It’s Papaya Season!

Our friend Susy invited us to help harvest papayas at her house on Saturday. Our adventure began by walking to the bus terminal and taking the bus to Parita on the north side of Chitre. $ .65 each. As I got on the bus, I heard a gentleman behind me speaking in Spanish. I couldn’t understand word for word, but could tell he thought I wanted the bus to Las Tablas. I told him we wanted to go to Parita, and he nodded.

As the bus was getting ready to pull out, this same man got on the bus, sat on the seat in front of us, and asked us where we were going. I attempted to share in Spanish that we were going to my friend’s house in Parita. Her name is Suzanna (FYI-we call her Suzy, but the Panamanians call her Suzanna). He had a confused look on his face and spoke to the lady in front of me. I pulled up a picture of her to see if they recognized her because she rides this bus often. The lady in front of me recognized her right away. They spoke again, and the next thing that happened amazed us. This gentleman walked up to the bus driver to talk to him. I heard the word “gringo” and instantly knew he was communicating to the driver where he would need to let us off the bus.

Apparently, “gringos” don’t normally take this bus, and they wanted to make sure we could get to where we are going. The culture here is to take care of each other. It shows in the way they speak to each other and the way they treat strangers. 

After a 30-minute bus ride, we arrived at Suzy’s house. She excitedly pointed out the papayas that looked ready to pick and showed us the big sticks we could use to loosen them from the tree. The tall papaya trees are filled with so many papayas, but most are not ripe yet. Ripe papayas have a little bit of yellow on the outside. The birds look for that yellow, too. We saw several birds eating out of a ripened fruit. It is a little bit of a game with the birds to see who gets to ripen fruit first. Suzy has been watching daily, waiting for the weather to dry out and these beautiful fruits to ripen. 

It took about an hour for the three of us to harvest six papayas with our basic sticks, Vic’s strong muscles and Suzy and I lined up just right to catch the fruit as they fell with our tarp. The papaya-picking pros have special sticks with nets attached to catch the fruit. After our experience, we sure do appreciate the labor put into harvesting this tasty fruit.

Special thanks to Suzy for the fun and sharing her harvest with us.