A Perfect Description of Rain in Panama

When we found out we were moving to Panama - (well, it happened so quickly that it seemed like someone had just told us we needed to move) - anyway…..a woman in our little town in Mexico, who was an acquaintance, had heard the news, so gave us a call and left a message one busy Saturday afternoon.  When I called her back, she told me she had a book about the Panama Canal that she would like to give us if we would just come and get it.  Since we had quite the interest in the Canal and it's history, we decided to go and get it.

 "The Path Between The Seas"  was like new -- and my husband got into it right away.  He would frequently stop his reading to tell me a tidbit of this or that.  Or he would raise his heads and say, "Did you know _________?"  It was fascinating - and he read it every chance he got - all the way through Central America to Panama, finishing it just before we arrived here in our final destination.

This week, my mom has been visiting, and so she has been reading the book as well.  Funny thing about the moisture in Panama.  Now the pages are swollen and it looks as if it has ben read 100 times!  She has been reading it with as much enjoyment as Bob had.  Mom got to this part in the book about the rain and shared it with me.  It's perfect!  Almost daily we hear the rain making it's way across the valley, dancing on tree leaves and tin roofs until it gets to us and begins pounding on ours.  Read this - it is an incredible description…..

“But no statistic conveyed a true picture of Panama rain.  It had to be seen, to be felt, smelled; it had to be heard to be appreciated.  The effect was much as though the heavens had opened and the air had turned instantly liquid.

 “The skies, when it was not raining, were nearly always filled with tremendous, towering clouds – magnificent clouds, and especially so in the light of early morning.  Then there would be an unmistakable rush of wind in the trees, a noticeable drop in temperature, a quick darkening overhead followed by a sound that someone likened to the ‘trampling of myriad feet’ through leaves.  In villages and towns everyone would instinctively dash for cover.  From the hills at Culebra the jungle could be seen to vanish before onrushing silver cataracts of rain, and howler monkeys would commence their eerie ruckus.

 “If one were to wait out the storm beneath a corrugated iron roof, the sound was like that of a locomotive.  Often these storms became violent thunderstorms, with lightning ‘so stunning,’ wrote one American, ‘it just makes a person feel as though he were drunk.’ And then, while the trees still tossed and roared, the rain would be over – in an instant.  The sun would be out again, fierce as ever.  Everything would glisten with rainwater and the air would be filled with the fecund, greenhouse smell of jungle and mud.”

            “The Path Between the Seas” by David McCullough, pgs. 132-133.

And every day, as it comes our way, we still look forward to it.  There's really something beautiful about it...