Protests and Finca Land

Yesterday we drove up the mountain a bit to Cerro Punta which is where the majority of the produce is grown in Panama. Just driving through made me think of ways we can get back there someday to work for a bit. There is food growing everywhere up there. Even on the side of the road! Beautiful. Notice how they farm on the side of the hills. Amazing.

Cerro Punta is in the Chiriqui region along with Volcan which is where we have been staying. We happen to be stuck here right now. Literally. Not a shabby place to to stuck though.

An indian group is mad at the government. The Ngäbe-Bugle indians have a right to their land. There's a law that says so. Except the government thinks it's ok to mine what's under that land as theirs. For example, iron, copper, gold, etc. This naturally ticked off the indians because it's their land.

So, they are protesting. This means that the Interamerican highway (the only main road that goes from Panama city all the way up to Mexico) is being blocked by burning tires and thousands of people. Fun. This road block is between Panama city and the Chiriqui region (which is where all the food is grown). This is resulting in thousands of people not being able to get home, the city running out of produce, and the Chiriqui region running out of gas (we have less than a 1/4 of a tank with non left in town). It's annoying, but we (and most of Panama) are in support of the Indians. They should have rights to their own land. Unfortunately, it means week long protests and road blocks. Please pray Martinelli (the president) will fix this soon. I'm glad we are stuck where all the food is, but I'm not glad for the rest of the country and the thousands of Costa Rican's stuck with no where to stay and limited resources.

This is also why we have the time today to add 5 new posts :)