Cough

We hit the road in a little bus that felt as sturdy as sheet metal. They pack you into these things like livestock. Buses are everywhere in Panama. The big school buses I mentioned before, over-sized vans that hold about twenty or so people, and then the taxis crammed with travelers. Seats are ripped, your ass is your cushion, and air conditioning is unheard of.

So off we went, puttering into the hills north of Boquete to see a waterfall and take a dip in a brook. I was smushed between an indigenous man with a toddler on his knee on my left and a farmer on my right. My short backrest had its insides exposed and, due to its low height, I had to keep my abdominal muscles clenched to stay relatively upright. It was an unusually hot day and I smelled exhaust whipping through the windows.

We were just out of town when the coughing started. The indigenous man's wife - wearing the traditional dress, a kind of pastel colored, full length muumuu - kicked it off. It was a dry cough on 15 second intervals.

Then the toddler started, but faster. Every time he took a breath, the exhale was accompanied by wispy little "cahck...cahck." He didn't slow down. He didn't cover his mouth. He was unabashed. "Cahck...cahck."

Then the father. His coughs came less often but they were deeper, rougher.

I looked at the kid. And if you overlooked a strange mix of what seemed to be dirt and dried food smeared around his mouth, he was cute as can be. Wide-eyed and wondrous, looking out at the flora hurtling by. But I couldn't get past his whole family of coughers. Was it lack hygiene? Just a temporary cold? How much longer till I get out of this bus? Why didn't we spend an extra dollar and take a cab? "Cahck...cahck."

Then the driver lurched around a corner and we all got thrown to the right. The kid, balancing on his dad's knee, lifted his hands to grab hold of something. He found my bare knee.

I looked left, he looked at me, and he coughed in my face. It was instinctual. I jerked my knee away from the kid and he pulled his hand back. I wanted to feel sorry for the little guy, or at least I wanted to not be bothered by whatever he was trying to get out of his respiratory system. But I didn't feel either of those things. It was stifling hot, the family was in a goddamn cough chorus, and I just wanted to get out of that bus. To get away from this infected child.

Soon enough, the bus driver pulled over next to a little waterfall and my friends said this was the stop. I got out quickly and we wandered to a little pool in the brook, settling down for an afternoon of sipping beers and dipping into the cold mountain water.

Eventually, we decided to walk the two miles back to town. It had cooled down a bit and the walk was supposed to be gorgeous, a scenic road through hills and coffee farms. We left and along the way we stopped to pick coffee seeds, which, before they are harvested, are actually moist and sweet.

I was sucking on my third coffee seed when we approached a little compound of concrete huts, with kids running around and the traditionally dressed women looking on. There were a few tent-like structures as well, with layers of tarps strung up to trees to provide shelter from the wind and rain.

But coming from one of the tents was the smell of smoke. I couldn't see a fire but the smell was unmistakable. As we walked past, I looked into a make-shift door and saw a charcoal black pot sitting on a fire. It was sitting on an open fire inside the tent. There was a little cloud of smoke, seeping out the holes and cracks. I thought of the cute little kid with the stuff on his face.