have to try to make it sound good.  Or right at least.  I haven’t decided whether I think they sounds good.

So my friend George is a great berimbau player and a great teacher, so he taught me two different rhythms last night.  Moisés showed up after a bit and played and sang with us.  It was really nice to be in a low pressure environment with just the two of them.  They are two of my favorites, truth be told, so I had a lot of fun.

Moisés is always upbeat and has a wonderful smile.  He was also the one who I played capoeira with in my first roda during my first practice, so he’ll always be special to me.  Just a genuinely super nice guy.  He always asks me about Eric and asks me to tell him hello.  He’s also the fastest speaking person in the whole group.  I can hardly ever understand him – at least not the first time around and not if he’s not speaking directly to me and slowing down for me.  At least he knows he’s like this, so he doesn’t get frustrated with me – at least outwardly – when I can’t understand him.  I want to!  I try!

George’s nickname is Presidente.  Come to think of it, I don’t know the story behind that, so I’ll have to ask.  He’s Colombian, and most Colombians will tell you that they speak the clearest Spanish of anyone.  I tend to agree for the most part.  He makes funny faces when he plays berimbau, so he’s fun to be around.  He was also nice to me on Day 1 of capoeira, so that has stuck with me.

So yes, that part was happy.  Then Thursday, I was supposed to meet up with a Venezuelan fashion designer.  What?!  I know.  Strange.  I found out through this online expat group that I’m a part of that this woman named Ruth Leal is having a fashion show at this super hip hotel/bar in Casco Viejo in a couple of weeks:

I’ve always wanted to go to a fashion show, and I need to meet some more people here, so I decided to reach out to her and see if I could help out in some way.  That would be cool, right?  Turns out she’s all of 20ish years old…or at least that’s how she looks…but she was very nice and offered to meet up with me to talk about how I could help.

So on Tuesday of this week, I got all dressed up, put on makeup for probably the third time in as many months here, used my hair straightener for the first or second time b/c jeez, it’s too hot to put more heat in your hair, and picked up my pink heels.  I psyched myself up a little b/c I just had this feeling that a beautiful 20 year old in the fashion world who started her conversation with me by saying “you have to learn Spanish, you live in Panama,” was bound to just hurt my feelings.  Right?  I don’t even feel the need to explain myself there.  So as I was about to walk out the door to meet her at, of course, a juice bar, she texted saying her meeting had run long and she couldn’t meet with me that day.  Arg.  Really late in telling me, but what are you gonna do, right?  And of course I got makeup on my dress when changing back into my everyday uniform (running shorts and a tshirt) b/c I’m not accustomed to all the getup.

So fine.  We’ll meet on Thursday.  No problem.  I got ready again.  Same dress, straightener, makeup, heels, todo.  Eric gave me a ride because I can’t legally drive here until we do our run to Costa Rica.  I found the juice bar, ordered some fancy overpriced lemonade with mint, and waited.  30 minutes later, I decided I was over it.  I pulled my rainbows out of my purse, traded them out for my heels, and walked home.

I’m not sure quite what happened or whether I’m willing to try again, but for Thursday, I was done.  That was it.  When she finally got back to me, so told me she was in the area and could meet up.  I was back at home with my shorts on by that time.  NOPE!

So, that brings us to CDO practice (capoeira practice) on Thursday night.  The rainy season has begun, so there’s starting to be more humidity.  We’re still keeping our windows open so far, but things are starting to feel a little sticky.  Like the key fob for the car.  When I picked it up to go to practice, it was sticky and a little damp.  Gross.  Exactly what you want when you’re about to go get your butt handed to you by Mono.

When I got there, there were two people that I didn’t recognize, but who had apparently been there long before I joined the group.  They both had perfectly sculpted bodies and each had an immediately recognizable annoying trait.  I greeted the guy upon coming up to the group, and when we did the cheek kiss thing, he was SOAKED with sweat already.  At 6pm.  Before practice started.  It was nasty.  Then whenever we were paired up, he kept wanting to give me high-tens, which meant I had to touch him again.  Lots of sweat.  Gross.  The girl was gorgeous and tall and skinny and obviously had done this before, which is all fine and well.  But while I was dying, she kept jumping around between exercises like a tennis player about to receive a serve.  She must not be 30 yet.  I found both of them on facebook later on and realized that she actually is some kind of model and – shocker – even more beautiful in those photos.  Wow.  Incredible photos.

So, back to my humiliation.  At last week’s practice, we started doing a bit of running, some grapevines, and other bball type warmups at the beginning.  Fine by me…it was slow last week, not much of it, just enough to get your heart going.  This week, however, Mono picked up the pace, and I had one of the faster guys behind me, right at my heels.  I’m not in great shape, but my pride won’t listen to my body when it says that.  This has been a problem in this heat.

Next, we lined up like we usually do when we’re going to do some slower, more controlled movements across the pavilion (have I ever said that this is all in an outdoor, open-air pavilion?  No a/c, folks.  Say a prayer that we find a new place to practice soon.  Hard, slippery concrete.  It’s super fun.).  I like this part of training most of all.  I’m not good at it, but it is the part where I get to watch the others, to practice, to learn, to slow down and concentrate.  Mono, however, started doing suicides instead.  Racing against another person.  Pride on the line.  Awesome.

I was paired up with Paola, a rather competitive woman who helped to start this group. I really wanted to beat her because there’s no way I can out-capoeira her.  So we’re off!  First line, no trouble.  Second line, she’s a little ahead, but I’m still moving.  Third line, I feel myself lose control, and suddenly, there’s nothing I can do.  I’m going to hit the ground hard.  My feet went completely out from under me.  My body was going a heck of a lot faster than my feet, and I crashed to the floor with a huge “OOH!” from the whole group.  I got up and finished out the run with a smile on my face, trying to shrug off the total 7th grade gym class embarrassment of it all, and joined the rest of the group who each asked me about three times, “estas bien?”  Si, si, estoy bien.  It’s just my pride that’s crushed.  Oh, and that hip that you can see bleeding all over my clothes.

This whole post came off as one big complaint…I meant for it to be funny.  Hmm…that didn’t work out so well.  Sorry!  I actually think that the whole thing was hilarious, and I’m proud of my battle wounds.  I just wish I had the vocabulary to be able to explain myself and expose my personality more to these new friends!  I’m sure I’m such a flat personality to most of them…just as I’ve realized some people I haven’t been able to communicate with in the past have been to me.  If you never see or understand what’s inside them, it’s hard to imagine what might be there.  Does that make sense?

Next Tuesday we’re leaving to go to Boquete (a cooler part of the country towards the Costa Rican border), then to do our first border run.  You get a 180 day tourist visa in Panamá, but you can only drive legally with a foreign driver’s license for 90 days.  We’ve been here about 100 days now, so it’s time to go to Costa Rica for a minute.  We’re hoping to just go over and back as quickly as possible, but we’ve heard all kinds of stories about people being told they had to stay out of Panamá for 24-72 hours.  We’re semi-prepared for all different kinds of things, so I just need to make sure my expectations are sufficiently low before we leave.

After we get that done, we’ll hopefully head down to Santa Catalina and spend some time at the beach.  My friend from high school who has lived here since she graduated from college, Brie, and her husband John own a little hotel there, so we’ve been anxious to check it out.  John used to be a professional surfer, and Santa Catalina is apparently the place to go to surf.  Who knows?  Maybe we’ll try it out.