Growing up in Panama my mother and grandmother would use a tea called Bekunis to help cleanse their intestines. It's just one of those conversations that a child hears as they're passing through a corridor kitchen throughout the course of their lives. Not exactly something that I thought would have any relevance in my own life, especially when I moved to the U.S. to attend college.
Anyway, I was in North Miami for the summer of 1979, living in the family condo with my older sister. My sister stayed in contact with my parents in Panama through phone calls, and for reasons that I will never understand, my sister and my mother reached the conclusion that I was in need of some te de Bekunis. Did I say this was late in the summer of 79, when hurricane David was heading to Miami? Did I forget to mention this was the weekend it was clamoring towards us? No, it was the fucking day it was expected to hit!
Well, I happened to watch my sister prepare the tea. She took a tin can out and opened it and looked at the contents with a quizzical look on her face. God only knows how long it had been sitting on the shelf because the contents were in solid form. It was like fudge that had been allowed to harden to rock substance. She cut out a wedge and boiled the contents and that's what I drank just before the police came down the street with a bullhorn to urge all of us to evacuate the buildings.
Yes. Hurricane David was a sidestory that weekend, based on my personal perspective.
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