Living in Potrerillos

Moving!

2008-07-03T11:57:00.000-04:00

OK, here's the new URL for Living In Potrerillos. Don't expect perfection--I'll be playing with the new site for a while.

Advance Warning

2008-07-03T10:20:00.000-04:00

I've simply had it with Blogger. I don't know why all of a sudden it's giving me problems, but if there is candidacy for sainthood for those with no patience, I'm top of THAT list! I don't want to fool around with it, given other shortcomings. Right now I'm investigating WordPress out of laziness because Mary uses it for her blog and she can fill me in on any questions I have.

It appears that I can export all my archives from blogger to WordPress, so that's nice. But it may be a few days before I'm up and running again.

I hate wasting time.

Price Increases

2008-07-03T06:56:00.006-04:00

We eat a fair amount of chicken--it's cheap, we like it, it's healthier than red meat, it's in a good many Panamanian dishes, and Mary makes the most fabulous chicken in the province. The last is enough to keep chicken high on our menu. Some weeks ago--say 6 weeks (that warped sense of time again)-- pechuga (chicken breasts) went from $.95/lb to $1.05/lb. Yesterday, Mary paid $1.29/lb, less for encuentro (leg and thigh joint), but I'm sure it went up proportionally. We buy both, but for some reason, only the price of pechuga sticks in my mind. So, since the beginning of the year, the price of that one item has gone up 37%. I don't know what El Rey and SuperBaru are selling chicken for at this moment, but when we were paying $1.05, pechuga was selling at El Rey--the most expensive store in David--for $1.49. I can't imagine what the price is now.

Beef is strictly for the middle class and higher. Chicken is the meat protein for most Panamanians, since it's affordable or used to be so for the working class. Clearly, the working class people won't be able to afford to eat it as much or else they'll switch to the cheaper parts such as alas (wings). As for the poor--forget it, they're already in deep trouble.

Somewhere I read that the official inflation figure here in Panamá was less than 10%, excepting fuel, of course. Such official BS flies in the face of what is happening on the food front alone.

Because I haven't had time, I haven't been reading La Prensa daily nor have I been following The Panama News as much as I would like. However, Eric Jackson has been running a few articles that at least touches on the unrest in the Comarcas, or indigenous homelands, and has briefly mentioned the serious unrest among the poor.While certain increases are not the government's fault, there are other problems that don't make international headlines but are important to the daily lives of the people here that are directly related to the corruption in the government, according to Jackson. Streets in Panama City, sewers that discharge raw sewage into the streets, the miserable lack of funding to keep up schools, and more.

The Torrijos government is widely considered to be really bad, very corrupt government, with the rich getting richer, thanks to corruption on government contracts (that sound familiar at all?), and the poor getting poorer. The economy is tanking--in part because of world conditions, without question, but also due to the corruption and indifference of the central government.

Jackson has said that the only reason that there isn't a more pronounced opposition is that so far, there is no real leader around whom the opposition can coalesce. I personally think that's hard to do, because there is no good way for an opposition party to get organized and become strong. For example, Brasil elected its current President, Lula, because the PT, his party, built a solid base, electing representatives and senators, mayors, and--extremely important--governors of the various states. Here in Panamá, the governors of the provinces are appointed by the president. It doesn't take much imagination to understand how that weakens opposition organization and strengthens the incentives for corruption. So, it's much harder to develop a political party within the different provinces. Labor is somewhat organized but as you can imagine, is concentrated in the major urban areas. The most powerful union is SUNTRACS, the construction workers union. There is at least one political party more or less associated with the labor movement, but it's small.

There is also an autonomy movement here in Chiriquí, which certainly has my sympathy. Chiriquí has tremendous resources which are funneled to the central government and either used in the province of Panamá (Panama City) or stolen.

It's hard to avoid the feeling that Panamá has the very real potential to develop into a powder keg.

An addendum: Bear with what is working out to be Blogger's inability to take paragraphing commands. blogger is definitely not the best place to blog--it has some really severe limitations--and today I'm unable to do things that were never a problem in the past. i've been trying to fix it through the Edit function, but so far....

Not yet used to blogging again, so here's yet another addendum: in today's La Gringa's Blogicito, there is an excellent article about the electricity problem in Honduras. Well worth reading.

Time Out

2008-06-30T15:07:00.000-04:00

I'm taking some time off from blogging--a few days, maybe a week--because I really have to do something about rearranging my schedule. There are activities I really want to re-start and am having a hard time fitting them in considering the way I live my daily life now. So--time for a little experimentation. Got to find time somewhere, and right now the easiest thing to drop is blogging.

I'll respond to Comments as always, but new posts are out for a while. See you soon.

Just a Little More on Animals

2008-06-28T06:12:00.000-04:00

Steve has written a detailed account of the process of getting the required certifications and having them apostilled in the comments sections of Bringing In Animals. That's exactly what we did. We were lucky that our vet was an APHIS vet so that I didn't have to go through the extra stage--which a friend of ours had to--of getting the certificate from (in our case) Olympia, which would have added a minimum of at least one day to our process.

These days, you'd have to live in a really out-of-the-way place for your vet not to be aware of what it takes to ship animals internationally. Always a good place to start.

But as I added in the Comments section and wish to emphasize: the rules for bringing in animals may have changed. ALWAYS check with the Panamanian Consulate or Embassy, always. Make no assumptions.

Also, for those who may be interested, Steve has given José Saenz's email address. Again, you can do it on your own, but especially if you are bringing in animals in pet cargo, it is advisable to go through an agent.

I should mention, too, that if you arrive when the official vet is not there, your animals will go into quarantine overnight at the airport, for which you will pay (I have no idea how much). Those with whom I've talked who had had to go this route say that the people in charge are kind and courteous, and helpful. Panamanians love animals. Steve's comment about drawing a crowd because of their dog's unusual breed is right on.

As for Eugene Malek International Airport in David: yes, they are lengthening the runways so they can use larger planes, but I have no idea when that's going to happen. Perhaps they will then add animal immigration but I doubt it. The airport itself is small, and while it's touted as being 'International", it just means routine flights entering from Costa Rica and I think, at this time, Columbia, but wouldn't swear to it. My guess is that the Panamanian government will still funnel all formal immigration through Tocumen for the foreseeable future. With immigration to Panamá from the US (and quite possibly soon from western Europe) dropping off, they don't have a lot of reason to expand services to David.

All great information. Please send any additional, and I'll post it.

A Little Amplification on the Short Version

2008-06-26T12:24:00.004-04:00

In my previous post, what you got was the short story, believe it or not, of our 36 hour odyssey of the actual physical move to Panamá. I should mention that what carry on luggage we had was filled with what we needed for the cats we brought on board, including medications for the one cat who had cancer and who had to be medicated while we were in flight. What luggage we checked had the rest of what we needed for the animals; all we packed for us was the equivalent of a toothbrush and a change of underwear.

I also want to amplify on the story of my little scene with Alaska Airlines. I actually am not a confrontative person and will allow people a great deal of leeway if I see that they are trying to do their jobs. But I had been warned by a Panamanian woman whom I met during my last trip to Panamá before we moved about getting confirmation of having the animals on board. It was she who gave me the idea of standing at your seat, because she, as it happened had the same trouble I did--no formal confirmation. She urged me to be firm and keep pushing until I had it.

I may not be confrontative, but no one needs to urge me to be "firm". Especially where our animals are concerned.

The crew was in the final stages of preparing for taxiing away from the gate, and I had yet to receive confirmation. I asked the flight attendant about it, told her I hadn't had word, and she just kept on strolling down the aisle, checking for upright seat backs, with "Don't worry, I'm sure they're on board", never even looking at me as she continued on her way.

That's when I stood up. Believe me, I had everyone's attention, even hers, finally. I said in a moderate but firm voice (waiting for some US marshall to jump out at me!) that I'd not had confirmation, that we were moving internationally and had to catch another flight, that I had heard stories about animals being left behind, and that I was frightened to death, and that I would not sit down until I knew the animals were on board the plane. Every single word was true, especially about being frightened to death. I never stopped being terrified until we landed at Tocumen and I saw those three crates .

The flight attendant was clearly furious but indeed it would have taken a US marshall to get me back into my seat (more likely, to carry me off) until I was sure Lucy, Ethel and Tulip were with us. She came back and gracelessly gave me the confirmation slips that somehow had not made it on board.

I sat down, heart pounding, and the plane left the gate.

Bringing in Animals

2008-06-26T08:11:00.007-04:00

This is in answer to a request.

Re animal importation regulations: absolutely the ONLY way to go on this is to contact the Panamanian consulate nearest you and get the information on requirements. The rules regarding immigration and visas have changed and go into effect I believe on August 1. My friend knew about the proposed regulations some of which were quite severe, and among them, she said, were much stricter rules on bringing in animals. BUT--there are always lots of proposed regulations; always at least some do not get finalized. So it is vital that you ask the people who should know--at the Panamanian Embassy or Consulate nearest you.

Second, what is likely to be more restrictive is the airline regulations on how you travel with your animals. There are deadlines for final vet examinations, shots, etc. When we brought in our animals, you had to have a certificate from your vet stating that the animals were free of diseases and fit to travel which then had to be sent to the Panamanian Consulate for certifcation--stamped or apostilled--and then that document was what you presented to the airline to get your boarding pass. The rule used to be 10 days from the time your vet signed the document to date of arrival, I think, in the foreign country.

Check with the airlines, for these are their regulations, not those of Panamá.

Also, check with the airlines on rules for pets on board. Many people--us included--wanted to bring their animals in the cabin with them. All US airlines that we knew of at the time limited the number of animals on board in the cabin to a total of two for all passengers. In other words, two animals per flight. And, as I recall, one per person. Since we brought 5, two of the cats came with us on board and the other three were shipped in pet cargo. Airlines vary in their handling of pets in pet cargo and in their prices. I believe, Will, you are only bringing in one cat, so you stand a good chance of being able to bring your buddy on board.

BUT you MUST make a reservation and get it in writing!!! Especially if you are dealing with COPA. We found that COPA was very good with the animals. But friends of ours, who had made arrangements to bring two of their cats on board with them, found out at the very last minute that COPA had lost their reservation and were about to allow another animal ahead of them on that flight. Which meant that they would NOT be able to bring both cats on board and had not made any arrangements for shipping the other cat pet cargo. The two requirements are very, very different. Fortunately, they had an email document from a supervisor confirming the reservation, and so by persistence and presenting this document at JFK, I believe, they were able to get their two cats on board with them. The other person, who evidently had not made arrangements was flat out of luck. He/she could not fly with the cat or dog that day.

These rules are absolutely rigid--RIGID--and you MUST make sure you are going to be able to board with your cat.

But you're not through yet. You have to make an appointment, basically, with the official government vet who is on duty at Tocumen only until noon. When we emigrated, this and other paperwork had to be done in advance because the vet was not there all the time; he only made an appearance when animals were coming in that day. There are these hoops you must go through vis-a-vis paperwork, and I don't know what they are because like most people, we went through an agent who specializes in bringing animals into the country. If you do not go through these hoops, believe this like you believe the sun rises in the east--your animal will NOT be allowed into the country. Depending on the situation at that time, if you--not the Panamanian government-- can't arrange for immediate shipment back to Ireland or wherever, they will put the animal down. Also, get out of your minds instantaneously any notion about the folded $20 dollar/euro/ruble bill slipped under the table and the vet will look the other way, allowing the animal in. At the time we moved, there were horror stories about what happened when stupid Americans who had seen too many Grade Z movies or read too many comic books tried to do that. It will not work.

We used an agent in Panama City who filed the required official notification and made arrangements for the vet. There are two whom I know of. We used Allan Pittí (whose family turns out to live in Potrerillos); the other one is José Saenz. I do not have current information on either one of these people. I know we were more than satisfied with Allan, who showed up with his wife at Tocumen because she had never seen anyone bring in 5 animals before!

Related to the use of an agent: because of the heat on the tarmac, there are severe airline restrictions as to when you can ship an animal cargo. If the predicted temperature will be over 85 degrees Fahrenheit at ANY stopover or at Tocumen, you will not be allowed to ship your animal cargo. Animals have died of the heat after hours waiting planeside. Allan and José are licensed to go out to the plane and facilitate the unloading of the animals, getting them into the air-conditioning of Tocumen. In fact, our two quite thrilled dogs (who were ready to hop the next flight to Berlin or Rome, they didn't care where) and one very disgruntled cat made it into the cargo area at Tocumen before we did! One of the happiest sights of my entire life was that of those three crates, waiting for us as we cleared Adoana and Migración.

By far and away, the worst part of the whole move was everything involving the animals. When some of us get together and trade horror stories, we are right there with June 2-3rd, 2004, getting to Seattle from an island off the coast with the menagerie, getting them on Alaska Airlines flight to Los Angeles, and then the nightmare wait until the midnight flight to Tocumen. On the Alaska Airlines flight, contrary to airline protocol, I received no word confirming that our animals had made it to pet cargo. I had heard too many stories of animals being inadvertently left behind. We had absolutely no leeway for error because of the difficulty of getting the documentation to the LA Panamanian Consulate back in time to avoid the Memorial Day holiday, and running against that 10 day deadline. US marshall or no US marshall on any flight, I stood up at my seat and refused to sit down again--thus paralyzing the plane at the gate--until the flight attendant (vastly annoyed) brought me confirmation personally that the animals had made it on board. They were supposed to give me a piece of paper that said that the animals had made it and they never did. I would have preferred arrest rather than leave without that confirmation.

The flight was ok, but the 7 hour wait at LAX in the cargo area of Alaska Airlines with two dogs who were dying to get out there and meet all these new friends and three utterly miserable cats was a nightmare. There are situations where you simply endure, simply suffer through them, and this was one.

If you bring animals on, you must have regulation size carriers that will fit under the seat. Do NOT make the mistake of hard-sided carriers. The soft carriers are best, as they can be the regulation 9" high (at least that was the situation when we flew) in order to fit underneath the seat with no problem. The woman ahead of us tried to get on board her flight with a non-regulation carrier. She was turned away and had to buy at the airport a regulation carrier.

Be very careful in this arena. Check with the nearest Consulate about the rules, and then check again, since the rules have changed and it may take time for the word to get out. get absolute clarity with the airlines. We split up the work. Mary dealt with the airlines and I dealt with the Panamanian Consulate. It was the single hardest aspect of our move.

Also, remember that the rules change all the time here, and as I warned in the beginning, there are rumors of rule changes involving animals. Be very, very careful.

Addendum: I forgot, and this is important: if you are bringing in animals by means of pet cargo--and with multiple animals you almost always have to--then check with the airlines about possible "blackout" dates--a period of at least 3 months when the airline will refuse to carry pets in pet cargo because of excessive temperatures at any--I repeat, any--airport the plane lands at during its flight. One of the reasons why we flew the way we did is that we had to choose a route that would meet these requirements. There were cheaper and less hair-raising ways to go, but we wound up having to fly to LA from Seattle, then wait for a midnight flight to Tocumen because at that time (and it has since changed) Copa always allowed animals in pet cargo because the flight arrived so early in the morning.

Everything we did, including the schedule for our entire move, revolved around getting our beloved family to Panamá. As soon as you have even a rough idea of when you want to move, start checking into both airline and Panamanian regulations. Also, be prepared to spend a bundle per animal. There are vet fees and other fees here in Panamá, but the cost of flying your animals can vary really wildly from one airline to another. We had to do what we did but we chose Alaska Airlines over Northwest, for instance, because the cost of flying the animals varied well over $100/animal at that time. With five animals, that was no mean consideration. Both airlines had pretty good reputations for treating animals. Alaska had one of the best reputations, but I frankly was far more pleased with Copa. I don't care how annoyed that flight attendant was with me, Alaska did not follow their own protocol for confirmation. You can not depend on any one and don't even bother making the assumption that you can. There are plenty of horror stories--and I have confirmed several--about animals dying thanks to the idiots at the airlines. Like pilots forgetting to turn on the environmental control in the pet cargo area. Imagine your animals dying because the plane went to 30,000 feet with outside temperatures and an unpressurized cargo area. I corresponded with one woman who had that happen to her with her dogs.

I hate to be this grim, but these are real worries. If you ship cargo, demand confirmation--demand it, it is your right--and ask politely but confirm that the captain knows that he has live animal cargo on his flight. If you love your animals, worry and be fanatical about details. I called the LA Panamanian Consulate so many times, checking, that the consul there recognized my voice on the phone immediately. He was truly kind, truly compassionate, and treated me with all courtesy and kindness, even though I must have made upwards of 20 calls to him, many times checking the same thing, since I was getting contradictory information. It turned out that, at that time anyway, the State of California required an additional certification that had to be apostilled and I wanted to make sure that, since we were stopping over in LA, I didn't have to go through the CA certifiation as well. This would have delayed us, since we were working around the US holiday of Memorial Day when all government offices, including foreign consulates, shut down.

I hate to be this alarmist, but the incident about Copa losing the reservation for bringing pets on board in the cabin happened less than a year ago. The people involved were nervous wrecks over the whole animal immigration thing. All I could do was empathize from a distance because there is good reason to be worried. Mostly, it goes smoothly. We really had no trouble except for confirmation about the animals being aboard the Alaska Airline flight. Just pay attention to detail and hound the people involved. That's what they're getting paid for--to make sure that you're getting the right service.

Start early.

Leaf Cutter Ants

2008-06-22T11:30:00.004-04:00

Leaf cutter ants on a piece of rope--from Wikipedia.

Normally, I don't work on Sundays unless there's an emergency. This morning, while walking the dogs, I finally found what I was looking for--on plants that had been losing their leaves, I finally saw leaf cutter ants. I had looked for nests but in the grass it's hard and leaf cutters can go impressive distances.

Leaf cutter ants fall well within my definition of emergency. I've been really worried about 2 young papaya plants and a small Chinese hat plant, all of which are trying to make it and all of which have been under attack.

After breakfast, I hauled out my handy-dandy industrial strength sprayer and my small hand pump of Hormitex, a very specific, really excellent ant killer in powder form. Many people use bait that they lay along the trails so that the ants will take it back to the nests, but I put nothing down on the ground that the dogs can pick up. Ethel and Fred are Labs and they will eat rocks, I swear, if they thought it was any kind of food. Lucy is a little better, but not by much.

I waited patiently (well, for me) until I could identify the column of ants and then started tracking it back to the nest. When I did find it, it was conservatively 60 ft away; I've seen trails much longer than that. That is the danger with leaf cutters--they don't even have to be on your property.

Fortunately I found the nest, but in doing so, I was amazed to see that the ants had cut--actually cut--narrow tracks through the grass down to the soil that resemble in miniature superhighways. Sure enough, you should see the little red monsters truck right along! It should not be surprising, however, because they have mandibles that vibrate a thousand times a second to saw off pieces of foliage. I have seen a small bougainvillea stripped overnight; I've read that some species of leaf cutters can strip a small citrus tree overnight, which is pretty impressive.

Their nests are huge underground chambers that can measure 45 ft in diameter and be 15 feet deep, containing as many as 8 million ants, all after my papaya trees!

No. Not without a fight.

A standard way of dealing with them is to locate the nest, plug up all the entrances except one, and then insert the tube of your pump powder sprayer as far as you can. You tamp dirt around the hose then pump powder into the nest. Given the size of the underground chamber, you pump a lot. I did what I could this morning with not just one but two nests, because I'm almost out of Hormitex. Have to get some tomorrow. It may not have killed all of them, but I'm hoping it has given them pause, because I was really appalled with the numbers swarming over my best papaya. I sprayed that plant and around its base with Arribo, hoping to give the poor plant a breathing space until some of the other measures take hold. I've fertilized the papayas, trying to give them a boost for recovery.

And just to keep reminding me of who is really boss of the planet, I ran across yet another column of nomadic army ants. Looking for something else, I didn't notice that I had walked right into the column until I felt this nasty bite on my leg, and looked down. Hey, brothers and sisters, no problema, have it all your way--and while you're at it, could I invite you over in this direction where there are 8 million snacks waiting for you?

Some Info on Alisson Staff

2008-06-22T08:07:00.004-04:00

I actually wrote a little post about the information the Espinosas gave us about Alisson Staff, but I have this feeling I posted it inadvertently on another blog. Both are on Blogger and show up on the Dashboard when you're creating a new post. I was still pretty sick at the time, and I may have just gotten careless. If so, regulars who belong to the Pulitzer Challenge--reading all the Pulitzer Prize winners for fiction--must have been mystified as to why this post came in about an 11 year old girl and where she lives! Hey, keeps them on their toes.

Anyway, it turns out that she won the national competition all right--but 3rd prize. Someone who reads this blog told me that last year a girl from Boquete won it, so it could very well be that two chiriquenas won last year! That would be exciting.

Alisson is actually from very near here, a little community just a couple miles away from us if that, just south of Potrerillos Abajo. Just fits in with my general impression that there are a lot of Staffs in that area.

Alisson also turns out to be the daughter of Ricardo Espinosa's cousin. Families are close here, so naturally the entire clan is very proud of her.

Yesterday morning was beautiful, but today is another in the partially overcast, close, muggy mornings we've had recently.

The Ugly American Syndrome--Again

2008-06-21T06:37:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, my first real day out of bed, we went into David because the US Consulate (Embassy?) was holding an information session at the Gran Nacional Hotel. We were interested in voter registration, since I'm not sure whether or not I'm still registered in the state of Washington. We had hoped we could somehow register at this meeting. In retrospect, this was just a vain wish out of laziness, because of course each state has it's own requirements. But we went.

There were quite a few people in the room, and we immediately spotted a couple we knew who recently bought a house in Alto Boquete. They had rented just down the road from us for months, trying in vain to find property they could afford in Potrerillos. But some doctor in Florida is convinced that his next million is just one deal away, and they were unable to buy the land they wanted. Tired of waiting, needing to get on with their lives, they bought a house from someone who is desperate to get out of Panamá and back to the US.

We were standing there chatting, just beyond the "Hi, how are you" stage and into the reasons why we were at the meeting. They mentioned getting driver's licenses, and karen was just starting an explanation of their situation when some jackass American, dressed in shorts, sandals and flowered shirt that cost enough to keep a Panamanian family in food for a year, walked by and said in a voice loud enough to be heard throughout the room, "Driver's license? You don't need a driver's license. That's just a folded $20 bill..." by which time he had passed out of the room and was down the hall far enough that even his overly loud and smartass voice couldn't be heard through the doors.

He really didn't have anything to add to a conversation to which he was not invited. He had nothing useful to offer. He was just trying to show how hip he was, how "smart", how cynical, what an insider he was--and what a total pr_ck he was. He succeeded admirably with the last-named.

Why me, God? I'm not a particularly nice person but even I don't deserve this sort of exposure to the ugliness of the standard Boqueteño. You can not believe how many times you get exposed to this kind of crap in Boquete. It's now a stereotype, which is why all of us assume that any ill-mannered jerk acting out in public is from Boquete. It isn't that we don't have our share of cynics or that we are romantic idealists, but in Potrerillos, anyway, we don't act out in public. Our mothers taught us better manners. Then again, maybe he didn't have a mother. He might be a biological experiment that failed--badly. Somebody contact the lab and tell them to dump that particular Petrie dish of genes.

I was tired and still weak, and in no mood to be polite but unfortunately before I could react appropriately--like booting his overdressed rear end into the Pacific and back to whatever godforsaken piece of dirt he came from--he was gone.

There were Panamanians outside, staff of the hotel, going about their duties. People like this mentally retarded boor always treat the Panamanians as if they don't exists as human beings, perhaps to show their "superiority" as Americans, born by divine right (which God?) to be above all other inferior nationalities. Perhaps to show how insecure they are, maybe their contempt. Because believe me, it is contemptuous of the Panamanians to treat them like furniture.

It's also a mistake to treat them as if they don't understand English.

Regardless, it is always illuminating to see how people act when they think no one (important) is looking.

We found out we had made the trip for nothing, got out of there, and escaped back to our little piece of the world.

Alternative Medicine

2008-06-17T05:54:00.004-04:00

Sunday afternoon about 5 I came down with what was most likely food poisoning. 2 hours later, I was still vomiting (with nothing in my stomach) and in such shape that I was seriously considering calling my doctor. Mary decided to call the Espinosas instead; both Maritza and Ricardo are big believers in medicinal plants and have a great many in their beautiful garden.

Maritza recommended an infusion of guanabana leaves in water; she said it would have effect rapidly. Guanabana is a delicious fruit here, the soursop, and we had planted 2 trees three years ago. Mary gathered leaves, made the infusion, I drank maybe a couple of tablespoons of this concoction that tasted like boiled leaves--and just about instantly, the vomiting (and the accompanying diarrhea) stopped. I was able to rest for the first time, and managed a half-way decent night's sleep.

Yesterday afternoon, they came over with another medicinal remedy, the resinous bark of a tree whose name I didn't catch but which we'll get tonight. Ricardo brought us a small branch that we can plant in order to have our own tree. Another infusion, which tasted worse than the first! Imagine something that smells--and tastes--a little like turpentine. Maritza, laughing, said that of course it tasted bad--it was medicine, and therefore it was supposed to! I well remember this theory from my mother who was convinced that the worse it tasted, the better it was for you.

I reserve judgement on the correlation between taste and benefit, but I am a believer in the guanabana leaf infusion.

Ricardo has this old, old book called Indigenous Medicines which I'm going to search for. It has a lot of remedies from medicinal plants. Last night, Martitza and Ricardo recited a whole list of such remedies, from ingredients that are easily available here, never mind from the plants themselves. I was in no shape to remember them, but it's something I intend to pursue.

It's like having your own physicians just a few minutes away.

Alisson Staff

2008-06-15T07:00:00.000-04:00

The following video is of an 11 year old girl from Chiriquí, Alisson Staff, who recently won a national competition. She's a fresh-faced girl who looks perfectly ordinary--until she starts singing.

Mary and I were completely blown away by this girl's voice. In fact, I spent 2/3 of the first song trying to figure out if she was doing karaoke or something similar but we both agreed later that no, it's her voice. If so, in a few years, all of Panamá and possibly a good part of the world will be hearing about this young singer.

The first song has to do with some kind of angel, possibly a guardian angel, but not sure--it sounds to me like "juridica" which would be Portuguese, not Spanish, but then who knows. For some reason, I have a hard time translating all of it but then I'm not one for the normal type of song lyrics--I prefer Pittí's poetry, myself. Whatever it is, the song itself is a tear-jerker because I happened to glance behind me when Alisson was finished, and Maritza was wiping her eyes.

The second song is a standard girl(boy) meets boy (girl) and falls in love. No translation needed--I'm sure you'd understand it if it were sung in Farsi or one of the Malay dialects.

That's about it--there were some more entertainers but this has been a massive enough project as it is. I hope you enjoyed our rural school celebration!

Mary and I are going to make cautious inquiries to see if we can possibly help out in the school. We're both scientists, we're both former educators, both of us are fanatics about the importance of education. It would be both fun and satisfying to help out in that particular way.

Songs of Dimas Pittí

2008-06-14T12:39:00.007-04:00

Dimas Lidio Pittí (or Pitty) is a famous poet, author, and writer who was born in Potrerillos in 1941. I had heard about him from Maritza, and had resolved to get some of his works. He was present at the school celebration, and made a brief presentation about the life of Felix Lara. This is a very brief video of him below, just to give you an idea of his presence and his voice.

The next videos are of interpretations of some of Pittís poetry, set to music and sung by a young man from the community of Macano which is in Boquerón, near Concepción, and accompanied by the trio of musicians you've already seen and heard.

I don't know what the title of the first poem/song is, but the second one is "Chiriquí, Provincia Mia".

Other Musicians From Potrerillos

2008-06-14T12:23:00.005-04:00

There were some adult entertainers, too. The video shows a group of three musicians--one playing guitar, another recorder, and the lead, Sr. Enrique Quiroz, who is a violinist from Potrerillos. I have three clips of their music, but this one is their best: La Palomita--The Little Dove.

Rising Young Stars

2008-06-14T10:10:00.004-04:00

After the school children's presentations, there was other entertainment. This video is of a group from Dos Rios, which is a little community just south of Dolega. They took part in a national competition. They didn't win; given how good these kids (and a dad) are, I can't even imagine how good the other groups were!

This, after all, is a school celebration in a small community in Panamá. People wander in and out of the camera field. Some even have the nerve to stop and take pictures, blocking my camera view! The one woman wound up being my nemesis most of the day.

Stay with it, though, because the music is worth it. Darío is here today. When he heard the music as I was editing, he told Mary, "Just wait until that boy is 20!" You bet!

Notice how solemn and concentrated the young accordionist is. He's a little cutie, certo.

School Presentation: Make Way for the Kids!

2008-06-14T08:40:00.000-04:00

I love this picture of who I think are 8th grade boys. Many of the different grades gave mini presentations. The 8th graders (I think) gave a mock interview with three well-known experts in the infotech field. the interviewer was a girl, suitably dignified and solemn. these boys were--well, their age! I happen to get a big kick out of this age group of boys (so long as I don't have to deal with them on a daily basis). The look on the face of the middle one is sheer mischief. Of the relatively few stills I shot (I spent most of my time filming), this is my favorite.

The children's presentation started off with the Jardin Infantil--kindergarten. They are singing along to music--the voices you hear are not theirs. They are utterly darling. the song they're singing talks about wanting a world where children can live in peace. At two points in the song, the lyrics say that they are singing for those children who are in pain, and for those who have no bread. At that point, I started to cry. There is absolutely nothing worse in the world than hearing a child cry from hunger while knowing that it will not get anything to eat.

But here they are, the Jardin Infantil of Escuela Felix A. Lara in Potrerillos Arriba!

I didn't catch the poetry reading by the first-grade girl, but here's a recitation by a 4th grade girl. The poem is about when the school bell sounds--"tin, tin", everyone goes to class, and they discover the world in books. ( Sorry about the pole in the way).

The School Presentation, Part 1

2008-06-14T06:18:00.000-04:00

I thought I'd devote this post to still pictures, to prepare the way for the kids.

The presentation was held outside in front of the school. The pavilion was for special guests, which meant retired teachers. We were with Maritza Espinosa, who is a retired teacher, and she invited us into the pavilion with her. It's the reason why I shot the videos as best as I could around flagpoles, umbrellas and other objects; our angle of viewing underneath the pavilion was worse than the chairs set out under the sun. However, it was nice to be in the shade.

The woman to the extreme right with her hair pulled back and wearing a red blouse is our friend, Maritza Espinosa. To her right is her daughter, Marisin. As with any of these images, if you click on them, you'll get a larger one.

Here we have the Minister of Education, all the way from Panama City to lend his august presence in order to open the proceedings. Forgive me if I wasn't impressed. The picture flatters him because it doesn't show the phony politician's smile pasted on his face for most of the proceedings. It was especially prominent, the smile, when he announced that the Escuela Felix A. Lara right here in Potrerillos was going to become THE model school for all of Chiriquí once the government was through upgrading it.

Yeah, sure.

Panamanians are polite. Under similar circumstances, given the realities of where the money really goes and the history, an American audience would at best have been stone silent; realistically you'd have heard jeering laughter. Here, people pretended to believe it.

What offended me even more than his phony smile was the fact that he was unshaven. Mustaches are very common among the men here; beards are not. Last I saw, razors were readily available in all the stores. I personally thought it was insulting, but then I'm American and I don't know how Panamanians view it. I didn't ask.

He left after his thankfully brief remarks, trailing an entourage of about 6 to 8 women.

This is the director of the school which is known formally as the Centro Básico. It's more than just a primary school since it includes Grades 7 through 9. after that, the kids go to the colegio or high school in Dolega.

She's young to have such an important position. Maritza told me that she's been in the position 4 years, and that she's worked extremely hard. I can believe it. Getting three new classrooms in any kind of reasonable time must have taken Herculean effort, given the way things go here in Panamá.

The dates you see on the lectern are first, the date the school was inaugurated and the second, when it was named after Dr. Lara. Maritza told me that there used to be, in the earlier days of the pueblo, a lot of two story houses; she grew up in one. She said that before there was a school, classes were held in the private houses, on the bottom floors. This was true of her house as well; the family lived on the upper floor.

In the museo, there are some very old photographs, especially of the first "educators", as they're called here. One was taken in 1905 of a woman who was the first in Potrerillos. there are a lot of old photographs there; I want to go back and take more pictures, learn more.

A Day of Celebration: The Memorial Mass

2008-06-14T05:00:00.003-04:00

Chapel of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Potrerillos Arriba

Yesterday (June 13) was a special day in Potrerillos Arriba, because the school (which contains grades K through 9) put on what turned out to be an extraordinarily impressive program celebrating the completion of three new classrooms, one of which will be a computer classroom.

Because this is Latin America and even though Panamá is a very secular country, religion is a vital part of the community life. So, for the Catholic parents and children, the celebration started off with a special Mass at the church at 9 am.

Dr. Felix Antonio Lara as a young man.

This was a memorial Mass for Dr. Felix Antonio Lara, a distinguished educator in Chiriquí and for whom the Potrerillos school is named. June 3rd this year was the 100th anniversary of his birth.

I just took a few clips from the Mass itself, more to show what the community looks like than anything else. Our priest is a young Franciscan. The Franciscans are very prominent in Chiriquí, which suits me just fine, since I'm quite Franciscan in my attitudes.

Just some things to look for: the first clip is before the Mass started, just to show the community adn the inside of the church. The school children are all wearing uniforms. White shirts are for grades K through 6, while the blue shirts are worn by grades 7 through 9. Pants and skirts are dark blue. Uniforms like this are universal in the province; every school kid wears one.

I panned the front of the church to give you an idea of what it looks like.

The older woman reading the first Scriptural reading is Maritza Espinosa's aunt. She and her husband are very active in the congregation, as is Maritza herself.

The priest is reading the Gospel.

Finally, just showing the communion line, for more visuals of the congregation. You'll see a Ngobe Buglé woman in traditional dress. She's wearing one which is aquamarine with brown and white decorative "bands"; she's sitting towards the front of the congregation.

I got the biggest kick out of watching one of the 8th graders, I think, telling off either a sibling or a school chum towards the end of the last clip. Her facial expression is just classic.

Enjoy.

Something that the priest said during his homily, which emphasized the value of education, intrigued me. He remarked that at least teachers in Panamá were more or less well-paid, but that was not true in most of Central America. He specifically mentioned Guatemala and Honduras where, he said, many classes were held outdoors in the forested area due to lack of schools. He also said--and given the currency units, he had to be talking about Guatemala, not Honduras--that teachers were paid the equivalent of $20/month.

Sobering.

I'm still processing and editing stills and videos, but I should have at least one video up tomorrow.

An Encounter with the Representante

2008-06-13T10:00:00.000-04:00

Yesterday afternoon I went up to the pueblo to take pictures of and gather information about the Potrerillos library and, as it turned out, the little museum. After chatting with Marisin and Jovanna and taking pictures, I shot some footage of Jovanna's blue and yellow macaw who lives out back and of the front of the building itself. There was a man standing there who wound up being incorporated into the picture.

After I finished filming, he introduced himself as the representante for the area. His position corresponds more or less to a member of the US House of Representatives. I had met him once before and reminded him that he had visited our house after our bodega was robbed. He looked a little blank, and I put it down to the fact that perhaps all us gringas look more or less alike. Plus I'm not a voter. Yet. It did occur to me that since everyone seems to know about the proposed change in immigration laws (the government appears to be notifying various people including my physician) and thinks that they are going to be approved, he might be making sure a potential voter got to know him. He is a politician after all, and they're all alike.

First he spoke in rather bad English, which I could barely make sense of, so I replied in my good if not fluent Spanish, and we went on from there with no problem.

I had heard from Jovanna and he confirmed that the small building that houses the library, museo and Infoplaza sits on 15 hectares of land that used to belong to Cítrico, a major citrus growing and processing company in Potrerillos Abajo. At that time, Cítrico was owned by an American whom everyone refers to as Señor Louis. He sold it to a Columbian, and to listen to the locals, everything has gone downhill since then. That may be just the Panamanian prejudice against Columbians or it may be true, but anyway, Señor Louis, the American, is always spoken of quite highly. In any event, he donated the land, not to the municipio, which is the governing entity of the pueblo but to the community itself, which I gather is administered by something known as a Junta Comunal. You see that phrase a lot, on bus shelters, for example. I'm not sure exactly what that means but it seems to be a sort of community committee that handles little projects outside of the official government municipio.

We walked the area and talked (actually, like any politician, he talked and I listened), while he described to me the very ambitious projects that he would like to see happen. To summarize: he would love to see a recreational area in back of the Infoplaza/library building--there are already some swing sets there--that would include a swimming pool for the kids, a reforestation project, gardens, and a home for the aged.

The last surprised me. In a family-oriented culture such as this one, it's not something I expect. I know that the only place you find them in Brasil is in the large cities in the south; in the northeast, it is amazing to what lengths adult children will go to take care of their aged parents.

When I asked him about this, he told me that there were many poor, elderly people who were ill and who were abandoned.

He also talked about the poverty in the area. Once a month he and an American (I think) woman go in his truck to deliver food to the poorest people in the area.

This is where I want to get involved in helping out the community. Next time he goes on his rounds, he'll notify me, and I'll go with him. We can go from there to figure out exactly what Mary and I can do to help.

What interested me a lot is when he began talking about the foreign community here, which, he said, is a great deal smaller than in Boquete. I muttered something about quality vs quantity which I'm fairly sure he didn't understand. Just as well. What he wants to do is to have a meeting with the interested foreigners ( I kept reminding myself that I wouldn't be a 'foreigner' technically anyway for much longer) in order to discuss his projects.

Ah. We come to the heart of the matter. The American money machine.

When we first moved to our rental house, our helpful next-door neighbor described what the basis of some of his problems with labor were. Campesinos, he claimed, really and truly believed that Americans actually made money in their houses--we had printing machines (if they thought that technically) and we could make as much money as we wanted.

With ever-increasing exposure to Americans and other foreigner nationals, I'm sure that particular belief is long gone. However, it lingers in many other ways. There is the solidly-held conviction that all Americans are rich and therefore it's quite all right to steal from or cheat them. I've gone into this cultural attitude extensively so I won't say more. I did however point out to the representante that the three rural communities of Boquete, Potrerillos and Volcán were home to three very different colonies (using his word, by the way) of foreign nationals. Without question, Potrerillos is far and away the "poorer" of the three. On average, there are far more of us Americans, Canadians, and British, for example, who are living on Social Security or its equivalent and who are definitely and absolutely not rich. There are a few well-off but they are the exception not the rule. We correspond in income and life style in general to the Panamanian middle class. Boquete has the rich Americans and Canadians; while there are people of modest means there, they are outnumbered by the well-to-do. It seems to me that Volcán is somewhere in between. The attitude in the three foreign communities is also very different but that's something else again. Overall, we here in Potrerillos appear to be very much closer to our Panamanian hosts.

I wanted to get that across to him because I know what's coming. He wants the "rich" foreigners to help out with his pet projects.

I have extensive experience in Brasil with what happens to foreign aid of any kind, whether from governments or from private sources. The overwhelming majority of it is wasted, thanks to cultural assumptions or from ignorance of the realities of Brasilian life and politics. To give an example of what will be my main concern here, an Irish missionary priest made several trips to the US to get the funds necessary to complete a second day care center in the poorer sections of São Paulo so that mothers could leave their children in a safe place while they went to work. This is a massive problem in Brasil, because unattended kids get out--and all too often get lost on the streets to become a staggering social problem. The priest had a commitment from the São Paulo city government to pay salaries and expenses for the day care center once it was erected.

I went to São Paulo on my first trip and saw for myself the day care center. It was gorgeous. Then I visited the first one he had been instrumental in building in another area--and ran into the realities.

It was clearly not as well kept up as the one that had just been built. The major problem was that the São Paulo city government had decreed in increase in salaries for day care workers and other such service personnel--and then didn't have the money to pay the salaries. So they stopped paying. They also ran out of money for whatever reason to pay for food and upkeep. The workers all signed petitions saying that they would be happy to have the lower salaries and pleaded for the money for at least food for the children. Nothing came of it. When I visited, the staff had not been paid in several months (this was standard for Brasil at that time and may still be in the northeast). The way they were getting food for the children was to go to the open-air markets after closing time and begging for the left-over vegetables that the vendors had been unable to sell. Sometimes they were reduced to picking up the garbage that had fallen under the tables in the stalls.

I have more stories like this. I have examples of aid wasted from both the US, the European Union, and major non-profit outstanding charitable organizations. I learned the most from the last-named ones, because the people there told me the lessons that they learned and how they did things differently now.

The point I want to make is that you have to look long-term at the consequences of what aid you're prepared to give. It's a wonderful idea to build a home for the elderly--but where is the money going to come from for staff and upkeep? It can't come from the foreign community.

Years ago, I heard that the foreign community--mainly Americans--in Boquete had raised money to do something for the local schools. The story as I heard it said that the local teachers did not want to accept the money/aid because then, they said, the government would cut the money it gave to the school, reasoning that the foreigners were going to support the school. I have no idea whether or not the story is true, but based on my experience in Brasil, I tended to believe it. Panamá has a centralized, corrupt government, and believe me, there are problems like that here. Money just sort of disappears here. I've already posted about the disappearance of money from the Public Health program. This is in addition to the fact that Panamá is a poor country that doesn't have sufficient resources to begin with, and that most of those resources go to Panama City anyway.

I had a lot of contact with different Catholic (and some Protestant) missionary groups in Brasil. One such group was composed of lay American Maryknoll missionaries, hard working people who did their utmost to help the poor especially in health education. I remember one night where there was a lively discussion about Mother Theresa's organization, and the missionaries were really indignant with her efforts. They claimed that all she did was treat the symptoms but did not address the root causes, which were political in nature. Most missionaries sooner or later start sympathizing with reform political movements in South America because of problems with corrupt governments and endemic poverty.

I have come to agree with Mother Theresa herself who said that while all the reformers were arguing and fighting for reform, people were dying.

She and Dorothy Day are two of my greatest heroes (along with Abraham Lincoln). I agree that political solutions are necessary. But in the meantime, I have watched children dying of hunger, cattle already dead of starvation, and the homeless building pathetic shelters in garbage dumps and along the beaches of the Amazon River where the rising waters will destroy them. I've also seen, as we do in the news today, aid misdirected and misused.

So yes, I want to help and yes, I'll go to the meeting, but with both eyes open and some hard questions in mind. In the meantime, if the representante is serious, I'll go with him in his truck to help distribute food and do what I can to ease the suffering--if only in very small ways--right now.

I used to have a small plaque hung on our bathroom wall with a quote from Mother Theresa: "We can do no great things. We can only do small things with great love."

Driver's License Renewal

2008-06-13T06:37:00.005-04:00

Yesterday was a busy day. Among other things, I went to David to renew my driver's license which expires in a week. I always go early when I face the bureaucracy, because despite my efforts to find out exactly what is necessary, you just never know what details you've missed.

I already knew--quite by accident--that since I would be past 70 when the time came for renewal, I would have to get a certificate from my doctor stating that I was fit enough to drive.

I personally think that this is an excellent law. When I first saw the requirement, my mind flashed back almost 35 years when I was in Minnesota, stopped to make a left-hand turn with my signal on--and a 74 year old man plowed into the back of my car. One of the things that came out in the next hour is that this man was driving with a serious aneurism, which meant he could die instantly at any minute if that aneurism blew, doing God knows what damage to other vehicles, drivers or even pedestrians. Yet, it was perfectly legal for him to do so. It was NOT perfectly legal, however, for him to be driving without glasses, which he was. I left him to Minnesota justice in the form of the State Police and went on my way. I've never forgotten the incident.

Certification was no problem because I always have my annual exam right around my birthday anyway. To be insufferably smug about it, I am in excellent health. So clutching my certificate and a raft of results of blood tests and ekg scan, I went to the appropriate office for renewal.

To my surprise and gratification, it all went smoothly. I went early to avoid crowds and was waited on almost immediately.

One of my worst personality defects is that I can not resist playing the clown. Fortunately, once the Panamanians get over the shock of a 71 year old gringa doing her best to make jokes in Spanish (jokes that believe me, are lame in English), they humor me and even laugh. You can see why I love living here. No one used to laugh at my jokes in the US! One of the main reasons why I moved, to be frank. The young woman giggled, even, when I tried to get her to read my ekg.

Anyway, we got to the part where you have to have your photo taken. Ever the idiot, I mugged for the little camera; given what those cameras are like, it came out with me looking like some disreputable homeless beggar who was out to steal an old lady's purse in order to get my next meal. Except of course I am an old lady, too, but I have never let age get in my way. Mary and I have this competition going to see who can take the worst official photos. As hard as I tried, I have to admit that she still beats me out--but just barely, just barely.

Next were the eye and hearing tests. All ok.

The shock came when I went to pay the fee--$40. That is double what it was last year!

In no mood to laugh now, I returned with my receipt to pick up my new license--to find out that because of my age,I have to have it renewed in 2 years instead of the usual 4. While I hate the inconvenience, I think this is a good law. It won't do everything, but it will reduce the number of problematic drivers on the road. God knows they're bad enough when in perfect health.

So I left, bruised from the unexpected increase in the fee but happy with the way the process went.

My only dissatisfaction was that I couldn't get anyone to read my ekg.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

2008-06-13T05:54:00.004-04:00

Bougainvillea with wildlife.

Wednesday morning I looked out over the yard and noted where Darío had finished mowing after almost 8 hours work the day before. There was still quite an area to go. It dawned on me then that this was the first time that Darío had left such a large area unfinished; in the past, he's been able to mow the whole yard or close to it.

Some day I should take a video of Daréio with his beloved (our) lawn mower. He zips along with a fierce look on his face as he scans the ground searching for hidden rocks or other obstacles that might damage the blade. He moves. He works.

So what I was seeing was, in part, the result of 6 months of back-achingly hard work, both on his part and mine, of clearing out rocks, filling in holes and leveling ground. It's showing up in the fact that he can mow a much larger area (the reason behind all the work) and I get much more done in a session with the weed eater. It's clear that I don't have to work quite so hard.

This Sunday will mark exactly 4 years that we've been in our house. I've always heard it said that it takes 5 years to get a raw property under control, and I've always believed it. I've found that it takes me one full year just moving into a different house, whether a brand-new one or not, to make that house feel like home.

So it was with great satisfaction that the dogs and I (meeting up with Rickie the Flash Cat on the way) strolled along on our walk, seeing how far we had come in 4 years.

Not bad.

Hola, La Chiricana

2008-06-12T11:40:00.002-04:00

We love living here in Potrerillos, which is why I decided to stop writing about warning people of risks and go back to what I wanted to do on this blog--show what life is like here. For us, it is far better than living in the US. Yes, there are problems but there are problems everywhere, and the ones here are minor compared to those in the US.

We are becoming more Panamanian every day in how we live. It does look as if the immigration laws are going to change, and if so, we will be eligible for Panamanian citizenship next year. We have already told our lawyer that we want to apply. Unless you are a citizen, you can not live fully in a country--you can not fully take part in the life of the country.

The Espinosas spell their appelido with an "s". We had a funny conversation one day about the fact that there are those who spell it with a "z" and those with an "s". They are wonderful, warm people. They have an absolutely incredible huerta. On Monday, I'm going up to their place during the day so that I can take pictures of their huerta and show people what a subsistence farm looks like here--and all organic. Not only that, but he mixes up his plantings beautifully to reduce the problems with pests. However, he is having problems with moscitas blancas--white flies--and at the moment, I am not. I tease them and tell them that they have an orchid factory. I will have to do one post just on their orchids.

Unfortunately, until we can somehow get a real fogón (wood-fired stove), we'll never be able to cook some of the really delicious food that Maritza does.

This afternoon, I want to go up to the library and find out more about Charles Colburn and the growth of the Potrerillos library. Also, the oil paintings are still on display, and I want to take photos of them.

So I have lots planned to show on this blog!

As always, thank you everyone for your comments. I read every one and appreciate them all.

Casera Cooking (For Chiricana)

2008-06-12T06:07:00.009-04:00

As I've mentioned before, your chances of getting decent típico (Panamanian) cooking in a restaurant are, as we say in science, vanishingly small. Your typical típico kiosko, which is a roadside restaurant, serves rice and beans, a very small helping of potato salad or cole slaw and a very small piece of chicken, fish, or pork, usually pan fried. Some kioskos will serve patacones, which are twice-fried plantain. Many serve breakfast as well, but usually shut down by about 3 in the afternoon.

When we first moved here 4 years ago, we ate out once a week. The serving sizes were fairly large, and you could get a whole meal for $1.50. Coffee was $0.30/cup and was good to very good, depending on where you ate. Our favorite kiosko at that time was Doña Mary's, which sits at the junction of the turnoff of the Potrerillos Abajo road from the road to Arriba. Later, we discovered Las Brisas outside of Dolega. Both were very well attended by Panamanians, many of them truck drivers, but quite a few casual travelers and some obvious regulars.

But as time went on and inflation set in, the serving sizes got smaller and smaller to keep the prices the same. We also got tired of the limited menus and as we settled into our home, began eating out less and less frequently. These days, we almost never eat out. The food in any type of restaurant, whether típico or otherwise, is mediocre at best. There are a few decent restaurants in David, one on the road to Boquete, and that's about it. There are two quite decent típico restaurants in Boquete, Sabroson and Genesis, or I should say, they used to be. We haven't been to either one in nearly two years so I can't comment on the quality now.

We first met the Espinosas last year, when Mary started taking Spanish lessons from Maritza Espinosa. As time went on, we became closer with them, until now Maritza insists to our delight that we are part of the family. Mary's Spanish lessons after a while also turned into lessons in casera (home) cooking and that's how we discovered true Panamanian cuisine.

I've already talked about some of the ways that Panamanians use corn. American equivalent cooking is wheat-based; here, it's corn-based. Tuesday night when I visited the Espinosas, Maritza was cooking crema de maiz. Like all authentic ethnic style cooking, it's a lot of work. You start off with "new corn", which means fresh corn ears. First you "rasp" or shell the new corn, then put the kernels through a molino which, as I've mentioned, is a corn grinder. Then you cook the ground corn in water until it's soft . Maritza passes this through a colander which Ricardo has made from the shell of a gourd into which he has drilled fairly large-sized holes. This is simply to separate out any coarse debris. Maritza explained that you can't use the usual small sieve because the mixture won't pass through. I think we could use a standard colander. after that, you cook it some more until it has the consistency of thick oatmeal (but a much, much finer texture), which is when it's ready to eat.

Maritza filled small bowls for us and for Ricardo, who never needs to be called to the table. There are lots of different ways you can eat the crema. Maritza explained that a really good way is to add queso blanco, which is the soft country cheese you can get in the supermarkets and which she uses in bollos many times or if you really want a treat, add nance, a small tropical fruit that grows quite easily in the area. The Espinosas claim that that's the tastiest way to eat crema. But since they had neither of those Tuesday night, we "merely" added milk, much as you would to oatmeal, for example. The crema had gelled in the bowl and reminded me of cream of wheat. The texture is a little coarser, but not much.

It was hot and delicious. Polite guest that I was, I finished before anyone else, even before Ricardo, who is one of the country's great trenchermen. We understand each other, Ricardo and I, when it comes to food.

Later, as I was about to leave, naturally Maritza who thinks that we are starving here (never mind that I am 15-18 lbs overweight) filled a bag with goodies. There was crema for Mary and also a dish that Mary likes a great deal--rice cooked with pineapple. Maritza told me that the way to make this dish the tastiest was to cook it with hunks of the pineapple rind, although Ricardo warned me not to use commercial pineapple because of the hormones and pesticides that are used. That eliminates our cooking the dish for a while, since our pineapples won't be ready until next year. Just in passing, I should add that the corn came from their huerta, which is far more than a vegetable garden--more like a small subsistence farm.

While you can eat the rice and pineapple dish as is after removing the pineapple rinds, you can also put the pineapple-flavored rice into a blender and make a very refreshing, very tasty drink from it. I've had it at Las Brisas when I've asked for it.

Part of the 5 lbs or so of food I toted home was a small container of a bean I've never seen before but which the Espinosas had shown me a couple of weeks before. It's tiny, tiny, a long bean that is about the size of long-grained rice. Maritza explained how to use this bean--you mix the cooked bean, which takes a long time to cook because it's so hard, with a rather large amount of rice to make quite a tasty dish. She warned me not to use too much of the beans or the dish will become "mala". I've had this form of rice and beans a few times at Doña Mary's, and I can tell you that it's excellent. She gave me a half a cup worth, saying that that was enough to flavor what she considers barely sufficient rice to feed two people (in other words, enough for 6). They both urged me to plant a few hills of the beans, because a few plants will produce heavily. I hope to get to that soon.

Before I went to Brasil for the first time 10 years ago, I had no idea that there were so many different types of beans in the world as there are. We've experimented with just what's readily available in the supermarkets and have settled on one type of poroto that is excellent. Martitza and Ricardo urged me again to find a bean that is called colombiano redondo grande, which, they say, is the tastiest bean around. I inquired at our fruit and vegetable kiosko yesterday, but they didn't have any at that time. We're regulars there, so I asked the young woman who usually waits on us to tell me when they had it in stock, and she will.

You'd never know it from what's available in restaurants here in Chiriquí, but Panamanian cuisine is really good--you just have to have it casera.

Thanks

2008-06-11T19:28:00.003-04:00

Because I never know if the comments section is being read, I want to thank in this post those who did post there for their extremely kind words. I'm getting the same reaction from friends here.

However, tomorrow, anyway, I am going to talk about food--I had home made crema de maiz (take note, Chiricana!) last night at the Espinosas, and it was delicious!

Point of View

2008-06-11T06:33:00.005-04:00

I woke up this morning realizing that in a destructive way, for me, this blog has started to dominate my life. I understand that that happens. What interests me is that La Gringa in Honduras has gone through the same thing. Our blogs are similar, in that we talk about life here and she, too, takes an interest in trying to point out the risks of uninformed decisions to move to Central America. Lately, however, that seems to be all I'm doing or thinking about, and that's simply not what I want to focus on.

I realized that through the Comments I've come to "know" a few of you--certainly not well, but have gotten a little bit of a nice "feel" as to who you are.

I'm not concerned about the rich, and I sincerely doubt that any of them read this blog, which is just as well. But I am concerned about people like us--retirees or anyone else who is living on modest incomes, who is feeling perhaps financial or other pressures and who dreams about getting away "from it all" and fulfilling some--again-- dream, of comfortable living in a tropical paradise. Too much Hollywood.

It's these people to whom I address my concerns, almost frantic when I read about the innocence and naiveté upon which people seem to be headed towards making life-changing decisions.

Mary and I went through the list of the ex-pats we know around here--not every ex-pat who has moved here because we certainly don't know everyone by any means--and counted how many households are in the process of leaving or trying to leave. It adds up to 40% or 50%, depending on what we think one person is going to do. Of 10 households, fully 4 and possibly 5 want out or are on their way out. The financial loss for at least two is or will be considerable. I'd hate to see some of yo wind up in that position, or so unhappy that what should be really good years for you turn out to be miserable.

However, I have the nasty character attribute of sort of taking responsibility that definitely isn't mine on my shoulders. Whether or not any of you make informed decisions, whether or not you come here at least considering the risks, whether or not you're going to continue to be so desperate or so blind or so in love with a fantasy that you move here regardless and then fall victims to the predators, both Panamanians and gringo (especially American), who are here waiting for you, is really not my concern.

So, thank you to those who have made comments that they've found my blog informative. I think I was never so happy with the blog as when it served as an information exchange for tick removal and suppression, because that sort of thing is exactly who I am. I will continue to write about what I encounter here--I have one post in mind about problems with labor that have come up for us quite recently--but mostly I want to document the real reason why we came here--what we enjoy about living in this area. I'm going to be busy for the next few days, but when I return to this blog, it will be with photos, hopefully videos about the Potrerillos library and the new additions to the school.

By the way, Dan, I did follow up on Charles Colburn and learned some things last night; I intend to learn much more over the next few days. but you're right--he helped the Potrerillos library enormously.

So I want to leave the subject of risks with this warning: if you intend to buy land and build, you will face the two greatest risks you have in moving here--buying the land and not being taken (no water, for instance) and then finding an honest and/or competent contractor. There is absolutely no way to overemphasize those dangers. It's not possible.

If you decide to buy in a development or another type of existing house, you are merely facing those risks once removed. I know every screw, every tubo, every bag of cement, every piece of rebar, every beam in this house because I bought them and I checked them out as they arrived. This is not the US--you don't have the same disclosure laws protecting you. Buying into a development that exists only on paper is or is only partially complete is, at this point, a horrendous risk for many different reasons, not the least of which is that developers are going broke and leaving people high and dry with no possibility of getting their considerable deposits back.

Sometimes I think I make it sound like we knew everything and avoided all problems and had some sort of easy time of it here, because we were all-knowing. No. But from our individual experiences in Latin America--Mary spent three years in the Caribbean doing graduate work, me the equivalent of over a year in the poor parts of Brasil--we knew what we were in for as far as culture and the lack of infrastructure was concerned. We knew the kinds of things we would have to do without but we also knew what we considered to be the benefits.

We also listened to the advice and warnings of some gringos--American and Canadian--who had been here for a long time. I will be forever indebted to those three people for their kindness, patience, advice, and help. Without them, and the sharp but honest and extraordinarily helpful Panamanian businesswoman who sold us our land, I don't know that we would have come out of the experience here in any kind of good shape. We are not rich. We built here based on the proceeds of the sale of a very modest house in the US, and we live on Social Security. We could not afford a major disaster and we didn't have one, thanks in good part to these three people.

Without question, we also had a certain amount of luck. What percentage that was, I couldn't say. But it factored in.

Even then, we made mistakes. But after you get through the major hassles, the rest you can deal with.

So that's it. If you have questions, you can ask me, and I'll give you whatever information I have based on my experiences and those of people I know (within limits--don't ask me about real estate). But for the most part, I need to get out from underneath what this blog has become.

Water Again

2008-06-10T16:54:00.006-04:00

I think just about everyone who reads this blog also reads Don Ray's Chiriquí Chatter. Today, June 10th, he posted an outstanding article about the problems with water here in Chiriquí. It's a must read. It isn't as if he's saying anything really new; he's responding to a Yahoo group discussion and he's repeating a lot as well as adding disquieting news about the meningitis outbreak--I had no idea it was in Dolega, too. My post on utility reliability contains much the same information except Don has expanded on the information in his post, and he specifically addresses the situation in David, which is different from the rural areas.

I would have to say that pueblo-wide here in Potrerillos, we have water outages maybe a half dozen times a year. BUT because of water delivery lines and the fact that people tap off each others' lines (yes, it's illegal--just try to get it enforced), you wind up having far, far more outages than just with the main delivery system.

At any given moment in time, I can take you over a 2-3 kilometer stretch of road and point out to you at least two very visible leaks, plumes of water spouting into the air. They are not IDAAN pipe leaks--they are leaks from private lines. There are leaks like that--water plumes, easily visible--as you go down the road to Dolega and to David as well. If you happen to be downstream of such a line and you're on it--well, if there are outages finally in that line, you, too, have no water. And IDAAN will not help you.

I posted a comment on Don's blog about the fact that right after the tropical depression that became Tropical Storm Alma left us, Valle Escondido, the over-hyped development in Boquete, suffered a mud slide that blocked one of their access roads. Fortunately no houses were involved. Yet.

If you go to the Palo Alto area or the Jaramillo Central area and look at the development on the slopes that has turned Boquete into a slum as far as I'm concerned--if you go look at the steepness of grades of access roads to individual residences (I know there are some that are more than 6%--I've driven on them)--if you look at the way pads for houses have been carved out of the slopes--if you're someone like me who has lived in an area where bluffs are unstable when saturated with water--what you see is certain catastrophe just waiting to happen.

Many of the housing (and access roads) that you see on those slopes would NEVER be permitted in the US. Never. And for good reason. One of these days, too many of those houses are going to wash down the mountainside on what is called here a "patina" of mud.

I don't truly understand the makeup of the soil here--it isn't clay--but I can tell you from sometimes scary personal experience that it layers when wet and you slide on it. Those layers slip. And that's on level ground. 4-wheel drive has saved our necks, literally, at least once and gotten us out of some nasty situations at least a half dozen times if not more. But even 4-wheel drive is not going to help you if you're caught in a mud slip. I know. Nearly three years ago, I wound up sliding out of control and lodged gently (thank God) against a small sapling--on level ground. In order to get out of the situation, we had to chop down the sapling (with a borrowed ax) so that the truck could slide just a little further where the 4-wheel drive could take hold. That occurred maybe the length of a football field from where we live, never mind in a really rough area. Or on an unpaved road on a slope, of which there exist many.

So water is a problem in many different ways, and you have to be careful. Don made a point which he should have put in bold and italics--if you're looking at land, particularly in the Boquete area, ask around about water--don't ask the seller. DON'T ASK THE SELLER. Should you be lied to, take it from all of us--you have no realistic legal recourse. Contracts are a joke around here. It's Buyer Beware. Everyone who thinks you are coming here to a United States on the cheap or Paradise is living in La-La Land.

I hate to be so negative but Don's post actually alarmed me. If HE feels he has to post about this yet again, then there are still the sheep out there who are ready and eager to be fleeced, who are ready and eager to come nearly totally unprepared to a foreign country, a foreign culture with no Spanish language skills and no idea of what they're letting themselves in for--and who will join the growing numbers of discouraged and bitter people who are trying to sell their homes and get out. La Gringa in Honduras estimates that the return rate from that country is a good 50%. I think that for other reasons--after all, it's a little hard to be pie-in-the-sky blind about a country as poor as Honduras--the percentage here will be similar.

It's not that I think no one should immigrate here. Far from it. there is a couple who live near us who have been here 5 years or more, and while they have suffered far, far more than we have (right now, for example, they're in the middle of a fairly grim legal fight with a former employee that could cost them literally thousands of dollars), I think they're good for the long haul. Yet I see signs of stress in someone else we know, whom I have felt for quite some time does not have either the judgement or the skills to survive here. Some else we know who has been here for 12 years is finally giving up and trying to sell his home (unsuccessfully) so that he can move back to the US.

I have no actual statistical data to base this impression on, but I would guess that fully 9 out of 10 people who came here during The Boquete Boom have no business here. I would guess that there is a similar percentage still out there but who think that they're going to be on the right side of the statistic.

I think the best way to describe what it takes to thrive here is that you have to have a frontier attitude--not a Hollywood frontier attitude but the real thing. A spirit of adventure, a willingness to cut loose from what you know, a good set of real survival skills (not urban commuter ones), and a realistic attitude that on any frontier, there is not the kind of order, never mind law, that exists in more civilized places. In many respects, Panamá is NOT a "civilized" place if you mean by that the sort of comforts you have and assumptions you make in the US, the assurances and protections. They don't exist here, and there is simply no use whining about the lack. And you're not going to get them soon, either--another common and fatal error--"Oh things will be all right once I get there or in a little while".

This is not a first-world country and it's not going to be one in our lifetimes.

Museo de Historia y Arte José de Obaldía Orejuela

2008-06-10T06:43:00.003-04:00

On June 8, Don Ray in Chiriquí Chatter published a letter from supporters of the Museo de Historia y Arte José de Obaldía Orejuela in David asking for participation in a meeting on June 23 in front of the Museum to protest the museum's lack of support from the Torrijos government.

This issue of The Panama News has a very short article (two paragraphs) on the topic as well as photos by one of the signers of that letter. Should be rather lively for a museum event!

Slide Show Online, Chiriquí Artists

2008-06-09T06:16:00.005-04:00

One of the really nice things the Panamanian government has done for its people is to set up a series of what they call Infoplazas, where, for 25 cents an hour, kids can use (OLD) computers, both for schoolwork and for personal use (adults, 50 cents). They're more or less like Internet cafes run by the government and often either next door to or in the same building as what passes for public libraries here in the rural areas. We used the Infoplazas when we first moved into our house before we were able to get Internet service at home.

The one in Potrerillos Arriba is managed by Marisin Espinosa, a very capable young woman, daughter of our friends Maritza and Ricardo Espinosa. She is quite computer literate. The family represents to me the difference between the older and younger generations. Ricardo and Maritza do not have a computer and I think really don't want one. Marisin doesn't have one--I imagine she can't afford one-- although her brother Ricardito, who works for one of the banks in Bocas del Toro, has a small laptop.

Not all that long ago, Marisin started a blog for the Potrerillos Arriba Infoplaza. I finally got over to the site yesterday after a long time away, and discovered that Marisin has uploaded photos of an exhibition of Chiriquí artists that was showing from June 1-8 at the Potrerillos library right next door (we, naturally, missed it). It's set up as a slide show.

Worth checking out.

Added later: I should mention that, naturally, the Panamanian government for one reason or another (and I tend to have dark thoughts about why) didn't allocate sufficient money for the infoplaza in Potrerillos. So, local officials went around asking for donations from various people, including ex-pats--who gave. This occurred before we arrived in Panamá; the Infoplaza itself opened on June 11, 2004--exactly one week after we arrived in Chiriquí.

Another Coffee Pruning Video

2008-06-09T04:56:00.001-04:00

I've learned how to embed YouTube videos in posts, so that makes my life a lot easier.

OK, here's another short video, with Maria Ruiz explaining the rationale behind coffee pruning--in Spanish! She talks slowly and clearly, so check out your Spanish comprehension.

Ok, ok, I've been told I'd better provide a translation. Basically what she's saying is that they prune to get rid of branches that aren't productive and to fortify the plant against the rainy season. She shows this year's pruning cut--the light-colored one, and last year's, as well as one that's 5 years old. She talks about slanting the cut so that the rain will run off and not soak in to the stump. and finally she points to a feature of the prune where there's a little bit of bark showing up from the prune, saying that they want to avoid damage to the bark and thus to the plant itself.

When I say she's talking slowly, all things are relative. I've heard her when she's talking with other Panamanians and believe me, in the video, she's SLOW.

Videos from the Brasilian Amazon

2008-06-08T12:23:00.004-04:00

Originally, I wanted to post the videos themselves. I have been trying for almost an hour to upload them, and can't. Blogger is not the easiest program to work with. However, I've uploaded to YouTube, and the links are in the text.

These are just two small videos I put together out of tons of footage that I have from my trip last year. The first one is of a very large woodpecker working for a living. In the background, you can hear a noise that sounds like wind moaning through trees. Nope, it's a troop of howler monkeys, who were carrying on all day that day.

The second one is of my Brasilian guide, Morães, showing off, climbing a strangler fig. Morães and I had known one another for 3 years, dating back to my first trip to this particular area. Because I speak Portuguese, in both trips I had an enormous advantage in that I would go out alone with Morães, with no need of a head guide or interpreter, and Morães, who is a native of the area, would tell me all sorts of stories, point out incredible things. He is a veritable treasure trove of information about the rain forest, the plants and creatures in it, and how people make their living there.

Both videos were taken from a canoe.

Coffee Pruning Video

2008-06-08T12:14:00.004-04:00

Sundays are usually days off; today, I made good on a promise to myself that I would work on video footage I have, some of it dating back to this time last year on my trip to the Brasilian Amazon. I've uploaded with this post a little movie I made of workers on the Ruiz coffee farm near Boquete pruning the trees. I haven't done anything with sound; you hear the pruners and birds in the background, which I thought were far better than anything I could do artificially.

I have some other videos of the pruning operation that I'll post separately.

The quality isn't going to be all that good because I have to compress to lower resolution--uploading large files is risky, given our situation. but it's good enough, I think, to give you an idea.

Happy Birthday, Lucy!

2008-06-08T06:46:00.007-04:00

Today, we're celebrating Lucy's 6th birthday. Actually, we don't know exactly when Lucy's birthday is, just that it's some time in the first week in June. Lucy came into our lives as an 11 week old puppy from one of the rescue organizations where we lived in the US. Ethel was 7 1/2, and we wanted a playmate for her. When we brought Lucy home, Ethel watched carefully for 3 days from her usual perch on the couch (nothing has changed in our house, just the geographical location of a couch) while Lucy ran around on the floor and generally played Excited Young Puppy. At the end of the third day, Ethel slithered down off the couch onto the floor and rolled over on her back. Lucy instantly "attacked"--and the rest, as they say, is history. It seemed as if they only stopped playing together to eat. We always say that we did very little with Lucy as a puppy--Ethel raised her.

Lucy is a German shepherd/border collie mix with the height and coloring of her German shepherd daddy and the conformation of her border collie mom. When she went through her growth spurt, her legs were so long in proportion to her body that when she sat down, it was as if she had too many legs and didn't know what to do with them all. She was the gawkiest puppy I've ever seen.

But she developed into a beautiful, graceful dog who leaps effortlessly, like a gazelle, over downed logs and other obstacles. When we used to walk in the woods, she would take off, accelerating at a tremendous pace, and soar over a downed tree just for the sheer joy of it. She and Fred play Chase a lot, and while Fred is very fast (but ungainly-looking), Lucy runs like a race horse, always elegant.

Last year, before we had our fence (and one of the reasons for the fence), we were plagued by unwelcome visits from strolling horses. True to her heritage, Lucy would try to herd them off the property. At first, they ran--she makes a considerable noise barking. but soon they figured out it was all noise and no real action. So she and I used to chase them off together, me throwing small rocks at them (no one and nothing is ever in any danger from me--I can't hit a barn at 20 paces) and Lucy racing along at their heels, barking and nipping.

Once, however, she got too close and annoyed one of the horses too much. I saw her startle back, but then she resumed the chase until they were well away. When she returned, I saw blood pouring out of a gash just above her eye where the horse had kicked her. It was a very superficial cut; those things usually are. I cleaned it up and within a week, her fur was growing back.

When Fred came on the scene, Lucy, who was used to being the baby, suddenly had to share the spotlight. This was NOT to her liking. We had thought that she, like Ethel, would immediately start playing with the new puppy. No way. It took her weeks, actually, before she grudgingly admitted that there might be some benefit to having this interloper around. Now they play constantly.

At night, she tries her best to become a second skin, snuggled up next to me (and in between Fred and me) when I'm in bed reading. It's her special time. Often she'll roll over on her back and fall asleep, which means that the top of my book is crowned with the sight of long, skinny dog legs.

So, this morning they had their special birthday meal, a glorious mess of cooked pork and beef bones (on top of their regular dog food--we don't miss nutrition here) with a small piece of beef thrown in for Lucy. Later, I'll try to get pictures of the Birthday Girl.

Meanwhile, it's time for our morning walk.

Darío and the Potting Shed

2008-06-07T09:31:00.005-04:00

Slowly--and I do mean slowly--Darío has been building a potting shed for me. I need some sort of structure where I can place my germinating trays and seedling trays, protected from sun and, in January, from the wind. It doesn't have to be an elaborate greenhouse affair--that's not needed here. But sun and rain protection is important.

The delay is not his fault; I've had to give up design ideas because either the material I wanted for the roof wasn't available or was simply too expensive. So, today he's installing the two tarps we're going to use for the roof during the rainy season. In December, I'll switch over to shade cloth which is readily available here. One of these weeks, he'll build my work tables for me. He's already tipped me off to the cheapest place to get reglas and tablas (different sizes of wood) in the area. I'll get to that next week.

I told him, when I took this picture this morning, that he was going to be internationally famous. He just laughed, tickled.

Traffic Down?

2008-06-06T15:45:00.003-04:00

I finally managed to keep my mouth shut and not eat anything this morning, so we headed into David and Hospital Chiriquí to get my routine annual tests done, me with a crashing hunger headache, grouchier than usual.

However, what we noticed immediately was the lack of traffic on the carretera between Potrerillos and Dolega. It's never really high, not like between Dolega and Boquete, but this morning there was no one. Street traffic in David seemed down, too. After getting all the tests done and turning the paperwork into the insurance office, we started our usual round of errands. I was astounded when we approached the Global Bank parking lot--there were only 3 cars there! I wondered if we'd missed the official announcements of the end of the world, because in the nearly 4 years in which we've banked at the David branch, never, ever has that parking lot had only 3 cars in it. Lately, it's been waiting until someone leaves so we can get a spot, and there are usually cars parked in between the regular spots, creating something of a slalom approach to getting in and out of the lot.

Also, there seemed to be fewer people in the stores.

David can be a really odd place to visit, because there will be days when it's relatively easy to get around town, traffic seems less than usual, and we are not quite so white-knuckled at the wheel of the car, trying to dodge taxis and pedestrians alike. I would have put it down to one of those days--except for the Global parking lot.

When we returned home, same thing on our stretch of the carretera--empty. Kind of eerie.

Wednesday I had to go to Boquete, and ran into the same phenomenon there. One of the major gripes about that place is the lack of parking. Wednesday, I had no trouble finding a parking place, another first for the past two years. Also, two of the stores were empty for the first time in my experience; I was the only customer during my admittedly brief visit to each.

Hardly scientific data collection, but it seems to me that high fuel prices may have taken their toll on Panamanian drivers. I've been expecting that. Mary and I were discussing whether the banks will start having a flood of repossessed cars pretty soon.

I don't know why, but I was NOT expecting fewer people in the stores, significantly fewer at least to my eye. If true and not just some one-time lull that I happened to hit in both towns this week, then the Chiriquí economy is in real trouble. Officially, the country's economy has contracted, although there is still growth. But I wonder about the province.

And of course, today was just ducky news, with oil reaching $138/barrel and predicted to hit $150 in a month.

Belt tightening time for everyone.

Ants Again

2008-06-06T05:14:00.001-04:00

I've noticed in the past few weeks that there are all sorts of new--and really large--ant nests popping up around the property. Two nights ago, Mary called my attention to a long, LONG double line of ants, streaming across the edge of the concrete pad in front of the dog run. These were not one of the small, stinging ant varieties, but rather large black ants. They were headed out in the direction of the bodega.

I hate the stinging ants, but I don't like killing anything unless there's a real need. These ants were bothering no one, so I decided to leave them alone.

Next morning, there wasn't a sign of them around the house.

After walking the dogs, I headed to the masateras to check on how my lettuce and other veggies were doing. And found the ants.

They were swarming by the hundreds all over the two raised beds, and seemed to be planning to move into these nice, crumbly soil new quarters. Then I looked down and saw that I was stepping in (and about to pay a price for doing so) a swarm of black ants that were also headed out towards the ganadera. Some were even starting to investigate the bodega.

Stamping my feet, swatting and swiping ants (who were biting hard, I might add) off my legs, I pulled out my trusty sprayer from the bodega. Hating every minute of it, I proceeded to commit ant genocide. But I left the stream of ants behind the bodega that seemed to be heading for the ganadera alone. I couldn't tolerate them in the raised beds, but they were perfectly free to make nests elsewhere if they wanted to.

That was Darío's work day. When he arrived, I asked him why there were so many ant migrations and new nests. The rainy season, he replied. Whenever the rains get really heavy, they flood the ant nests, and the ants move out to seek better accommodations. I asked him about the black ants I'd seen.

I find that most Panamanians who live in the countryside are very environmentally aware. Darío is one of the most informed, and this time he gave me a fascinating account of these particular ants. He said that they will "flood" houses at times like this, but that they're valuable because they'll eat cockroaches and spiders. He had the oddest bright gleam in his eyes when he said "Come cucarachas, come arañas", as he was making hand gestures towards his mouth that typically mean eating. I swear he was getting some weird sort of kick out of the whole idea. After imparting that information, he drew himself up to his full height--I'm sure he's at least 6 ft tall--and then gave me a lecture about how no one understands that these ants are part of the ecological balance--and went off into an environmentalist rant. Darío tends to rant about many things, so I'm used to this. It's always entertaining and I usually come away with new information.

A few hours later, after he had completed a small project for me--I wanted him to elevate two water shut-off valves we have, one near the ganadera--he was not quite so taken with these ants because sure enough, that swarm I'd seen the night before was rooting around where he needed to work and he was more than a little indignant at their nerve and bites. I knew exactly how he felt.

I wondered, though, about the ants he'd described.

When we first moved here, we heard stories about the army ants of Costa Rica that did make migrations in their thousands and did sweep through houses. One man who lived for many years in Costa Rica before moving to Panamá said that he'd seen them there. He said you could always tell when they were coming because suddenly every bug--roaches, spiders, other ants, you name it--would leave en masse from the house. He said you never knew how many insects you were harboring in your house until the army ants came through. Those that couldn't make it out were eaten on the spot. He said they never bothered humans or other large animals, just insects.

I've never bothered finding out what the different ant species are here, but the story came to mind as Darío was describing the behavior of the ants. And to tell the truth, there are so many ant species here, that I don't even know if "our" black ant horde was the same as those he talked about.

So, I did a little Internet research and found out yes, indeed, Panamá does have army ants. In fact, an island in the Panama Canal, Barro Colorado, a biological reserve where the Smithsonian Institute has a large research mission, has 50 colonies of Eciton burchelli, the most studied and most frequently encountered army ant species (there are over 200 species world-wide, 120-130 in the New World, ranging from Argentina to Mexico).

Despite Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, South American army ants will not bring down and eat Soviet or any other soldiers, other humans, large livestock, or similar animals (sorry to ruin the movie for you). Some African species might, but not in our half of the world. They're nearly blind and just simply swarm over, attack, kill and eat any other ant species, scorpions, cockroaches, or other insects that happens to get in their way--even lizards and frogs that don't get out of their way in time, although they don't eat those. The only way they will attack humans is if you step into them or are having a campout and you and your sleeping bag are in their route.

Their colonies are huge, ranging from 500,000 to millions! The head of the column is fan-shaped, with a tail of worker ants. They really don't build any permanent nests, but are migratory, just like human nomads.

Given that there are lots of subspecies of Eciton, it could be that what we saw on Tuesday night and Wednesday were indeed some variety of army ant, although I saw nothing like the pictures of the soldier ants that make army ants so devastating. Their mandibles are fearsome--long and curved inwards sort of like a pair of scythes. But I may have happened on the tail end of the column and just met up with the workers. The soldiers are huge and reddish, while the workers are various sizes and black. All I ever saw were black ants of varying sizes. I never did see the head of the column or, for that matter, the actual end.

Also, I'm not sure that our migrating colony had enough ants to qualify. I never saw the whole colony but it seemed to me that I was looking at maybe a thousand, not a half million. The "stream" didn't look enough like what I'd seen on various Web sites and YouTube. I never saw the classical "bivoac", a mound of these ants whose "wall" is composed of the ants themselves, attaching to one another. Yet, about 6 hours later, there were still black ants in a narrow column wending their way alongside the bodega clearly on their way to the ganadera pasture behind the house. Today they're gone--there isn't a trace of the ants around.

So I really don't know for sure, but am leaning towards the idea that they were indeed army ants. Rather than building a nest, they may just have been foraging in the masateras.

I wish I could find non-copyrighted pictures of these nasty little devils in order to post them here, but unfortunately I can't. Mary is not a terribly squeamish person, but when I showed her some of the more "dramatic", shall we say, pictures of army ants, she went "Euww! Euww!" and more or less fled. The Youtube videos I've seen are not the best, and again, I can't really compare.

But still, I learn something new every day about life here.

Yet More on Internet

2008-06-05T11:12:00.004-04:00

The past few days have seen such slow Internet speeds and so many intermittent outages that it has driven even me crazy, and I'm no Internet freak. Mary is the computer expert in the house--neither the cats nor I have the patience for it. She was an Apple-certified Mac consultant in a former life, and actually likes that sort of thing.

Anyway, we'd both had it this morning, especially as I was trying to upload and having a terrible time of it. Mary checked out both the Internet connection and the speed, and while clearly part of our problems were due to the server, just as clearly not all of them were.

The problem may be bandwidth coming into the country.

Simply put, bandwidth is the amount of information that can be transmitted from point to point in a given time. It doesn't matter, really, how good your Internet service provider is, because if the volume of traffic exceeds the bandwidth capability, you have problems. At the very least, you slow down. The US is experiencing bandwidth problems due to the very high volume of graphics being transmitted--and it just keeps increasing.

About a year ago, a post appeared on one of the Boquete lists, I think, explaining that with the increased volume of traffic here in Panamá, bandwidth into the country was becoming a severe limitation. He claimed that Panamá did NOT have very much bandwidth coming in. It isn't so much the increase in the number of private, Panamanian users (given the costs, the poverty in the country, and an economy that is tanking, I doubt that that growth is very high in real numbers) that is the problem so much as it is commercial use and ex-pat use; both of those tend to be very heavy in graphics--images, videos--and that eats up bandwidth like crazy.

There are tests for that sort of thing, but even Mary is unwilling to put the time in on it. It is what it is and we live with it. I worry far, far more about good weed eater técnicos than I am ever going to worry about bandwidth. If it gets too annoying, I'll simply give up blogging, which is not at the core of my emotional survival, and go out and plant flowers.

It actually may be a combination of low bandwidth within the country as well as coming in from outside the country. I suspect that you have to pay for incoming bandwidth, just as you have to pay for everything else--none of it is free--and my guess is that Panamanian Internet providers do not access a whole of of bandwidth for financial reasons.

Either way, whether due to ISP low bandwidth or incoming to the country bandwidth, the problems we've been having today are not due solely to our server fluctuation in and out of reality.

I had forgotten to include this sort of information in my two other posts about Internet services, so I thought I'd just get it out of the way now.

Home Day

2008-06-05T07:14:00.006-04:00

One of Mary's collection of orchids

Panamá has what I consider an excellent law with regards to age and driver's licenses: if you are 70 or over, in order to renew your license, you must have a physical exam certifying that you are physically fit to drive. There already is a requirement for everyone to have a glucose tolerance test, which is the screen for diabetes. In two weeks, I have to renew my license. Today, as on two other occasions, I forgot that I was going to the hospital for my fasting blood work--and ate one of our delicious bananas. Aaaagh!! I've got to get this done. Tomorrow. I told Mary, when I wake up in the morning, to put a piece of duct tape across my mouth so that I can't eat or drink anything. Last time, it was orange juice that did me in. The first time, my blind groping for a cup of coffee.

I'm going to have the work done as part of my annual exam. There is a medical insurance company that works out of Hospital Chiriquí, one of our two private hospitals in the area, which is not only extraordinarily inexpensive, by American standards, but--amazing to contemplate-- promotes preventive medicine. Every year when notification of our premium is due, we get a set of recommended tests from our physician. Insurance will pay half the costs. Given my family history, one of my tests is an electrocardiogram. Total cost is about $80 for very thorough blood work and the ekg. My share, then, is $40. Included is the glucose tolerance test that I'll need to renew my driver's license. Then, an appointment with the doctor for a physical, to go over my results, write out whatever paper I need for the renewal, and off to the Tránsito office to renew my license.

But first I have to remember not to eat or drink anything other than water that morning! That's the worst part of the whole business.

But it looks like our period of overcast, rainy weather is over and a more normal pattern for early June is coming back. Both yesterday morning and this morning were beautiful, especially this morning. I'll give it a couple of hours for the grass to dry, and then it's out with the weed eater.

This afternoon, of course, we'll have rain, but that will give me a chance to edit some video footage that's been waiting for me, in some cases for just about a year. I've got GREAT footage from my last trip to Brasil, and also from my morning at the Ruiz coffee farms.

So, except for the weed eating which I regard as being as much of a part of my life as breathing, a laid back day.

An edit here, to correct a mistake. Panamá does NOT require a glucose tolerance test, which is a much more complicated affair, but a simple fasting glucose test. The glucose tolerance is much more accurate, but the fasting glucose test is used as a routine screen for diabetes.

Utility Services, Reliable and Otherwise

2008-06-04T06:06:00.001-04:00

Something that came up as a sideline not too long ago was the reliability of services such as electricity, Internet service, and water. I can't talk about phone service because as I've already explained, we don't have a land line.

Internet service

I can only talk personally about wireless service.

We have service problems at least once a week (probably more often) when the server is down. These "outages" can last from 5-10 minutes to hours, and are more often on the long side of that range. But we seem to have been lucky at lest in April. Lloyd Cripe of Boqueteweather.com mentioned in an email update he sent out that his server was down more than it was up in April. It can be extremely annoying, particularly if you're in the middle of a download.

Electricity

The major provider of electricity here in this are of the province, anyway, is a private company called Union Fenosa. I've already written about rates. What I want to talk about now is reliability of the power supply.

We have power outages at least once a week, more frequently during the rainy season. These last anywhere from a few minutes (dry season) to hours (often during the rainy season). Since our stove and hot water are run off gas, it isn't usually a problem. It does mean, of course, that we have to shut down our computers. For those who are used to and depend on nearly uninterrupted Internet service, this is a problem, especially combined with frequent interruptions in the service itself. For us, it can be annoying at times, but no really big deal.

In fact I have to say that the only time I was truly inconvenienced by a power outage was the day a few years ago when at last my copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince arrived (at that time, courier service time from the US was about 4 weeks). I got home, eager to read it--and a few hours later, the power went out. Not for just a few minutes but for 6-7 hours.

I read nearly the whole book by flashlight. We Potter fans are tough.

Other than that? No problema. We've never lost food in our refrigerator or had any other associated problem with power outages. Power surges due to lightning strikes, such as the last one when a transformer blew out? Yes, but I've already talked about that. That type of problem is relatively rare and occurs with about the same frequency that we experienced in the US.

Water

For us, the much bigger deal is water. It's truly surprising, but the availability and steady supply of potable water here in this area--and I would most emphatically include Boquete in this--is a problem. One of the reasons I'm writing about this today is that I think we may have a break in our water lines, and I'm about to go out on a search for one.

There are several considerations here. One is that, unlike the US, districts--as opposed to municipalities--are not required to supply water to individuals. If you buy a lot, for instance, you'd better find out ahead of time whether or not you have water access. Unlike the US, there are no strong disclosure laws here, and if you are suckered in to a deal without water--well, it's buyer beware and God made Americans to be sheep for sharp Panamanians to fleece. Boquete is a source of many stories like this.

And just in passing, you'd better find out if a piece of property has just plain access rights. We know of one American couple here that bought a piece of land in Potrerillos only to discover that they had no legal easement, and the owner was holding them hostage over access.

Another problem is water pressure and availability of water during the dry season. Practically as soon as we moved in to our rental house, our helpful neighbor warned us that the water supply could literally dry up during the dry season, and advised us to get a reserve water system, mostly due to low water pressure. Within months, we did so, with a 400 gallon water tank, pump, the works. When we moved into our house, we just had the whole system transferred over at minimum cost.

The reserve system was extremely valuable for another reason. In our house, we have an energy-saving, on-demand gas hot water heater. It needs, however, a minimum of 40 lbs of water pressure to function. Only with the reserve system did we have enough pressure at any time for the hot water heater.

IDAAN is the national water service. Some of the municipios, such as David, I assume, also have their own water service, but here we have to rely on IDAAN.

When we first started building, we had no water supply to the property. For the first weeks, while we were building the bodega, twice a day I brought over three 55 gallon drums of water to the building site in our truck. Later, thanks to our wonderful Panamanian friend who sold us our land, we had a temporary water supply from the ganadera next door. One of the reasons why we had to rely on this water supply was that IDAAN, after first assuring us that we would have water, then decided that the water pressure from the nearest source was too low to get water to us--and left it at that. So, the temporary solution which saved our skins.

But that was temporary. After we moved into the house, we had to have a permanent source. Again, to the rescue came our Panamanian friend who made all the arrangements to get us a water supply from a hookup about a mile up the carretera from our house. She did everything--figure out in conjunction with IDAAN where the connection could be, arrange for the installation, got a great deal on the PVC pipes, the whole thing. We paid for half of it; she took the other half of the expenses because, I think, she felt partly responsible for the assurance that we would have water from IDAAN.

BUT--it was a Panamanian installation. We were assured that the pipes would be buried at least a foot underground. I was really busy at that time and didn't supervise the work. As a result, when the first interruption in our water supply occurred--maybe about 6 weeks after we had the new water system--I discovered two ugly truths:

1) The pipes were at best 6" under the ground and most were maybe 2"-3" underground--including where the pipe crossed underneath an access road. Even 12" is questionable, given that during the rainy season, the water in the saturated ground tends to heave the pipes upward.

2) All the PVC pipe used in the house is the heaviest-caliber pipe available--I bought it and I made sure of that. Most of the PVC pipe used in our mile-long supply line of 3/4" PVC was the thinnest-caliber available, the standard Panamanian caliber. Which is yet another reason to be your own purchasing agent if you're building.

I won't go into all our problems, which ranged from a cow putting a foot through one of the more exposed pipes, to breakage from flash floods where pipes cross drainage ditches to punctures from someone moving a fence over our water lines to workmen for the ganadera casually--and I swear deliberately--stepping on our shutoff valve and breaking it. Never mind the day a backhoe accidentally ran up over a bank where a pipe was really only 2" under the surface and caused a break. These are just the most memorable in a long, long list. The reason why it's so long is that until late last year, we had breaks or leaks in the line just about exactly every 6 weeks.

Naturally, most of the problems occurred on Sunday, when there was no one around. I quickly became an expert on repairing PVC pipe--so much so, that within a short time I had a small plastic tool box that carried various types of unions, elbows, a water shut-off valve, a can of PVC cement, a pair of pliers, and a small hammer.

Knowing that you have no water is one thing--finding the break is another. Like everyone of my neighbors, in such circumstances, I "ride line" along our 1-mile pipe route over roads where, in the rainy season, I usually need 4-wheel drive to get out of the mud.

Whenever I'm looking for a break in the line, I'm always reminded of Western movies where the cowboys "ride fence", on their horse, leading a pack animal with spare barbed wire, etc. Me, I ride line in our 4-wheel drive truck with long sections of 3/4" and 1/2" PVC pipe in the bed of the truck and my handy tool kit, hacksaw, and rags on the seat beside me. I've learned to put up with getting drenched with water as I cut off the broken piece and make the final union with the new piece and the supply line. I've been up to my ankles in water and have slid down short banks in the rainy season.

If you live anywhere outside of an urban area, you'd better have all those skills and be prepared to have a generally unpleasant/uncomfortable experience.

In the nearly 3 years we've been here, I've had whole sections of pipe buried 18" underground encased in 1" PVC pipe and slowly replaced with 4- calibra PVC the old pipe as the breaks occur. Cross your fingers with me--we haven't had a problem since last October, although I thought we did yesterday.

I should say--we haven't had a problem due to breaks in our line. The IDAAN line is yet another source of breaks.

When the heavy rains come, the IDAAN lines come under tremendous stress from sudden surges of additional water. These lines are never maintained--there are exactly 5 maintenance/repairmen for the entire province of Chiriquí--and the lines are not that robust. many time during those surges, the 2" supply lines or even the 4" lines coming down from the mountain burst--and no one has water.

Then there was the three-day interruption last year when a backhoe that was excavating a new line for the ganadera actually fell into the ditch that held the main (and only) 4" IDAAN water line and broke a whole section plus a valve for which there was no replacement in the province.

You have a reserve water supply and you ride out minor upsets like this.

Yesterday, when I started this post, we'd had over 24 hours of air in our water lines. Normally, that means a major break in the main water supply, but we had full pressure, so it was something of a puzzle.

True to the cowboy fantasy, I got into our trusty truck, rode the line with Mary riding shotgun--and found no leak in our lines. When that happens you just wait until the problem resolves itself. There is absolutely no point in calling IDAAN. If I call anyone, it's our Canadian friends who live up in the pueblo itself or the Espinosas to find out what's happening there. Most likely someone tapped into the main IDAAN line for a new connection and the air was introduced that way.

One of the nice things about having this new installation, though, is that the altitude difference between the connection and our house is great enough that there not only is no trouble with water pressure, but we also had to instal a pressure reducer. So we have a constant pressure of about 50 lbs, more than adequate for our hot water heater. Now we use the reserve pump going on as a signal that something's wrong somewhere with the water supply.

An American acquaintance of ours, after we first moved here, told us that two absolutely essential attitudes to survival here were patience and adaptability. If patience were really required, believe me, I wouldn't be here. I have very little. I would say, rather, that you need acceptance and flexibility. Both are vital. If you live anywhere outside of a major urban area--and I mean even a short distance outside the municipio itself, you had better be prepared for problems.

Remember the old prayer, which I'll do my best to quote: "Oh God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

And that's what you need, more than anything else, to be happy here in Panamá.

Tick Removal

2008-06-03T19:17:00.003-04:00

Linda and Clyde Keith have just posted a comment on a method to remove ticks that I want to make sure gets the fullest possible exposure rather than just leave it in the comments section of one post. Here it is in full:

A School Nurse has written the info below -- good enough to share -- And it really works!!
I had a pediatrician tell me what she believes is the best way to remove a tick. This is great, because it works in those places where it's sometimes difficult to get to with tweezers: between toes, in the middle of a head full of dark hair, etc. Apply a glob of liquid soap to a cotton ball. Cover the tick with the soap-soaked cotton ball and let it stay on the repulsive insect for a few seconds (15-20), after which the tick will come out on it's own and be stuck to the cotton ball when you lift it away. This technique has worked every time I've used it (and that was frequently), and it's much less traumatic for the patient and easier for me.
Unless someone is allergic to soap, I can't see that this would be damaging in any way. I even had my doctor's wife call me for advice because she had one stuck to her back and she couldn't reach it with tweezers. She used this method and immediately called me back to say, 'It worked!'
Linda & Clyde Keith

As I wrote back, not only is this good for human use but I'm delighted to try it on the dogs. Too many times, I can't get the tweezers just on the tick, and I wind up taking fur as well. Not only that, but pulling the tick out forcibly seems to tear up the attachment site. I know that for me, that site will itch for a week. The poor dogs can't tell us how they feel, but this has to be better.

Thanks for the suggestion, Linda and Clyde!

Also MXSailor sent along information about a product, BioBlast:

Stumbled across your blog because we too, have tick problems. I've purchased some "Bio-Blast" to try spraying around the "yard." Already approved by FDA for treatment of ticks as well as termites... let you know what I find...

BIO-BLAST: A fungus, Metarhizium anisopliae, Strain ESCI (Bio-Blast) acts as a biological termiticide. It is odorless, vaporless, nonstaining and infected termites can pass the agent (fungus) to other termites via horizontal transfer. Bio-Blast is labeled for control of existing termite infestations in structures and their immediate surroundings and for residual protection of treated wood. Spray effectiveness is enhanced when applied to many foraging termites. Treated termites return to the colony, spreading the biological active ingredient to others. Treatments can be made both indoors and outdoors.

Adapted from the Ohio State University Extension, 1999

While I am totally in favor of such biological type of controls rather than chemical ones, I really wonder whether Panamá will allow us to import it here. I am going to pass along the information to one of our neighbors who has a terrible tick problem, thanks to their horse, and they can follow it up. It would be useful for us along the fence line we have with the cattle ranch neighbor more as a preventative technique, because as I've mentioned, our tick population is now quite low.

However, those of you within the US might be interested.

A Warning About Real Estate Development

2008-06-02T11:19:00.004-04:00

I'm on Eric Jackson's (publisher of The Panama News) email list for updates, etc. Today I received an email from him that I will post below. I can not comment on the truth of it because I don't know. I do know that Jackson and this Rex Freeman are involved in a law suit, and I pass that along. I also know that real estate scams in Panamá are rampant. You can follow up the links if you choose or not. It's just information, as far as I'm concerned, to be assessed like all other information. I lean towards believing it, because I know the gullibility of the average American and the belief, entirely erroneous, that there's money to be made easily and quickly out of real estate here; the scam artists here bank on it.

So, strictly for your edification or not, here's the email:

From: "Eric Jackson"
To: "The Panama News email list"
Subject: Where NOT to buy

The pitch:

My wife and I have been here for a year now and have a wonderful R.E. project in Cero Azul.
We're looking for a financial partner either for:

Providing development capital to move the project forward
-or-
Will sell to a developer if he likes to run his own show.

Here are two different presentations ready to go!

http://www.vrgroup.info/html/pine_ridge_estates/

http://www.vrgroup.info/html/pine_ridge_master_plan/

<http://www.vrgroup.info/html/pine_ridge_master_plan/> There are 69 home lots which can be sold 'turn-key' with home design, construction, etc in a single corporation.

We have plans also for 20 condos to be built which will add significantly to the cash flow.

The sale price of $8 m2 is below market right now and for 26 Hectares or 260,000 m2 is $2,080,000.
Raw land in the area is selling for $10 m2 .

To completely develop and continue the project, we will need $2.5 million over the next 12 months. We are proceeding to take the steps to acquire permits.

Sale Price includes:
Land
Topography Maps
Corporation
Master Plan
Introduction to and assumption of current developer relationship
Cuiador in place
One nice horse
Developer cost estimates and development budget

Let me know if this meets your requirements and we'll be happy to meet you sometime. We're in Paitilla during the week and Capira on weekends.

Regards,

Rex Freeman <corpserv@racsa.co.cr>

--

The guy you'd be dealing with:

http://www.thepanamanews.com/CR_Mark_Boswell_warrant.JPG

http://www.amcostarica.com/110907.htm

http://www.escapeartist.com/efam/96/warrior.html

http://radio.embassyofheaven.com/radio/T9844B.htm

http://www.sportsbookreview.com/SR.aspx?S=4SportsPicks :

"10/14/2004 04:58 PM
SBR Scam Alert: Gold Palace (SBR rating F-) - who has scammed many large players has reopened under WinBig.Biz (SBR rating F-). The owner goes by the name of Rex Freeman who has many online ventures. It is likely this scam operation will resume soliciting large bettors by phone. WinBig has obtained the services of Capilleira, who is the parent company of 4SportsPicks.com (SBR rating D-)."

http://www.thepanamanews.com/Colorado_pg1.jpg :

The guy's a convicted felon, for fraud and fake ID

http://www.supremelaw.org/sls/email/box021/msg02104.htm

http://www.westword.com/1995-05-03/news/doom-and-doomer/

http://www.citizensproject.org/watch/fw1096.htm#article2

http://www.adl.org/Learn/Ext_US/SCM.asp?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_America&xpicked=4&item=sov

See also:

http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_12/issue_15/business_01.html

http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_14/issue_10/economy_05.html

http://www.panama-guide.com/article.php/20080224123946548

I'm not going to provide all the links from this blog post because that's too much work for someone as lazy as I am. If you're interested, you can follow them up.

Again, I don't know the truth of it.

For All You Dog Lovers Out There

2008-06-01T15:12:00.005-04:00

I don't wanna hear about improving interpersonal relationships.

A friend of mine in the US has just sent me this link to a dog talent show. This one is special--a 16 year old British girl Kate with her border collie, Gin.

I don't care how many of these I see, I still love them. I can't even begin to imagine how many hours Kate spent training with Gin.

A Really Good Overview on Immigration

2008-06-01T14:11:00.005-04:00

A blog I read daily is La Gringa's Blogicito, by an American woman living in La Ceiba, Honduras. I most certainly can relate to many of the things she writes about, although I think we have it somewhat easier here in Panamá (but not as much as she thinks we do).

Today I browsed her Website and checked out her page on Immigration to Honduras. It is outstanding. While a few of her points are applicable only to Honduras--such as the differences between the Bay Islands and the continent--just about everything she says there should be taken to heart by anyone who is thinking of immigrating to Panamá. My only possible difference with one point is that I had exceptional service from the Panamanian consulate in Los Angeles, which was the closest to where we lived. I was on the phone so often with them because of checking and rechecking the Panamanian requirements for animal immigration that we began to recognize one another by voice tone. They were patient and helpful, always kind and polite.

This post is succinct and is worth your careful attention. She says what we all say, those of us who have no financial or other interest in promoting immigration, and she says it very, very well.

Helicopter Crash in Panama City

2008-06-01T12:00:00.002-04:00

The Panama News has a pretty thorough account in English of the helicopter crash last week in one of the busy shopping areas of the capital.

Ticks, Ehrlichiosis, and Vet Care

2008-05-31T07:29:00.008-04:00

Back off, buddy!

As usual, I have to make the disclaimer that when I talk about any situation, I refer only to what I know. Sometimes that's just Potrerillos, sometimes that includes David, sometimes it's the country as a whole. I usually try to make it clear how narrow the focus is.

In talking about the vet situation here, I want to say immediately that I've seen reports saying that there is outstanding vet care in Panama City. But when you have a crisis, you need someone close to home. And "close to home" is, for all intents and purposes for us, David. Supposedly there's a Panamanian vet in Dolega, which is a lot closer to us, but given our overall experience with vets here in the province, I haven't even bothered considering leaving our current vet. There's been too much anguish on our part and suffering on the part of one of our cats to consider another option at this point.

There are at least three problems, serious ones, for those of us who have dogs and cats.

1) Finding competent vet care. There IS good vet care in David, but there are a disproportional number of incompetent vets and outright frauds in the area, including David. I speak from bitter personal experience. I would classify our vet from "very good" to "excellent" depending on what's involved. I really, really like him for preventative medicine and for non-invasive techniques. He's a good vet surgeon. He knows well the parasite problem here in the tropics. And, rare with the vets I've encountered here or have heard stories about, he's careful with dosages. I have had a vet in David toss a box of medication at me and tell me to give it to one of our cats. When I asked him about the dose, he carelessly gave me a number. I looked it up on the Internet, and found that it was too high--appropriate for dogs but not for cats. In addition, there was no indication that the medication itself was appropriate for cats. There are many times where the two animals need very different medications for the same problem. Our vet, who freely admitted to me early on that he had little experience with cats, is gaining that experience because increasing numbers of ex-pats are bringing cats to him, and Panamanians as well. At that time, he told me that his practice was 90% dogs and 10% cats but that his cat practice was increasing. I'm sure the percentage of cats is now much, much higher. Two vets, whom I will hate until I die, prescribed acetaminaphen, the basis of Tylenol, for one of our cats as a pain medication after surgery. I didn't realize it at first, because the one vet bought the stuff, gave it to me--and it said paracetymol, which is how it's known outside the US and Canada. It's deadly for cats. The one vet had already killed two kittens in this way. We had to use him on an emergency basis, but I knew better than to give what he gave me to our cat. I call the one The Butcher and the other The Cat Assassin; the latter is as well nearly totally incompetent at surgery. But they're cheap, I'll given them that.

But our vet is basically a "family" vet, not a specialist. He misdiagnosed Chloe with kidney failure, based on blood tests, not on a specific test for Ehrlichiosis. First, Ehrlichiosis is supposedly rare in cats, and second, renal failure is one of the symptoms of the chronic phase. Plus, Chloe never did have an acute phase. So, the mistake was easy to make. Only when the usual avenues of medication didn't work did Chloe see a specialist.

Which leads back to--did Chloe have some mutated form of the disease? Was it some other disease, given the difficulty in identification? We'll never know. Frankly, given the usual prognosis for an animal showing the symptoms of chronic Ehrlichiosis, I don't think that an early diagnosis would have made much difference.

2) Tick control. The only spot insecticide available here in Chiriquí and most likely in Panamá is Revolution. Revolution is effective only against D. variabilis; it does not work against R. sanguineus, the more usual Ehrlichiosis carrier. I'm sure this insecticide was developed because this tick is a major vector of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Our neighbors import a broader spectrum spot insecticide. Yet, what happened with Chloe? They've been using that insecticide for 4 years. None of us have any reasonable ideas.

The other method of tick control is keeping the grasses and shrubs, where ticks thrive, cut low. There are any number of reasons why I spend so much time weed eating, but that's a major one. Examining the dogs daily if not twice a day is yet another way, although even that isn't foolproof against the tiny forms of the red dog flea.

3) Obtaining medications. You would be surprised what is not available in this country, never mind Chiriquí. For example, according to the farmacia at Rey, you can't get Bufferin in this country. I had thought it was just a provincial thing, because we had been searching high and low for it, but like some other products, it just isn't imported into Panamá. You can get cardioaspirina, which is buffered, in 80 mg doses suitable to take daily as a preventative against stroke (which both of us do), but the usual dose size of Bufferin (and Tylenol, aspirin, and ibuprofen) is 325 mg, perfect for large dogs. Aspirin is ok for dogs (but will kill cats) but the buffered variety is much, much safer. Given the cost of the cardioaspirina, it would be prohibitive to use it except in a dire emergency for the dogs. So, every year when Mary returns to the US to visit family, she goes with a list of things to bring back that we can't get here; that list includes large bottles of Bufferin for both animal and human use.

Another vet medication, a common one, that is not available here is PPA, which is used to control incontinence in dogs. We use an herbal medicine especially formulated for canine incontinence, but we have to import it from the US. Recently Panamá imposed a $15 import tax on all medications, even vitamins, regardless of quantity. So, we order quarterly. Although I will say that our last shipment, which arrived recently, seemed to have an import duty of only $12. Who knows.

Doxycycline is used to treat animal Erlichiosis as well as the human form. I know that our neighbor had to get it from somewhere because it wasn't available in Chiriquí. Whether she had to get it from Panama City or from the US, I don't know. I imagine that Panama City would have a medication like that.

When you look at the country of origin of most vet medications bought in David, it's Costa Rica. I have been able to buy quite a lot of the routine vet meds for the dogs here, but more specialized meds need to be imported, usually from the US.

There is no laboratory in Chiriquí devoted exclusively to veterinary medicine. Our vet routinely sends his samples to Hospital Chiriquí. I have no problem with this. A more inconvenient problem is that at the moment, no vet in Chiriquí has a functioning x-ray. There is one callous fraud who has a machine, but either it doesn't work or he doesn't know how to use it. He took x-rays of one of our cats, made pronouncements about the lack of certain things we were looking for--and then charged us $66 for the two x-rays. Later, when we finally discovered our current vet and he recommended x-rays, I showed him those that had been taken; he threw them aside with the comment that they were no x-rays--they were incredibly overexposed. He then sent us to Hospital Cattan, which of course is a facility for humans, but the technician there is very used to doing animal x-rays. I showed him the x-rays The Fraud had taken, and he just laughed. After we saw the ones taken at Cattan, I could see why. The price for two x-rays? $15.

I often wonder if the massive dose of x-rays from The Fraud aggravated Tulip's cancer. The Fraud, by the way, has no idea how to medicate. He told me proudly that he uses only medications prepared for humans. The only problem with that is many human medications won't work on dogs and cats.

Not that our current vet is perfect. He tends to make snap decisions in ordinary sorts of things. I have to slow him down with questions, but sooner or later we get to a satisfactory result. Nor do I wish to imply that he's the only good vet. There may be others, especially those who might have moved into David in the last year or so. We're satisfied with ours, so we don't go looking.

Incompetent vet care is not limited to David and surroundings. Where we lived in the US, in our area, there were exactly two vet clinics. One was and probably still is run by an incompetent vet. His associate is very good. The other is run by a very good vet. But for specialists, you have to go into Seattle.

I often reflect on what we ask of vets and doctors, which is nothing less than perfection. Both are our mediators between life and death for us and our families, including our animal families. Both vets and doctors are human; they make mistakes. Sometimes, those mistakes result in the deaths of those we love. Physicians are held to a higher standard of accountability than are vets. After all, as I heard someone say not too long ago, pets are "just animals". For those of us who consider our animals as part of our families, that's simply not true. I remember well when my children were infants, before they could talk--when they became ill, I agonized because they couldn't tell me what was wrong. I feel exactly the same way about our dogs and cats.

When we made the decision to move here, there was never a question in our minds about the fact that all our animals would go with us. For us, it would be equivalent to deciding to leave a child behind. That included our three cats, two of whom had terminal cancer but in the early stages and could expect to live a quality life for a while longer. Moving those animals internationally was absolutely the most hair-raising part of the whole experience. I might add that all five of them came through with flying colors (I can never resist plays on words), especially the dogs who thought it was a lark, while the humans barely survived.

Making such a move, no matter how well you are prepared, is still a jump into the unknown, a break with comfort, an acceptance of risk. We deliberately decided that all seven of us would take that risk together, as a family.

Ticks and Ehrlichiosis, Part 1

2008-05-31T06:03:00.003-04:00

Photo of red (or brown) dog ticks taken from Lyme Disease Foundation Website, tick identification page.

This post became so long that I've split it up into two parts.

Where we lived in western Washington, there were no ticks, but fleas were a really bad problem. Very reluctantly, we used one of the insecticides on our animals that you apply in one spot to the skin during flea season. I say "reluctantly", because as a biochemist, I'm aware that almost always, what is harmful to one form of life is harmful to other forms of life--the only difference is degree. Too many effects are cumulative, and I resist putting our beloved dogs and cats at risk. I will use anti-helminthics when needed; wherever you have a big flea problem, there, too, you have a big tapeworm problem. But the "spot" insecticides? Only during the months when fleas were a problem, never year round. We had a wonderful Cairne terrier who at 10 died from a brain tumor. After she died, we noticed a discolored spot on her back between her shoulder blades where we used to apply the insecticide. I don't know if there was any correlation, but it just added to my skepticism about the use of these chemicals. However, you have to make these risk/benefit decisions. I knew someone back in Washington whose standard poodle died from anemia because of an uncared-for flea problem. You have to choose the lesser of two evils and hope.

We'd heard from acquaintances in Boquete that fleas were a big problem there and assumed it would be true where we lived, but to my delight and relief, our vet told us that we didn't have to worry because it was too hot for fleas to survive in Potrerillos. And it's true that in the 4 years we've been here, we've had no signs of fleas except when we brought Rickie and Senna, our kittens, home from the cat rescue place in Boquete. After getting rid of Senna's fleas, we've had no trouble.

We were told, however, by our extraordinarily helpful American neighbor that ticks were pretty bad. We also discovered that the spot insecticide available here, Revolución, was NOT effective against all the tick species in the area. So we resorted to combing the dogs twice a day (we just had Lucy and Ethel then--Fred's a Panamanian), and I was introduced to the joys of removing ticks from both the dogs and me with a tweezers.

We really didn't have that much of a problem, except for one day when we removed 6 ticks from Lucy's neck. Ugly but we had it under control. After we bought our property a short distance away, we noticed that every time we went there with the dogs, they would come back with ticks. At that time, the place was an overgrown unused pasture, filled with high grass, weeds, shrubs and young saplings. Perfect tick territory.

Even before we moved into the house, we had the property "cleaned", as they say here, by two young men with machetes. I bought a heavy-duty weed eater, and got to work maintaining. As I brought more and more of our 3+ acres under control, mostly with weed eater and machete, and then, as we cleared, with a lawn mower, our tick problem pretty much disappeared, despite our bovine neighbors.

We used to walk the dogs in a pine woods close to the property, and there, of course, we'd come across ticks. I'll never forget the day last year when Fred suddenly started shedding little brownish-red spots--that moved. The next 24 hours were a nightmare as we kept combing ticks from him, committing mass tick murder. I'm sure we removed or he shed over 100 ticks. We figured he must have picked them up in the woods or had a hatchout on his coat (which doesn't seem too likely but then who knows). All I knew at the time was that they were the little brown ticks that another American complained were not affected by the common spot insecticides available here. I had no idea then that they were one of the species of dog ticks.

We don't walk the dogs in the woods anymore because Fred the Happy Lab Wanderer will bolt and run off to play with one or more of the horses in the neighborhood; it's a royal pain in the buns to chase him around until he's finally tired of playing with us and trots up for his lead. doesn't matter that he spends the next 5-7 hours in his crate, thinking over his sins; after contemplation, Fred is totally unrepentant and is ready to go play games with whatever large, unfriendly animal is handy.

Since we stopped the woods walks, we've had very few incidences of ticks. One of which occurred this morning, when we removed a common dog tick from Fred.

One of our American friends participates actively in a spay/neuter program that was originally a Panamanian/American joint venture started in Boquete. Stray dogs and feral cats are a problem, and the program offers either free or very low cost spaying and neutering for pets. In addition, many of the volunteers use humane traps to catch feral cats in particular and bring them in to the clinics which are held about every 6 weeks, I think. It's an outstanding way to reduce the stray population. I was told that they routinely test for Ehrlichiosis, which is a really nasty disease transmitted by ticks. I had never heard of it before I came here. We don't have Lyme disease here, for which I'm grateful, but Ehrlichiosis is supposedly becoming more of a problem because of the large numbers of stray animals in Panamá.

I also learned that an ex-pat--An American, I believe--in Potrerillos had come down with Ehrlichiosis and was gravely ill, taking a long time to recover.

Then our next door neighbors' cat, Chloe, got very sick. To make a long story short, she was diagnosed with Ehrlichiosis, which completely flabbergasted her owners who have been importing special flea collars that supposedly is effective against both types of dog ticks. To make another sad story short, after a heroic 2 month effort on Marion's part, they were forced to have Chloe put down. All of us who live with and love our animals know what that decision costs.

Now worried, we began an earnest research effort into Ehrlichiosis. I'll give you a very brief summary:

Ehrlichiosis is a relatively newly-identified tick-borne disease. Ehrlichiosis is primarily a problem with dogs; it's very rare in cats. It can also occur in humans, where it's very serious indeed. Erlichiosis is transmitted by several tick species but mainly by the two dog tick species, R. sanguineus and D. variabilis. R. sanguineus is the most usual culprit. Evidently the human form of the disease can be transmitted by a number of other ticks, such as the lone star tick, the deer tick, and others. It's hard to tell from what's available online, because in humans the disease is difficult to identify and can be confused with other rickettsial diseases. Ehrlichiosis is widespread in the US, although it occurs mostly in the southwest and south. California seems also to be a hot spot, especially southern California.

The disease has two stages in dogs, an acute and a chronic phase. I've copied a short summary of symptoms from an article in Wikipedia:

"The acute stage of the disease... begins one to three weeks after infection and lasts for two to four weeks. Clinical signs include a fever, petechiae, bleeding disorders, vasculitis, lymphadenopathy, discharge from the nose and eyes, and edema of the legs and scrotum. There are no outward signs of the subclinical phase. Clinical signs of the chronic phase include weight loss, pale gums due to anemia, bleeding due to thrombocytopenia, vasculitis, lymphadenopathy, dyspnea, coughing, polyuria, polydipsia, lameness, ophthalmic diseases such as retinal hemorrhage and anterior uveitis, and neurological disease. Dogs that are severely affected can die from this disease.
Although people can get ehrlichiosis, dogs do not transmit the bacteria to humans; rather, ticks pass on the ehrlichia organism. Clinical signs of human ehrlichiosis include fever, headache, eye pain, and gastrointestinal upset. It is quite similar to Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but rash is not seen in patients."

Treatment is usually with doxycycline, a member of the tetracycline family of antibiotics. Catch it in the acute phase, and the dog usually recovers. If it enters the chronic phase, the risk of death is much, much higher.

This is by no means an exhaustive explanation--ti's incomplete, as a matter of fact-- and you should consult your vet for local levels of problem and far more inclusive information. No one should EVER make an amateur diagnosis about any disease that show symptoms such as fever. I freely admit to overreacting to anything that seems wrong with our animals. I usually have to force myself to wait the classic 24 hours before whisking one of our precious babies to the vet.

This disease and its transmission have not been all that well studied even in the US, and one of the things you learn fast here is that in the tropics, all bets are off. We medicate our animals against a much broader spectrum of parasites than exist in the US. In the US, the dogs would get their annual baths; it really is not in their best interests to bathe them too frequently in temperate zones. Here, as I've mentioned, ideally we should be bathing them every two weeks. while it's more like every 3 weeks, we are far more serious about dog bathing, thanks to experiences with demodetic mange, seborrheic dermatitis, and fungus diseases. Fungus diseases are rampant in this climate. Fred in particular is susceptible to them.

The humidity and heat of the tropics means that lots more nasties can live here, and they even can mutate faster than in temperate zones. Perhaps you remember the Ebola virus? Originated in the equatorial zone of Africa, as did the AIDS virus. I've read speculation that the reason that hominid species very early on migrated away from these zones is that they are mutational "hot spots", where new forms of life can originate very rapidly through mutation, thanks to the heat. Just one of the more important chemical facts; the rate of any chemical reaction doubles with every 10 degrees Celcius rise in temperature. All life is based on a set of incredibly complicated cellular chemical reactions. For mammals, exterior temperature is not all that important, because we are creatures that regulate our internal temperature to stay within very narrow limits. But bacteria and viruses do not do so, and of course, the warmer it is (up to a killing temperature), the faster they'll reproduce (which is why we refrigerate sensitive foods like meat, to slow the process down) and the higher the likelihood of mutations.

You know, it just dawned on me why I blog the way I do--I really miss teaching!

Enough about personality disorders and back to problems here in Panamá in Part 2 tomorrow.

Rainfall Update

2008-05-30T15:15:00.003-04:00

Lloyd Cripe lives in Palmira, which is close to Boquete. Our climates are not the same; we're hotter and if I listen to the locals here, wetter. Lloyd just emailed rainfall data for May, including a breakdown of yesterday and the past week.

Yesterday: 9 inches

Past 8 days: 26"

May so far: 40"

So I figure this is low end for us--we might have received more.

His comment was that "we really broke last year's record for May". All I can say is that last year was the really wet year! I'm also green with envy--he has all this lovely data and we don't!! (yet)

May is not over, and as I write, at 2:19 pm, rain is falling again after a partly cloudy morning.

More on Unrealistic Expectations

2008-05-30T09:42:00.006-04:00

I'm working on another post about ticks and Erlichiosis, but thought I'd write further on scaling down expectations, thanks to a comment from a dear Irish Internet correspondent. Will and I have never met, but still, given this wonderful day and age of instantaneous communication over large distances, we're Internet buddies, so to speak. He always brings up interesting points, and I want to address one of them.

Scale down your expectations of services here. You MUST do so or you risk being really unhappy. Will's biggest concern is Internet access and he remarked that he hoped through rapid advances in technology, cheap Internet access would be planet wide pretty soon.

For first-world countries, such as Ireland, Canada, Germany, Japan and the US, just to name a few? Without question. For Panamá and other 3rd world countries? I sincerely doubt it.

Is there Internet access here? Yes. Is it reliable in the way first-world countries are used to thinking about reliability? No. Is it cheap? Except for dialup, which can be expensive for extended use, no. Is it going to be cheap in the foreseeable future? I'd say the probability of that is vanishingly small, always allowing for the fact that the Age of Miracles may not yet be in the past.

I'm one of those perverts who finds statistics interesting so long as you don't believe that they're the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Because I want to make a point, I'm going to bore you to tears with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is the final value of all goods and services produced domestically for 2007. This data comes from the CIA World Factbook. Hey, why not use them? I should get something for the taxes I'm still forced to pay.

Oh yes--all US citizens are required to pay Federal income tax except for very restricted circumstances. Speaking from personal experience, the IRS dearly loves to harass you, because you're so far away so that you're not likely to go to Philadelphia for an appeal, and you have no real representation in Congress any more. Welcome to the life of an American ex-pat.

OK--back to my list, in trillions of international dollars for 2007:

World economy: $65.8

European Union: 14.4 Next, by world ranking:

1. US: 13.9

2. Peoples Republic of China: 7.0

3. Japan: 4.3

4. India 3.0

5. Germany 2.8

6. UK 2.147

9. Brasil 1.838

13. Canada 1.274

97. Uganda 0.31

98.Ghana 0.31

99. Nepal 0.31

100.Bosnia and Herzgovinia 0.31 And finally

101. Panamá 0.29

If you're interested, the complete list can be found here.

I've listed these only to show the HUGE difference in economies. Panamá ranks right down there with some very poor countries. Of course the GDP is not the only measure. An ok one--but one that does NOT take in the disparity in income between rich and poor--is the per capita income. For Panamá, that's about $4,600/yr. (The US, by the way, is 7th at $45,000). Ghana is around $700.

You figure out what the monthly average income is here in Panamá: not quite $400/month. This number also includes the income or lack of it of the official 25% living below the poverty level as well s the incomes of some very, very rich people here. According to the UN, Panamá is a country with one of the greatest inequalities of income in the world. The richest 20% earn an annual family income 32 times that of the poorest 20%. Panamá in the pst 6 years or so has seen a rise in chronic malnutrition in children under 5. Over 50% of children under 5 live in poverty and 20% in conditions of extreme poverty. Courtesy of the World Bank and UNICEF.

Average income for the middle class is considered to be between $12,000 and $18,000/year, or $1,000 to $1500/month. At the moment, you can still live comfortably on the middle to upper range for the middle class income, although it's now getting much harder at the low end. But that's a Panamanian style of living comfortably. Yes, you can afford a car, nice furniture, a TV (but I doubt a 60" plasma, for example), probably a low end computer--and dial-up Internet access.

So? Tell me, Will, where is the customer base, with these kinds of numbers, for your cheap Internet access? It'll be cheap for first world with a large base of paying clientele so that volume will drive prices down. It will NEVER be as cheap for those countries that don't have the base to pay for that access. And you will have to pay. Maybe in Ireland large communications companies are willing to carry for next to nothing those who can't pay, but I guarantee you the US is not one of those countries. Any US company is going to have its hand out for payment for services provided to other countries. Period. "Cheap" depends on volume, always.

Let's look at Internet access prices right now. In the US 4 years ago, we paid $37/month for excellent Internet service. That was a little high because we lived on an island, and things were more expensive there than on the mainland.

Here, Internet access--if you have a landline phone--used to be--I don't know what it is now-- $10.95/month for dialup, with an additional amount--I think 3 cents--per minute of time used. You could get a contract for unlimited time, but I believe that used to be about $35. And those were very, very slow speeds indeed. Very slow. You can get DLS in many areas, such as Boquete and of course David--even in Potrerillos, it turns out--but I have heard nothing but gripes and grumbles about it here in Potrerillos.

For us, it's not even an option. I emphasized if you could get a landline because we and almost anyone who is building a new home now (and in the past 4 years) can NOT get landline service any more. Cable and Wireless is the main communications provider here as they are in the Caribbean. They are a British-owned company, and they have a monopoly here. Just to give you an idea about what the general opinion of them is--in the American ex-pat community, Cable and Wireless is referred to as Clueless and Worthless, and they fully live up to that reputation. The problem is that Cable and Wireless refuses to lay down any more cable (then, shouldn't they change their name?) and therefore new fixed line connections are not available.

Sure, cell phones are available, and we have two. But it limits us and most others to wireless Internet service, which is incredibly expensive.

There are two main wireless ISPs here, both, as I understand it, costing the same; the more commonly used one is MobilNet, a company based in Panama City but with extensive services here in the province. We pay $75/month for 256K service. You can get faster, but the price goes up practically logarithmically. Thanks to limited access to the country itself, the speed is often much slower. There are plenty of interruptions in service. One time we went nearly a week without Internet because the tower for our area, located at the summit of Volcan Barú (11,398 ft), had been struck by lightning during an electrical storm and the necessary parts had to come from the capital. I might add, that no sooner had they fixed it, the tower was struck again by lightning, and we were down again, but for a much shorter period of time. Interruptions are frequent whenever there are electrical storms, which in the rainy season is just about every day.

I think in April, when I went in to pay our bill, one of the managers told me with a smile that our bandwidth was going to be increased for the same rate. She said she'd call us the following week to let us know when a técnico would be out to instal the new antenna.

Anyone who believes the ETA of any service or goods here in Panamá is insane and should be locked up for their own good immediately. We were told not more than 2 weeks ago about Canadians who live in La Barqueta who really believed what contractors told them for dates of completion for housing, I think. The Panamanian woman who was telling us the story just shook her head. "I keep telling them," she said, "not to believe a word they say. Just relax, take it easy, or you're not going to live long!" But, she said, they still get angry. They don't understand.

Mary and I always add 1-3 months, depending on what it is, to any date promised on a stack of Bibles by a Panamanian. It just doesn't happen that way. Needless to say, it's more than 1 month later, and we haven't heard a word. Since we never expected to, it doesn't bother us.

MobilNet, by the way, is one of the better-run companies we've encountered here in Panamá.

You must scale your expectations back. You must face the reality of what it's like to live in a 3rd world country. If you don't, you raise your probability of being unhappy here to near 100%.

Please don't bank on pipe dreams that are based in first-world reality. If you're depending on technology making your life happy here, you're making a huge error.

We're happy here because we don't have the same expectations that too many gringos do. We like the life style, we enjoy Panamanians, we knew what we wanted and knew what the price would be. For us, it isn't high. But then we both knew from the start what we were getting into.

Rainy Season Weather

2008-05-29T15:47:00.007-04:00

West side of house, 4:29 pm, October 15, 2007. Looking out from dog run attached to house.

My Irish buddy Will has asked a question about what the weather is like here in the rainy season. Immediately I have to start out with the fact that it's going to vary some from area to area. For example, the Potrerillos area is considered to get more rain than does David; I think Boquete has about the same rainfall as we do, but at times they get what is called the bajareque, a fine mist/drizzle/light rain that comes down that valley when we're having good weather. It's hard to say without hard data. Lloyd Cripe has a Web site, Boqueteweather.org (sidebar) that reports the weather in and around Boquete, and has a year's worht of solid data. While our friend Ricardo Espinosa keeps rain data, he does so manually and I haven't yet asked to see his records, which I imagine are in notebooks. In October, we're purchasing the same weather station that Lloyd has, and we'll be able to compare rather nicely at least between Boquete and here. David, of course, has official meteorological records that can be accessed pretty easily.

The Pacific side of the country does not get as much rain as the Caribbean side. Everybody jokes that Bocas has two seasons: wet and wetter.

OK, that's one thing. The second is that it's hard to talk about a "normal' year because that varies.

The rainy season here starts in April or May and runs through December or even part of January. Most years, January through March is drought season--little to no rain. Not this year. We had enough rain so that I only had to water first-year trees and shrubs once.

Trying to strike some average: usually, after the rainy season starts--usually--we start out with maybe 2-3 days of rain per week in the afternoon with lovely mornings. It's the reason why May and June are my favorite months. In mid-June, we have what the locals call "San Juan summer". The feast of San Juan is June 19, and in most Latin American countries (especially Brasil), it's a big event. Here, we get 2-3 weeks of dry, gorgeous weather. In late July, the rains set in in earnest.

What happens after that is usually--usually--the mornings are sunny or at least high overcast and the rains come in the afternoon just about every day. As the rainy season progresses, the time of day that the rains start gets closer and closer to noon. September and October are normally the worst months. Not only does it rain every day, but it's possible to have 3-4 days of nothing but rain.

And what rain! The phrase "tropical downpour" must have been coined for Central America and the Caribbean, because by August, we really have the aguaseros regularly--the heavy downpours that can last for up to several hours where the rain comes down so heavily you can't see to the end of the hood of your car if you are so unfortunate as to be driving when it occurs. We always try to get any driving done in the morning and really work hard at being back at the house by noon at the latest. It's extremely dangerous on the roads.

By November, the rain usually starts to slacken off a bit, and December is pretty good.

That said, there are all kinds of variations on this theme. But that's the "normal" pattern. Because of this, our hottest month here is April, because by July and August, the afternoons are overcast and rainy, driving the temperature down.

And of course, as I sit here typing this post, we are having a weird combination of the low pressure variable rain bands along with an electrical storm! Never let it be said that this area lacks drama. Contrary to my last update on the previous rain post, the rain re-intensified.

Glad you liked the picture, Will--just for you I uploaded the above picture which was taken last year on the west side of the house, looking out from the dog run. I haven't cropped the picture so that you can get some idea of the length and volume of this stream of water ruuning down on the opposite side of the house from the earlier photo. If there is suffficient resolution, you'll be able to see that it was still raining when I took the picture, on October 15 last year. Could have been taken today--both streams are running just as enthusiastically down the property. It's been raining now for over 36 hours straight, maybe even longer. The ground is utterly saturated. Fortunately, we live on the lower slopes of the mountains, we don't live anywhere near a river, and both quebradas are both deep enough and far enough away that we have no danger to us. That can not be said of Boquete; I've been wondering if they've had flooding from the river there.

Indeed, do bring your wellies!

Another Scary Electrical Experience

2008-05-29T07:09:00.005-04:00

I'm beginning to wonder if I have some fatal attraction--literally--for electrical discharges.

Last night at 11, thanks to one of the dogs trying to become a second skin, I raised my head preparing to turn over on my side. There was a sudden flash of light, a low-pitched "zzzt" sound, and I felt as if I'd had a nasty blow just below my left eye that really hurt. I did my usual under stressful circumstances--yelled for Mary--and touched the area with my fingers--which came away wet with blood.

In the bathroom mirror I saw a long (about an inch and a half), jagged, wide but shallow cut that Mary describes as looking as if done with a blunt knife about a half inch under my eye. I was also in a good deal of pain, and nauseous.

The only plausible explanation that Mary and I can come up with is a very nasty, very strong discharge of static electricity from the headboard of the bed.

All of our beds, which we've had for three years, have sort of filigreed metal "headboards." I read in bed every night unless I'm deathly ill (as happened last year), propping pillows against the headboard, removing them when I'm ready to go asleep (keeping one for me and one for Fred, who likes his comfort). I've never had any discharge, no spark, nothing from the headboards in that time period. Neither has Mary. Our pillowcases are made of cotton or blends with synthetics. To top it all off, humidity suppresses the buildup of static charges; the average humidity in our house is about 80% right now, which should prevent the a buildup. The windows were closed; while it was raining, we weren't having an electrical storm.

And why so strong? It isn't as if I hadn't touched the metal in months. The last time I can remember clearly that I did so was the night before.

We have no explanation. Which kept me "wired" for the night, finding it hard to go back to sleep when I had no idea why it had happened.

I spend very little time in the past; "What if" doesn't hold a lot of charm for me because, analytical, linear thinker that I am, practical, problem solver, "it" didn't happen, so why dwell on it? Just learn and move on.

But the three worst words in the English language for me are "I don't understand". One of the most basic aspects of my personality is the drive to understand the world around me. I don't mean mere collection of facts, which I regard as almost useless. I mean the ability to connect those facts and makes sense out of them, see the pattern, understand what's happening. It's part of the reason why I chose a career in science, why I wound up my career in industry, and it still dominates my everyday life. What kept me awake was not that "it" happened, but that since I have no idea why, I also have no idea how to prevent a reoccurrence.

I finally fell back to sleep about 2 am. This morning, I'm resigned to a black eye here sooner or later. The cut has stopped hurting and the pain which felt localized in the bone just underneath the eye has dulled way down. Mary is researching ways to insulate that metal headboard--we just can't remove it, since it stabilizes the frame--until we can replace it with something different. But believe me, while I do have an adventurous spirit, this isn't the sort of experience I wish to repeat or have had in the first place.

Gasoline and Diesel Prices

2008-05-29T06:42:00.004-04:00

Today at noon (legally, but usually sooner than that) we'll see the rise in gasoline and diesel prices here. This one will be a whopper. Don Ray will do his best to depress us all by posting pictures of bombas in David with their new numbers.

When we moved here four years ago, we bought a truck with a diesel engine for two reasons--better fuel efficiency and the price of diesel was 40-50 cents cheaper per gallon than that of gasoline. Double win. this was unlike the situation in the US where diesel has always been significantly more expensive than gasoline every place I've ever lived there.

When fuel prices started their upward trajectory about two years ago, we all noticed that the gap between diesel and gasoline was closing. About a month ago, diesel surpassed gasoline in price--by a few cents, true, but it was the first time we'd experienced that situation here in Panamá.

As a chemist, I do know the broad principles behind refining, but nothing more. Since I'm a biochemist, I really never had any reason or interest in worrying about the different grades of crude oil. I always assumed, thanks to the price differential here, that diesel was a lower "cut" from the refinery, never thinking through the better fuel efficiency.

So I was quite surprised when reading the other day that diesel is produced from light, sweet crude, the exact grade that is pushing oil prices up to record highs. It certainly made the difference in prices understandable, although not the earlier gap.

But one way the Panamanian government earns its income is through fuel taxes. Unlike the US, where the Federal tax, as we all now know, is 18.5 cents per gallon, the tax here in Panamá, according to an article in La Prensa earlier this week, is 60 cents per gallon, for gasoline. Because of public transport and transport in general, which uses diesel, it may be that the taxes on diesel were considerably lower. Now the gap may be closing due to the price of the crude going ballistic.

The same article reported a proposal that the government lift the 60 cent tax until the end of the year in order to alleviate the extraordinarily high burden placed on the average Panamanian. I've already mentioned that we've had one death here in the area, thanks to high fuel prices--an old man returning from work on his bicycle hit (by someone we know) and killed by a motorcycle. the victim was riding his bike because he could no longer afford the money for gas. That was back in November.

I'd be more in favor of it if the "average" Panamanian weren't driving a d____d SUV. That seems to be the ego, status vehicle car for many of the relatively new middle class here in the province.

But does that apply to diesel? The article just talked about prices of gasoline, as I recall. One of the real problems with the Panamanian press is that the articles are not as well-written as is usual in the first-world press. If an article in a US paper is misleading or vague, you can just about bet the farm that it's highly probable that's deliberate. Here, it seems to be standard, and exasperating.

Of course, you always have to deal with the fact that the government officials here can be vague and misleading, too, just like anywhere else in the world.

Update: According to La Prensa, diesel has reached a historic increase in price, going up today 39 cents per gallon. 91 octane gasoline will go up by 20 cents, 95 octane by 13 cents. That means that given the lowest price I've seen around here for diesel has been $4.09, we'll be paying a minimum of $4.48.

The government also is not going to subsidize diesel more than it already has for transport, at least not immediately. The government subsidizes (doesn't say how or by how much) 2.6 million gallons of diesel per month. Ye gods, that's a HUGE amount! The "red devil" buses alone use 1 million gallons per month. The government says it wants to see what happens to prices in the next few months before deciding if more steps need to be taken.

Rain

2008-05-29T06:20:00.007-04:00

We had an odd sort of rain experience here, over 24 hours of what sure seemed like rain bands--heavy (but not aguasero) rains, then a dry interval, then rain again. To me, it seemed like everything I've ever read about rain in hurricanes which, fortunately, I've never experienced. No wind, though. And definitely coming from the south.

Then today I received an email warning of potential flash flooding in mountainous regions of Central America thanks to a massive tropical depression just off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Tropical depressions, of course, are the forerunners of hurricanes, so it made sense. Thus the warning of flooding.

We don't need storms like this to provide drama through water. Last year was a particularly wet one, with flooding in Panamá in areas that rarely experience overflowing rivers. We had several flash floods in a quebrada near us. The picture shows the stream that forms from runoff water in back of the house that is diverted to the east side and runs down a little gully that passes underneath our driveway. I took it from our side door while it was still raining.

We always have runoff like this in September and October during the height of the rainy season. Last year, though, it occurred far more frequently than in previous years. Yesterday, thanks to the rain band phenomenon, we didn't have that kind of severe runoff.

The tropical depression was supposed to move north yesterday, and it finally did--the rain stopped about 3 am this morning.

Addition and correction:

Latest satellite image shows that we're probably not done with the system yet. Evidently it's gotten bigger. True to report, just as Mary was telling me this, the rain started up again.

Yet another addendum: the rain is much worse than yesterday--the rain is lasting longer between intervals, the intervals are shorter in duration, and it is coming down much, much harder, although in waves. I have a feeling that instead of dry intervals, all we're going to see is a lessening in intensity, almost like surf. I'm glad we went to David yesterday, because I wouldn't dream of driving in this rain--suicidal.

Lloyd Cripe, whose Web site (Boqueteweater.com) is on the sidebar, has just cracked that if this keeps going on, we're all going to have tropical depression!

Another update:

La Prensa this morning reported that the Panamanian Weather Bureau has issued an alert for heavy rains and possible flooding and mud slides until 4 pm today for the provinces of Chiriquí, Bocas del Toro, Veraguas, Los Santos, Herrera, Panamá, and the Ngobe Buglé Comarca. Yesterday's rains caused flooding and mud slides in the capital. Another article reported that Bocas del Toro had been cut off from the rest of the country by land because of a mud slide on the highway, but our friends (whose son works there) tell us that that's so common as to be unremarkable. However, it's one of the reasons why he hates working there. He likes to come home for the weekends and sometimes he can't due to problems like this.

Llloyd Cripe reports that he's recorded 3.9" of rain since midnight over near Boquete. I'm really anxious to get our weather station in October. Our rain bands are decreasing in intensity and frequency. We've got our usual streams (one of them in the above picture) in both gullies on each side of the house, but they're lessening in volume.

News Briefs, 28/5//2008

2008-05-28T06:51:00.008-04:00

Fred, Rickie the Cat, and Ethel

It is pouring here, and has been through most of the night.

The biggest story in most of the on-line newspapers today is the report of a mula--a large, flat-bed truck, falling on top of a house in one of the Gatún neighborhoods in Colón. I've linked to La Prensa's front page.

Another brief article states that while the water level at Fortuna is increasing, Bayano is still below normal, so there's increased production of electricity from "thermal" sources in order to keep up electrical production. I'd read that earlier in the week. I'm not exactly sure what that means. Normally, I'd assume that meant geothermal energy; while there are hot springs in Chiriquí, I don't think they're large enough to generate electricity. So I'm assuming that fossil fuel plants are what's meant.

Another article that appeared earlier in the week in Crítica quoted the ex-director of IRHE (no idea but a hazarded guess is some governmental agency that oversees energy), Gonzalo Córdoba, as saying that the current energy crisis is a created one, thanks to self-serving decision-makers (I assume in the electricity-generating businesses) who don't listen to the experts but only act to increase profits and against the interests of the country. According to Córdoba, one of the big problems is that there isn't adequate regulation, and those that are in charge of regulation now are the same ones who are involved in the privatization of IRHE.

Well, I see that they've certainly learned from the US.

Don Ray from Chiriquí Chatter sent me this link to a blog that has a post with more complete information about governmental food subsidies here in Panamá. The blog also mentions the potential for a "social explosion" to hit the streets here if something were not done. I have been reading brief references in the on-line papers to demonstrations: University of Panamá students, other students, labor groups. The Panama News has mentioned "restlessness" about food prices. I was really surprised to read in the blog that the price of a pound of rice (I would guess in Panamá) had risen to $0.70/lb. I have not seen anything more than $0.50/lb here, but that's one advantage of living in an agricultural area (and is one big reason why we chose to live where we are)--food prices are almost always lower. Still, we're going shopping today, and since we have to buy rice, we'll see.

I should mention, for those who are in the area that, at 3:00 pm on Sunday, there will be a presentation (in Spanish) at the Potrerillos Arriba Infoplaza about the history of Chiriquí province, as an adjunct to the celebration of the 159th anniversary of David. We intend to go. I'm bringing the cam corder--this time, complete with tape. I still haven't forgiven myself for Easter's faux pas.

Outbreak of Viral Meningitis in David

2008-05-27T15:05:00.002-04:00

Critica reports that the Ministry of Health has just announced an outbreak of viral meningitis among children in David that it considers epidemic; there have been 63 confirmed cases as opposed to 55 in the same period last year.

News Briefs, 27/5//2008

2008-05-27T05:55:00.007-04:00

La Prensa: "English: A Stone in the Shoe." The article reports on the failure of colegio students to demonstrate proficiency in English as evidenced by poor performance on exams. According to the article, a 60% grade is passing; average grade was 53% for 12th grade students. The test has been mandatory since 2007. It's bad news for the universities, too, because, since 2007, proficiency in English is required to get a diploma.

La Prensa: Panamanian economy, while growing, is slowing in rate, down 4% from this time last year. Those sectors that have slowed: pretty much all the agricultural sectors, which is very bad news at this time of higher food prices, tonnage passing through the Canal, manufacturing in the food and textile industries, among others. Officials are blaming the slowdown on high fuel prices.

La Estrella: Hydroelectric production at the plant in Bayano stopped this weekend due to low water levels. However, the situation at Fortuna, here in Chiriquí, is getting back to normal with the steady--and at times--heavy rains we've been experiencing over the past week. Heaven knows it's beginning to feel like August around here.

Interestingly enough, there have been demonstrations (reported in La Prensa in the past week) over Volcán way, protests by farmers and residents against a proposed hydroelectric project that would reduce if not outright eliminate water that has traditionally gone to small farmers there.

There have been accounts in La Prensa recently of demonstrations by parents and students at different primary schools that fiberglass removal has been inadequate and badly done. Today in Panamá Américana, there's an article quoting the Vice Minister of Education as admitting that many companies don't have experience in that work. Always leads me to wonder if there's a money trail there.

La Estrella: Torrijo's plan for assisting the agricultural sector with high costs consists of reducing the interest rates on loans to that sector to 2% and broadening the insurance coverage in case of natural disasters, accidents, etc affecting crops and harvests. The president of ONAGRO (Organización Nacional Agropecuario) congratulated Torrijos on this measure, but also requested steps to reduce the number of middlemen between the producer and the market, saying that this is a major cause of the increase in costs to the consumer.

There's a much longer article in Dia a Dia on steps being taken to give consumer relief over high prices of basic foods. It doesn't say when, but a program was started in the Azuero Peninsula that introduced measure to help producers and guarantee lower prices to the consumer. One of those measure is that the government would buy 100% of the rice crop, which has at its base the rise of oil to $135/barrel last week. this also would help eliminate speculation. Urea, which is a prime chemical fertilizer used, would be sold at half the going rate. The hope, of course, is that these measures benefitting producers will lower costs that will be passed directly to the consumer.

But meantime? At the beginning, the article does mention some steps taken in other countries, such as the issue of food vouchers. That certainly would help the poor in the short term.

Yesterday, I went to our local mercadito to buy a bag of cement, since our favorite construciton worker is coming here today to do a small project for us. I shelled out $7.35 for the bag, remarking as I did so that the price had risen $0.06 since I last bought one. The young woman at the cash register, someone I'm not familiar with, shyly started talking about the rise in food prices. Then we got to talking about the increase in fuel prices.

Panamá regulates the price of fuel, adjusting every two weeks; the next price adjustment is on the 28th. Right now, we're paying $4.10 for a gallon of diesel, which about as cheap as you can get it locally. Boquete is traditionally $0.10-$0.15 higher. We were surprised last weekend to see stations in David $0.15 higher than our local bomba.

For dead certain, the price is not going to drop, not with oil reaching ever higher records. All we can do is wait and see, and continue to implement our plan to do even less driving than we are now.

So much for a brief post.

Lord of the Flies

2008-05-26T07:16:00.002-04:00

Amaryllis

June is usually the worst month for flies around here, but the season seems to have started early this year; they've annoyed us for at least two weeks. In addition, the sheer number of flies seems to us to be much more than during the past two years. Three years ago, when we moved into this house in June, the flies were so bad that they covered the hood of our white truck; it was almost black with flies. They're not that bad this year, but they're a problem. I checked with Darío, to get his opinion of what was happening up in the pueblo proper, where he lives, and he agrees that this is a bad year for flies

Most people in this barrio blame the fly problem on Avicola Athenas, which is a big (as Panamá goes) chicken farm near here. Hard to judge, but I'd say the main sheds are about a kilometer from here, maybe a little more, as the crow--or fly--flies. However, I have a hard time believing that flies from the Avicola can travel the 2+ miles to Potrerillos itself. I'd have to check but I'm skeptical that flies can traverse that long a distance.

But since we've become sensitive to their presence, during my morning scan of La Prensa some time last week, I noticed a short article talking about corruption in the program that is designed to control the gusano barrenador. "Gusano" is the generic term for caterpillars or other larvae, but I didn't recognize "barrenador" nor could I find it in the dictionary. I had a hunch, given the information in the article, that it referred to the screwworm. There is a name for the fly in Spanish that is related to tornillo (screw), but I hadn't heard it for years, and I couldn't (still can't) remember what it is.

When we first came here, we listened patiently to those of our gringo neighbors who delighted in telling us horror stories about living here. I don't mean advice about construction--I mean about potential dangers. Snakes, scorpions, fire ants, you name it. Knowing the syndrome of wanting to scare the newbies, I more or less ignored all this while keeping up a polite pretense of listening. But what caught my attention was the description of a fly which laid its eggs on the skin of an animal. Naturally, the eggs hatch into larvae about the length of a thumb joint (standard unit of measure around here)--in other words, about an inch or more.

The larva then burrows underneath the skin of its host, leaving behind a hole which it needs to breathe. According to my tickled-pink narrators, everything is really ok, because when the larva matures into a fly, it leaves the host--unless of course the fly immediately deposits more eggs and re-infects the host. I was given jovial accounts of driving by a cattle pasture and seeing the skins of the cattle rippling with movement from the larvae. I was gleefully informed that our dogs were at risk, since they, too, could serve as hosts. One person kindly offered to teach me how to pinch the skin of the dog so that the larva would be expelled. I declined as politely as I could.

Fire ants--no problem. Scorpions--not the least bit fazed. Snakes in the bathroom when you get up during the middle of the night--hey, I can handle that.

But this? I wasn't so sure.

Not too long afterwards, a 12 year old Panamanian friend of ours mentioned casually that she had had a gusano in her scalp some years ago. That's when I learned that the problem extended to humans as well. Friends of ours bought a Rottweiler puppy in Dolega about the same time and noticed an odd sort of movement under the shoulder skin. The vet squeezed--and ejected an inch-and-a-half larva across the room, according to the woman who told me, shuddering with disgust as she did so. The vet, she said, was pretty matter-of-fact about it. Nothing unusual.

Worried about the dogs because of living right next door to a cattle ranch, I checked with our vet who told me that while it had been a problem in the past, it was pretty much eliminated now.

Tuesday, when I had my "class" with Maritza, I asked her for the translation of gusano barrenador. My hunch was correct--it was the screwworm. Ricardo, who was surfing the TV (is there something in the Y chromosome? This behavior seems to cross national and cultural boundaries) came over and gave me a good 5 minute lecture on the screwworm and the measures taken to eradicate it. Since Ricardo insists on believing that I'm fluent in Spanish, he usually lapses into the Chiriquí dialect when he talks with me, and carries on at a Panamanian rate. Which meant that I understood maybe 1 word in 10 that Tuesday night.

However, I picked up enough--and Maritza reinforced his comments--to understand that they believed the fly was bien controlado through the government's program of sterile insect control--releasing irradiated, sterile male flies into the wild population.

But Martiza, who was a primary school teacher until she retired, told me that she had seen children, especially indigenous ones, come to school with the gusanos in their scalps and underneath the skin of their shoulders. I assume this was before the program.

Intrigued by all this, I did some Internet research and found out that the screwworm is a problem in the southern US as well as Central America and Africa. There are two species, the Old World screwworm and the New World one. The major control effort is through the Sterile Insect Control (SIC) technique, although insecticides and creams are used as well. In areas where the screwworm is more or less endemic, there isn't a hope of a stable cattle industry without control efforts. Losses can be pretty substantial.

I didn't pursue it too far, but got the impression that it was far more of a problem in Africa. Might be due to the different species of fly, for all I know. What impressed me was a picture of a child (nationality not disclosed but looked Caucasian) who had a fly burrow the extent of his shin--a good 12-15 inches long if not more. That's like nothing I've heard of here. It was gruesome.

The fact that money is disappearing into someone(s) pockets from this program, therefore, is not funny. I personally have no problem with sex between consenting adults and have always found hypocritical the uproar in the US when politicians engage in it. But as far as I'm concerned, stealing public funds, especially from public health programs, is tantamount to treason, no matter where it occurs. But, the officials of the screwworm control program remain mystified as to where the majority of the "missing" funds disappeared. If I remember correctly, well over a million dollars vanished. My guess is that at least some of that money came from international public health sources, not just from the Panamanian government. I've seen that happen over and over again in Brasil.

I really don't believe that the risk from screwworm is high, but it's one more reason to bathe dogs frequently. Our vet recommends every two weeks, both to control skin diseases and for parasite control. We've learned through unpleasant experience to take him at his word. We often don't get to it quite every two weeks--in the rainy season, it's likely to be once a month--but we work at it.

I recommend the practice.

Thanks to Don Ray of Chiriquí Chatter who sent me this link for a YouTube video of the Bot Fly in Panamá. As I mention in the Comments, I don't know if they're the same gusano, but sure looks like it could be.

This video is not for the squeamish, ok? It shows the gusano being pulled out of someone's back by means of tweezers.

Blog Guidelines

2008-05-26T06:26:00.005-04:00

I've received a request for information about real estate.

I'm not a real estate agent. My blog is mostly for me and somewhat to give out information I consider essential to understanding this area and what you're most likely to find here. I do not promote living in Panamá. I think most people who want to live here are out of their minds, because they're simply not capable of adapting. They read International Living, or some other such rag, are stupid enough to believe developers (who make sharks look altruistic), and then come here after a 3 week vacation in the dry season. I sometimes wonder why I'm putting out all this info, because I know from experience that the people who need to listen the most will nod their heads happily, agree that they know this isn't the US, and then blithely proceed to act as if it is. You simply can not teach fools.

However, I seem to insist on clinging to the unreasonable belief, for which I have no proof, that if you lay out facts for people, they will act rationally and logically. All one has to do is read the political news from the US to have that silly notion blasted from one's head, but being an old (literally and figuratively) college instructor, I keep on trying.

Read my blog if you want to, but don't expect any help from me in finding real estate. Don't waste my time and yours by asking.

On a lighter note: I'm going to try, every morning, to put out a short post (hard to believe, I know) with a brief summary of what I find interesting in the Panamanian press.

Today: in La Estrella, a short piece quoting the president of the Rice Growers' Association here in Chiriquí as saying that the price of arroz de campo is going to go up due to the increased costs of production. According to Sr. Arúz, within a few months, the price of rice will increase 25 centavos or more (I have no idea per what). He says that the rice inventories in the country are low, and that there is a need for incentives for better distribution of rice for maintaining the supply.

Granted that the country imports a good deal of its rice. Still, the predicted price hike for Panamanian-grown rice is not good news.

From another article in La Estrella, Torrijos is supposed to announce today measure to support both producers and consumers with the high cost of living and of the canásta básica. this in response mostly to economists who are forecasting a possible crisis of inflation in Panamá.

Possible? The country has already been experiencing about 10% per year, if not more. I recently read about a 17% increase in the price of wholesale goods here in the country in April.

We'll see what Torrijos does. It's an election year, after all.

Time Out

2008-05-25T06:32:00.004-04:00

Lucy

It's raining today, so I'm going to take the time to catch up on reading I've let slide. Much of the latest edition of The Panama News is available, and from hurried peeks at the briefs, it looks extremely interesting. Also, I'm behind on my reading of the Panamanian press, which has articles on the electrical generation situation, malnutrition among children, and other articles. I haven't read much in Crítica, La Estrella and others, so I really can't make any sort of informed opinion about them, but I hope to correct some of that lack today. However, I have updated the Links section to include the URLs for those as well as other online newspapers. So, in case you're interested in browsing these publications (which are in Spanish), the links are available.

Nice thing about the rainy season--I get to read more!

Good Help Is Hard To Find

2008-05-22T10:33:00.000-04:00

Katya the jacaré (caiman). Amazon River, Brasil, 2007

There has been a scarcity of workers in the area lately, since construction has soaked them up. I have no idea what unemployment figures were and are (and doubt that the government does, either--not real figures) but there's no question that the last 2 years has seen a decrease in the people who were available for hiring as handymen, gardeners, light construction, the like. The fact is, many workers can make far more in construction or construction-related jobs such as driving trucks, than they can as unskilled labor. More power to them.

But there are other problems that have existed for some time--certainly as long as we've been here (4 years). There are a number of facets.

1) Cultural attitudes towards work. Originally, we were more than happy to hire young men, especially teens, because we knew the high unemployment rate among those age groups. But we've learned the hard way, believe me, not to hire young men either in their teens or early twenties. Only possible exception: if they're married and have a family.

Otherwise, the experience around here is that they'll work for you for anywhere from 3-6 weeks--and then suddenly never show up again. Doesn't matter that you pay them more than the going rate or treat them much better than most Panamanians treat their workers.

I refer a lot to the book I reviewed in one of my earliest posts: Path to Empire: Panama and the California Gold Rush. It's fascinating history. In the very earliest parts of the book, when there was no other transportation across the isthmus except by mule and boat, travelers desperate to get to the Pacific from the Atlantic on their way to the gold fields of California, complained about the fact that Panamanians worked until they had whatever money was good enough for them, and then disappeared--along with their boats, mules and knowledge of the country. This behavior isn't limited to Panamanians by any means but it's not universal across Latin America.

2) You get what you pay for. One of the topics I hear about most frequently from those who want to or are about to move here is the joy over cheap labor. It's quite a different story from those of us who have been here for a while but the newbies or wannabees are quite enthusiastic.

Sure.

I've said it before in another post, but what you find here is a population of unskilled labor that is exactly that--unfamiliar with the powered tools such as lawn mowers and weed eaters that we take for granted and assume even the most unskilled can use. Wrong. 10 years ago, give or take a couple of years, the overwhelming majority of the workers here had never seen never mind operated one. That has come with the latest American Invasion. Now, everyone has seen one--but very, very few know how to operate them.

The first worker we hired as a gardener cost us two burned-out carburetors for our weed eater and a burned-out power drill. That's the damage I'm sure of. Others that we hired, who assured us that they knew how to operate a weed eater wound up costing us a damaged starter, damaged heads, and damaged shafts, as well as motors that after a while just simply gave up. I'm on our 3rd weed eater now, and no one--I mean NO ONE--touches my obscenely expensive but tough Stihl F55. I have refused to lend equipment out to other ex-pats, knowing perfectly well that they are not going to the do the work but have their Panamanian workers use the tools. When I first ran across that attitude with a neighbor, very early on, I was a little indignant; I now have exactly the same one.

The ignorance coupled with lack of money means that Panamanians themselves don't care for their equipment. We use a very good welder for all our ironwork. He installed our puertas and verjas for the house. For this he needed a power drill because his, he explained, wasn't working. He wanted to know if he could use mine, until he could get his repaired. Far along the pathway to becoming a Panamanian, I lied and said I didn't have one. Since I'm a woman, he accepted that. Saves face all around. He borrowed one from a Panamanian friend and I noted with interest that he was still using that same drill (at much too low a speed for concrete) months later when he came to install a gate.

The correct oil to use in the weed eaters is NOT the common 2-cycle one found everywhere for both water-cooled and air-cooled engines, but just for air-cooled engines. It's not easy to find, and it's far more expensive. Guess which one most Panamanians use. The only exception I've seen is my friend Ricardo Espinosa who knows how to use and care for his tools and does so.

God bless Darío and keep him healthy and safe for many years to come, but he, too, has no clue about power tools. I know perfectly well that he contributed to the demise of our last weed eater. I won't allow him within 10 meters of my Stihl, with the excuse that I like doing that work (another flat-out lie) because it gives me needed exercise (true). He has, however, taken over the operation of the lawn mower, which he treats lovingly and carefully, taking pride in his work. I've believed for some time that Darío unconsciously views the lawn mower as "his". Good. Mary keeps an eye on oil levels and changes the oil while I sharpen the blade--all when Darío isn't here. We are incredibly fond of Darío, who has been a godsend after literally years of being unable to find decent help, and take very good care of him in many different ways, including preserving his pride. We depend on Darío but I know his limits and do not ask him to go beyond them.

So if I look at just what its cost me to replace tools and to have them inadequately repaired after unnecessary damage--I'd have to add about $1000, minimum, to the labor costs. We only recently started having Darío come in twice a week; before that it was only once a week for everyone else and for the first year he was here. So the damage and repair/replacement costs have almost equaled our labor costs.

3) Most workers will lie to your face about all sorts of things, including their competence. We're so used to references, being able to check on people and to assuming that people will represent themselves more or less correctly. Plus I think that most Americans coming here are blinded by that seemingly cheap dollar value on labor here. It's also hard to nearly impossible to get formal references. Most Americans wouldn't do so anyway, because it would mean, heaven preserve them, speaking Spanish. Chances are pretty good that the references would lie, too, so why bother.

The best possible advice I can give you is treat everyone as if they are lying to you and depend on word of mouth. Our original gardener made all sorts of claims which in our naiveté at the time were true because his brother worked next door, was pretty good and assured me that his brother would work out well. I should have noted the ambiguity.

We fired that young man for many reasons, not the least of which was that he was nearly totally incompetent as a gardener. Thanks to his ignorance and neglect, some precious fruit trees died. He had no idea if plants needed sun or shade, and didn't know how to plant trees. The trees that I planted did well from the beginning, and are now fruiting. The trees that he planted either died or are just now starting to take off.

He lied because he was desperate for work and his brother lied for him. Never, ever underestimate the strength of family here. Americans, who love to jabber a lot about "family values", have no clue whatsoever because culturally we really place very little value on family values. It's too often just a code phrase for homophobia, anyway.

We hire no one anymore--don't even consider consider them--unless they have been referred to us by people we know and trust: long-time ex-pats and Panamanian friends who really understand what we need. Darío recommended someone to fix our lawn mower because he naively assumed that this man, who can indeed work on car and tractor engines, could therefore work on small motors. Wrong. Another lesson learned but a cheap one.

Another nice young man whom we had for a few times assured me that he could run a weed eater. By this time, I was a sceptic, so under the excuse of well, this one is a little different, I went through the steps of staring it. Yes, yes, I know. OK. I watched from the window as he worked and worked the pull cord--and couldn't get it started. So I went out (by that time the motor was flooded and he didn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of getting it started--of course, he didn't realize that) and asked him if there was some problem. He complained about the weed eater, but when I went through the steps with him, he had left out a small detail like turning the switch from "off" to "on". In reality, after I started it for him and watched him work, it was very clear from his clumsiness that he had never touched a weed eater before. Heaven knows how much life he took off that particular starter and what other damage he did to the motor. They do not understand about loads on a motor and thus are prone to burn out motors because they don't run them fast enough. And the reason they don't run them faster is because that uses up more, precious, expensive gasoline. Then they abandon their weed eaters and either revert to machete (the honest ones) or steal another if they can. So the cycle goes on and on.

4) Arrogance, which is in large part cultural. I've written already about "playing the game". It shows up in different ways. When we first came here, a neighbor whose advice was invaluable during our first two years here, warned us never to let a Panamanian feel that he's "gotten ahead of you". If that happens, he said, they will have nothing but contempt for you and you'll have nothing but trouble. That applies either to lending them money or in fact treating them too well. We did, with our first gardener, by giving him lunch AND paying him $10/8 hour day, which was extremely high at that time. Now, it's nearly standard, but not then.

We also wanted to encourage him in his career aspirations. He was going to the university in David at the time, and we started paying his tuition (which was an entirely $30/term). Like most Americans, we wanted to help someone better himself.

He repaid us by starting to slack off on his work and slowly, slowly decreasing the amount of time he was spending here. When I came back from a trip to Brasil, I found that he regularly was leaving an hour early.

We decided to have a talk with him, and put him under contract which he had resisted. I had everything all ready one day, when he came to work without the power drill I had lent him and that he had promised to return that day. When I asked him where the drill was, he nonchalantly said he wasn't done with what he had to do at home. And of course, never bothered to call me on his cell phone to ask permission.

In my quiet and restrained fashion, I blew sky high, started yelling in Spanish, and fired him on the spot. Drove him home, got my drill, and told him I'd find out about what was due him in severance pay. Then contacted my lawyer in Panama City by email--we work very, very well that way--but inadvertently did not give her the entire picture. As a result, we wound up paying him a severance package (pretty low--we had not employed him for that long and we only had him over once a week) that I now know we could have avoided because we had just cause.

Panamanian labor law is very generous to workers, and they have rights to severance pay that US workers do not have under the same conditions. If you employ someone for tiempo completo--full time--over a period of just a few years, you can wind up owing the worker several thousand dollars in a severance package depending on how your work relationship ends. If they quit, no problem. But if you fire them, and you do not cover your buns, you can be in deep doodoo.

Case in point with our next door neighbor who is smack in the middle of an all-out fight wither their former employee. He's claiming $3000. He did very well in manipulating, over a period of months, our neighbors into just this side of firing him. Had they done so, they would have no choice but to pay the money. That's not quite what happened but he's claiming they did.

There's even more that they did for him but I don't want to get into it because I don't want to identify people.

Over the years, they've lost a great deal of money through naive trust, doing things they never would have done in the US. But I've never heard them so angry, furious over what they view as betrayal. This time, I think they've learned. Finally.

Fortunately, they have someone at the Department of Labor who agrees with them and is helping them out. But it can be totally dependent on who you deal with as to which way the law is interpreted.

Me, I don't make a move without checking it out with our lawyer. Everything I do goes past her.

6) Bordom. It's a fact that Panamanian workers don't like to stay in one place or one job too long. Darío has a real mix of work, for instance, that keeps him from getting bored.

There are no doubt other points except that I'm getting tired of writing.

However, you can find honest, competent workers who will give you real value for your money. It's not easy, but you can find them. When you do, hang on to them, because they are worth more than gold.

We are blessed with Darío, who is 68; he's retired and collects his Social Security, but still works, both for us and at a job in David. I thought it was for the extra money, but our friends in Potrerillos, after much laughter and giggling, told us that it's more likely that he wants to get away from his wife! He is proud to the point of vanity about his ability to work harder than a younger man. He has saved us enormous amounts of money, has given me invaluable advice when I've asked him. Because of the incredibly hard work he's done in the heat of summer, my part in maintaining the property--weed eating--has been cut to about 25% of what it has been in the past 3 years and will go down even further when other areas can be mowed. We joke and laugh together, we trade horror stories about near misses (he was polite when I told him about the near-miss on the lightning strike but it was clear that he thought I'd been an idiot), we share outraged self-righteousness over the prices we have to pay, and trade tips on the best places to shop. He tells me what's going on in Potrerillos, and asks me about extremely intelligent, informed questions about events in the US. We are completely comfortable with one another.

Being a male, naturally he adores being fussed over by women, and believe me, we fuss (I have this terrible feeling that we even coo). He's something of a hypochondriac, and we more or less indulge him. If he has a headache, he comes to us for Tylenol, which he loves. We exchange remedies for various ailments and aches and pains. I've learned not to scold him for working too hard in the sun, because latino machismo takes over, and he works even harder. Almost always, I give him cookies, or part of a cake, or muffins to take home to his family. One of his daughters and her children live with him and his wife, and I'm pretty sure he's supporting them. The kids are cute and incredibly polite. He's fascinated by the leaf lettuce I'm growing now, and I plan to give him a head when they mature.

Yes, he most certainly has his limitations but then so do I.

Recently, we decided to raise his salary from $10/ 8 hour day to $12, starting the first of June. Given the steep rise in the cost of living and truly grateful for his work, this was something we felt we wanted to do. When I told him that, driving him home for some reason or another (usually he takes the bus), he was unable to look at me, choked up, and thanked me feelingly. Since that time, he has worked even harder, if that's possible.

He's more than a worker but less than a family member. Not quite a friend but not outside our our circle, either.

95% of me believes that he will continue to be so. But there is that dispassionate 5% of me that knows Panamá, and that will sit back, watch and wait.

More Wildlife Encounters

2008-05-21T11:09:00.005-04:00

Three toed sloth in the Brasilian Amazon region. Has absolutely nothing to do with the post topic. I just like the picture which I took a year ago.

Anyone who spends time in the tropics certainly discovers a zoological fact: insects far outnumber any other form of life (other than microscopic) on the planet. That includes not only numbers but varieties. I've always been grateful for the fact that the percentage of insect species more or less incompatible with human life is very small. Otherwise, our species wouldn't be able to survive.

Those that aren't compatible range from the uncomfortable to the downright lethal. Of the former, I give you the common ant.

Living in the Pacific Northwest as we did, we were aware of a few species of ant. The most exasperating to deal with was the carpenter ant. Nowhere near so bad as its cousin, the termite, carpenter ants could pose a serious problem to your wood-based house if left unchecked. OK, from time to time I had to call in an exterminator, but it could be dealt with. Other ants were pretty harmless. Sugar ants could be a problem if you were careless around the house, but only seasonally. Then there were the large black ones who seemed to mind their own business and pretty much operated on a live and let live basis.

Then we came to the tropics.

Our first year here, we rented a furnished Panamanian house not too far from where we live now. It was, I discovered rather quickly, not well sealed, and we had a variety of unwelcome insect guests, the worst of which were the at least 5 different species of ants, some of them truly scary. The most frightening from a size and numerical viewpoint were the black ones with red heads. They were huge--almost the length of my thumb joint--and their heads were disproportionally large, or at least it seemed so to me. They colonized everywhere in the house, and especially on the second floor which we were using to store some books and a few other thing that we didn't need in our rental house.

I'll never forget going upstairs one day for some reason or another, and hearing this very strange, ominous rustling noise coming from one of the boxes. I opened one of the boxes---

--and there was a HUGE colony of these ants, all in motion, it seemed. I felt as if any minute they would rush out of the box in some irrepressible wave and carry me off.

I did what any sane person would do in that situation--I yelled for help.

Mary came running, and between the two of us, we managed to haul out what we could of the things inside, stomping ants like crazy. Then we took the whole mess and tossed it over the side from the balcony to the garden below. Left it there for a few days before we had enough nerve to approach it. By the time I gingerly rolled it over, all the ants were gone.

Another time I found a colony under a decorative pillow on the rocking chair upstairs. Must have used a half gallon of Raid.

Oh yes, you bet--this environmentalist kept Johnson and Johnson's profit levels up that year. It does work--and yes, it does have a residual. I used it in corners of the floors and outside in cracks that ants were using to come in. Killed them dead, I'm happy to say and would work for about 6 weeks or more.

The worst time I had with these ants was was during the time when Mary was in Missouri visiting family. I was using the downstairs bedroom. One night, while I was reading, I happen to glance up and over to the floor just in front of the bathroom door. There, to my horror, was a line of ants coming from the bathroom and fanning out, headed straight for my bed.

It was dark, I was alone (dogs and cats really don't count in a situation like this), and I was unreasonably terrified. I don't even remember what I grabbed, but as the ants had now reached the floor underneath the bed, I started a killing frenzy. Then I raced for my handy cans (yes, plural) of Raid, and started spraying in the bathroom until there were nothing but ant corpses littering the floor. I shut the door so that the dogs and cats wouldn't be able to go into the bathroom, and tried to sleep that night, ever afraid that ants would make it into the bed. Not an irrational fear that one, since it had happened before, but with smaller, less threatening ants. NOT your most pleasant memory, waking up in the middle of the night feeling something small crawling around on your legs.

However, the bloody ants were back again for the next two or three nights.

I finally figured out where the armies were coming from--behind the bathroom cabinet that was under the sink. there were two consequences from this discovery: 1) approximately 1.5 cans of Raid were used to saturate the area behind the cabinet and 2) I swore that we would never EVER have built-in cabinets. Three and a half years later, we still don't, although we do know now what type to have to prevent this problem--no backs, built on to the wall, no place for the ants to hide.

You can't imagine the lengths I went to while we were building this house in order to have sealed exteriors.

However, the Ant Wars went on after we moved--just a different location and with yet different species.

The first time I had a run-in with leaf cutter ants, we had moved in but there was still some exterior work to be done on the house. I had already fallen prey to my craze for bougainvillea, and had bought my first small plants, which I put along side the car port driveway. One of the workers, Joel, pointed to a conical-shaped hill of dirt and told me that I should kill "them" because otherwise they would kill all my plants. I had no idea what he was talking about until the next day. I had three or four potted plants; not one had a single leaf on them.

That hill, of course, was the mouth of a leaf cutter ant nest. Our then-gardener told me what to do. I bought a powder dispenser, quite common here--it looks like a bicycle tire pump. you put an insecticide in powder form--in this case Hormitex--in the main compartment, shove the dispensing hose into the ant hill, and then work the handle, pumping the powder into the nest.

It worked. Well, sort of. The ants picked up and moved to another location.

One of the real problem with leaf cutter ants is that they will forage a very long distance from the nest--10 to 15 meters is as nothing to them. What you have to do to eradicate them is to keep following the trail of nests until you've cleared them out. It took me quite a while, but I did so. We haven't had leaf cutters in years.

And finally, my favorite ants of all time--the stinging ones.

When we first came here, we were told that there were fire ants here. After my first encounter with stinging ants, I was sure I'd run across them, but I now don't think so. There may indeed be fire ants here, but the nasty little devils I've stepped into I think are just stinging ants. "Just". The bite stings like crazy thanks to the formic acid the ant secretes ("formiga" in Portuguese and "hormiga" in Spanish are derived from the Latin name for ant from which "formic acid"comes). It stings like crazy for about 15 minutes and then goes away--to leave behind a blister filled with a white semi-fluid.

There are at least three different types of stinging ants that I am aware of, based on color and the way they build their nests. Some nests are obvious and can be avoided, and others are not.

Doesn't matter--I hate them all and if I find a nest anywhere near the house, I haul out my trusty Arrivo and spray the nest. I have some evidence but am not entirely certain that even some forms of stinging ants eat the leaves from young plants. If I see a plant that is slowly being nibbled to death over a period of days (leaf cutters will strip a plant overnight), I look for a nearby ant nest, and almost always find one. If I spray the nest, the problem seems to go away. That's not enough proof to be certain but enough to keep on with the policy until I find out otherwise.

Another thing I really like to do is disrupt a nest if I find when when I'm weed eating. This morning, I came across one near the bougainvillea (which are now too large to be in danger from that type of ant although a few would be susceptible to leaf cutters) while weed eating, and I ripped it open at half speed. Why just half speed? Having disrupted ant nests accidentally, the line has thrown the miserable little beasts onto my feet and legs--whereupon they proceeded to climb towards various unprotected parts of my body. Half speed avoids this.

Have you ever read the phrase "and they boiled out of the building" or something like that? It perfectly describes what you see when you disturb in any way, including just brushing the edge, of one of these nests. The ants come boiling out--no other description does it justice--by their hundreds and possibly several thousand.

And come straight for you.

Fortunately, they don't go more than a foot or two away from the nest, so there's safety in distance. But you do, believe me, want to put distance between you and them. Which is why I prefer to do my malicious mischief with a weed eater, with that nice long shaft between Me and Them.

I do not have a concern in the world about killing these ants. They are not now nor ever will be on the Endangered Species list. However, I don't wantonly go out and kill them if I don't have to. If they're in the orchard area or any place some distance from the house--and don't look like they're threatening my new plantings--I leave them alone.

Make no mistake, though-- it's war and the battle lines are drawn.

No Time

2008-05-21T06:41:00.002-04:00

I've wanted to write about several topics recently, but have had no time. Not sure why, but suddenly I've been up to my ears in projects. Today I'd better get out with the weed eater if I want to stay ahead of the game in the yard maintenance department. The recent rains haven't helped--I've been waiting for the grass to dry before I work, but that simply hasn't happened. I can't afford to wait any longer.

We just started with a new person to clean our house, and the problem of finding good workers has been on my mind a lot. But I haven't had the time to post on it.

Last night, Marizin Espinosa gave me URLs for some other publications, such as La Crítica. La Estrella and others. I'll get those up when I can. I also have to update the URL for thePotrerillos Infoplaza blog--she's been working hard on that.

Reading La Prensa as my self-improvement exercise in increasing my Spanish literacy has bee interesting. If you disregard the near-total lack of meaningful political news and look for other interesting topics, , you can find them. There was an excellent article on recycling the other day, another good one on Sunday, I think, about Panama City's museums and their neglect. I'm looking forward to reading the other periódicos for a different viewpoint.

But it's weed eater time today.

Electrical Storms

2008-05-19T06:40:00.004-04:00

We have very impressive electrical storms here in the province, and yesterday was a lulu, to put it mildly. It moved directly over the house, and we found that out in the most dangerous possible way.

We're improving our drainage system in back of the house, in order to move runoff from the heavy rains more efficiently. To that end, Darío dug a beautiful ditch along side the dog run Saturday, in preparation for putting in cement v-shaped drainage channels called cunetas. At the height of the storm, a real aguasero, we went outside to check on the ditch. Both of us were barefoot, normal for the house. She stayed on the concrete pad underneath the terraza , while I went out into the grassed area of the dog run itself to get a better look.

At that moment, there was a crack of thunder and I simultaneously saw a flash of light just behind me--and a hard jolt up through my calves that had me screaming and clutching my legs. Meanwhile, Mary saw a ball of light strike the concrete pad a few feet to her left. We teleported inside the house at faster than the speed of light, where I spent the next 10 minutes shaking--not because of any physical damage but through sheer fright.

What we think happened is that ball lightning struck right outside, one in the grassy dog run area and another on the concrete pad. Concrete is not a conductor--Mary felt nothing. I, on the other hand, was grounded and probably felt the surge from the earth up through my bare feet.

No one has to tell me how dumb it was--how life-threatening it was--to go out in bare feet. I know that--or did, when I used to have two brain cells to rub together. But the problem is that electrical storms are so frequent around here that you slowly get used to them--and complacent. That's what kills.

Darío is terrified of lightning, and will always hurry home ahead of an electrical storm. Smart man.

While I was still trying to recover what few wits I possess, our next-door neighbor called to see if we had power. No, we'd lost it, after the lightning strike. Then she recounted how they'd had a lightning strike in the central courtyard of their house (it's built around an open, landscaped area). She'd been sitting inside facing the window to the courtyard and saw the strike. They figured that it was ball lightning as well, since they didn't lose anything to the discharge.

We found out later that right after our strike, another one hit a transformer in the area, causing a power outage. Frankly, I didn't think much of it because power outages are so frequent here. We have all of our electronics and the TV on surge protectors--we always have done so, even in the US. Later, after the power came on, I found out that my battery back-up surge protector for my computer, external hard drives and some other equipment had blown out--but my computer was ok. However, our Internet router went out, too (why, I'm not sure because it was connected to one of my two surge protectors); Mary has jury-rigged the system so that we have Internet access, but we'll have to get a new router.

It was a really scary situation, and through no merit of mine, I'm still alive.

Bougainvillea again

2008-05-15T14:00:00.000-04:00

Every morning when I walk with the dogs, I count the veranera in bloom. Latest count is 31 out of 36--but peak blooming season is past. The heavy rains are beating the flowers off the plants, and I don't expect that a good third of the plants, relatively young ones, will keep their blooms much longer. Now comes the struggle to nurse the three that I've recently planted through the rainy season. They were big strong plants with good root systems, and I have high hopes.

One really pleasant surprise this year was the transformation of the bougainvillea in the picture from just your ordinary, everyday, spectacular display to a gorgeous eye-catching bicolor. It was completely red last year, and started out that way in January, but now sports salmon flowers as well. I have no idea why bougainvillea do this. On the porch we have a really beautiful red and white one that is too small this year to risk in the ground. I'd like to see it about twice as big before I plant it.

Last weekend, we fertilized nearly all the plants and trees for which that's appropriate, including the bougainvillea. With this week's rains, the plants have responded enthusiastically, so much so that I pruned this morning, taking some of the cuttings in hopes of rooting new plants. I haven't had much luck in that regard, but I'm pretty sure that's because I'm using cuttings that are too tender. It does seem that it's better to use at least semi-wooded cuttings. However, most of what I did today was snip off new growth, gritting my teeth as I did so because of course that's where the new flowers will come. I console myself with the thought that the season is almost over, and I need to restrain rampant growth. I've been gratified to see that one of my questionable plants from last year has suddenly taken off, sprouting two very sturdy looking stems. But one is still worrisome; it's holding its own but it has to do a lot better than that before the rains come in earnest in July. There's time, but I hover over it like a mother hen with a non-too-sturdy chick.

Electricity Rate Hike

2008-05-15T04:38:00.003-04:00

A neighbor

Electricity is expensive in Panamá. According to The Panama News, electric rates are about $.19/kWh for most of the country and about $. 26 in Bocas del Torro province. We pay $.145 /kWh, but that may be the jubilado rate. Rates where we lived in the US (which had a high percentage of hydroelectric power) ranged from just under $.05/kWh up to a certain use limit and $.06.something/kWh to yet another limit, which we never passed. Of course, that was 4 years ago, and I 'm sure the rates have increased since then. I doubt that they've doubled, though. Even if they had, the rates would still be higher here.

According to our electric bill, since we use less than 600 kWh/mo (we use under 300), we get a 25% discount on top of that. So that reduces the cost dramatically. Because we're careful about electrical usage (not draconian--just common sense) and we deliberately designed energy-saving features into our house, our monthly bill is under $30. With the July rate hike, that translates into roughly $4/mo more, taking into account the discount. I think we can lower our usage enough to minimize that hike significantly without causing a ripple in our life style. Actually, we've already started.

Most of Panamá's electricity comes from hydroelectric power, and I read somewhere that the majority of that comes from here in Chiriquí. But hydroelectric is not enough to supply all the needs, especially at peak hours, and the rest comes from fossil fuel-consuming plants. So, given the price of such fuels, the request for the rate increase is hardly a surprise.

Because of the discount for using either less than 600 kWh or less than 500 kWh (depending on who you are), most Panamanians won't be affected directly by the rate increase but of course it will affect other costs that will then be passed on to the consumer, no matter in what income level. Most likely increases are bound to be in food costs, not so much at the producer level but at the processing and distribution level. However, just about all goods and services are going to be affected.

There's an excellent article on the power generating situation in The Panama News, which covers background info, political aspects, government policies, the works. I highly recommend it.

When we first arrived here, I was astonished at the number of businesses and shops large and small in David using air conditioning--with their doors left standing wide open. For example, when El Rey opened in David, the exit doors were open just about every time we were there. Even then, I wondered at the cost in electricity--not cheap here at any time--in maintaining environmental control is such a large space. I've noticed lately that Rey's doors have been closed.

Paradoxically, in a lot of the stores downtown, the lights would be off! Sometimes it was hard to tell if a store was open or not because the interior would be unlit. It was bizarre to see a store with an unlit interior, doors open, and (inadequate) air conditioning working full blast.

We're not in David that much anymore, and when we do go, we tend to go to the smaller, more traditional shops and kioskos, with the exception of Rey and a few of the construction supply places like Cochez. So it's hard to tell whether that combination of open doors and air conditioning is as widespread as it used to be. I'll have to make it a point to check it out next time we're in town.

This hot off the press in La Prensa: prices for 95 and 91 octane gas and diesel will rise today 9, 8, and 14 cents per gallon, and be in effect until May 28. For diesel, which we use, the range of prices will be from about $4.06 to $4.13/gallon. Fortunately for us, our closest bomba usually has the lowest prices.

Yesterday's paper had an account of yet more protests in the country over a number of issues, among them the pollution of the rivers (Panamanians have a strong environmental sense) and the cost of the canasta básica. I want to write about all this, but it will have to wait until I get more time.

The Mangos Are Here, The Mangos Are Here

2008-05-14T08:15:00.006-04:00

Actually, they've been here for about 2 weeks now. We've been watching a huge mango tree on the carretera outside of Dolega, as first it flowered, then set fruit--and is now dropping ripe mangos. We have two mango trees that are growing like crazy (like any good Italian mother, I feed them generously) but they are young yet and it will be years before they produce. Demorra, as they say here.

We buy almost all of our fruits and vegetables in David, at Productos Yaneth near the stadium. They're not the cheapest but they have the most consistent high-quality fruits and veggies that we've found. We discovered to our satisfaction, that our friends the Espinosas shop there, too, and for the same reasons. Sort of puts the stamp of approval on our decision.

We've been shopping at that stand for nearly the entire time we've lived here. They used to have a much smaller, shabbier place about a block away, but moved within the past year. It's owned and run by two sisters, I think. They're quite friendly, and if only one of us shows up,we're sure to get inquiries about where the other is.

Almost every morning for breakfast, we have a big bowl of mixed fresh fruit and usually a piece of toasted pita bread. The fruit is whatever is available: bananas of course, pineapples, melons, sandia (watermelon), papayas--and right now, mangos. They are so sweet! They make almost every other fruit except pineapple seem bland in comparison.

Last week, we loaded up on mangos, buying about a half dozen huge, ripe red ones. I almost always make small talk with the women who run the place as well as their employees. Last week, it was (I assume) Yaneth. I happened to remark that we eat mangos for breakfast. That comment set off a flood of excited Spanish in which she told me how much she loved them, that she eats them for breakfast herself and tries to restrain herself but just keeps eating and eating them! Ah, a "fellow" addict! I envy her her easy source.

I'm not sure how long the season lasts, but we will be gorging on these wonderful fruit for as long as we can.

Waiting for the mamon chino harvest in June.

Wildlife Encounters

2008-05-13T07:13:00.006-04:00

Left to right: Fred, Ethel, Lucy

Strolling along this morning with the dogs on our usual morning walk. Not thinking of anything much, just enjoying the cool air on my skin, glancing around without really taking in many details.

When suddenly, something close to the ground moved in back of me.

The irrational part of my brain went ballistic with SNAKE. The rational part said "too early/not on the entrada/not the right season for fer-de-lance".

Yeah, sure--guess which part of my brain won hands down!

While still mentally recovering, I saw that it was a huge toad. I'm not up on the different toad species, but I do know that in this area we have poisonous cane toads--and there is a small field of sugar cane in back of the house. We're most likely to see them around the house in the dry season, but it's not uncommon to see them this time of year.

We moved to Panamá in the month of June. We had been warned about the toads, especially since we had two dogs and were told that the toad venom, which is secreted on the skin, is powerful enough to be fatal to dogs. One of our dogs, Ethel, our black Lab, has only two interests in life--fetching her kong and eating. So one morning at that time, when Ethel refused her food, we went into a flat panic. The most likely explanation is that she drank from a water bowl we had outside the house at that time, one that had had a toad visit. As we frantically looked for help and any kind of information, we were told that toads will sometimes use such small water sources to bathe or refresh themselves.

We were also told that there was nothing that could be done except wait.

For two days, Ethel refused to eat, no matter what we put in front of her. My hope lay in the fact that she was drinking water, always a good sign, Then on the third day, she casually walked over to her food bowl and began eating as if nothing had ever happened (translation: she scarfed down her food at a speed close to that of light).

So, this morning, after being relieved that all I had seen was a toad, I looked over to where Fred was standing in the grass--and watched yet another large cane toad hop in front of him. Fred, who has more curiosity than sense, stepped after it and to my horror, put his head down close to the toad, his nose millimeters away....

I screamed at the top of my brass-lined lungs, "Fred NO!!!" I'm sure they heard me in Dolega. Fred, who normally ignores me, since he knows perfectly well that any command from me is not in his self-interest, actually looked up, startled; then he trotted away from the toad, still looking at me, obviously wondering what had gotten into me this time.

I really don't need scares like that at 6 o'clock in the morning.

Language Perils

2008-05-13T03:00:00.000-04:00

The only way to get comfortable in a foreign language is to simply jump right in there and start talking.

That said, there are hazards in doing so. I don't have any equivalent stories in Spanish so far (although I sure would like to find some), but I'm going to tell you of my two favorite watch-out-for-the-language tales that occurred in Brasil.

Brasil, particularly in the northeast where this story takes place, has a very large Irish missionary presence. I've met quite a few, and they are among my favorite people. They love to tell this story on one of their own, a young woman who came over fresh from Ireland as a lay missionary about 20 years ago. She went through the standard 6 weeks training in Portuguese and then made her first trip into the interior of the northeastern state of Paraíba, where I've spent the most time.

There's a town not too far from the coast called Patos, which in Portuguese as in Spanish, means "ducks". I'm not sure why, but on this trip she was meeting with the mayor and a few other officials, escorted by other Irish missionaries, old hands in Brasil. Colleen wanted to compliment the town, so she said--she thought--to the assembled group, "You have such lovely ducks here." But instead of patos, she inadvertently came out with putas--which has the identical meaning in both Spanish and Portuguese. Her Irish colleagues had all they could do to keep from rolling on the ground, laughing, while the Brasilian dignitaries of the town did not know where to look, what to do with their hands, and certainly had no clue how to respond.

Knowing my Irish friends, I wondered about the truth of this story, but years later, I met Colleen and she laughed uproariously at the memory. Every word was true.

The other story concerns a Catholic missionary priest, an American, in João Pessoa which is the capital of Paraíba. I think it was Pentecost, and the priest, who had been there less than a year, was giving a sermon in which he wanted to say "And then the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples in the form of a dove". The word for "dove" in Portuguese is pomba. I don't remember what exactly was the unwitting change, but the priest wound up using, instead of pomba, a very similar word that was one of the slang terms for "penis". He had no idea why the older members in the congregation suddenly turned to stone or why all the teenagers were either snickering and nudging one another (male) or nearly choking from giggle fits (female).

My informant was a priest who had been there and who had enjoyed the whole thing immensely. Part of the rite of passage for missionaries, he said, refusing with a grin to tell me his own.

An Excellent Post from Honduras

2008-05-12T18:05:00.003-04:00

For those who may not yet be aware of it, there is an excellent blog La Gringa's Blogicito, written by an American woman living in Honduras. I read it every day. Today's post is particularly good.

House Maintenance

2008-05-12T07:51:00.005-04:00

I don't care where you live, if you own a house, you've signed on for perpetual maintenance. For us, we also have to deal with two recurring problems.

With one exception, our house is well built. After some research, we opted for traditional Panamanian construction and we have not been sorry. In fact, it's turned out even better than we expected.

The one exception has been the roof, which is NOT traditional. That material is correagua, the stereotypical 4' x 8' sheets of galvanized metal you see everywhere in the tropics. In the worst decision we made in construction, we decided not to go with correagua but to use instead a relatively new roofing material made of recycled plastic. It looks like the old-fashoned roofing tiles. It comes in sheets (hojas) that are, I believe, 4' x 2'. It meant we had to have more cariolas set closer together than with the correagua, but they are not as heavy as the standard cariolas (they don't need to be), so cost was probably a wash. The factory is just outside of David and we were captivated with the idea of building "green" as well as supporting the local economy.

There was a house recently built by a young professional Panamanian couple, close to us, that had this roofing material and we talked with them as well as toured the house. They had already gone through one rainy season, and were quite happy with the roof.

So--we went with it.

The first rainy season--perfect. No problema.

Then came the second rainy season--and we had our first leaks.

At this point, after 3 years of dealing with this stuff, I think the problem is the winds here, which are ferocious especially in January and part of February. I think that they're causing the roofing hojas to move and abrade against the screws, creating minute channels. Plus our builder made a few bad screw installations.

I finally resorted to using silicon gasket-type sealer working from the inside of the house. It is an awful job, since given the pitch of the roof, I have to get up on our 12 ft stepladder and work very close to the ceiling. Let me tell you, that's a hot, dirty job. But it did the trick for all but the worst leaks.

By "worst", I don't mean a leak so bad we have a bucket underneath (although we have had two instances of that but easily fixed). I mean leaks that wind up causing small areas of minor splashes on the floor. Not serious enough to be really dangerous, but annoying and inconvenient.

A month ago, I had our all-purpose construction worker, who is very good, fill the worst of the holes from on top of the roof and also seal as best as he could around the screw heads where they met the roofing material. I also decided to have him paint the screw heads with a siliconized paint that a friend told us stopped the leaks in her roof (she has the same roofing material).

Don't waste your time with that one. Not only didn't it work, but also by moving around on the roof, given the flexible nature of the roofing material, the pressure broke some of the silicon seals on the inside of the house, ones I'd already successfully repaired. The rainy season has started, we've even had aquaseros, and the situation was very clear. A half dozen "new" leaks.

Panamá is not for the faint-hearted.

So this morning, we once again struggled with our heavy, awkward, absolutely essential 12 ft stepladder, and once again rivers of sweat poured down my face as I manipulated the d____d gun, working around electrical tuberias and the cariolas to seal the holes.

If my experience holds true, I'll have managed to seal all but one, and I'll see two more that I need to fix next time. And there will always be a next time.

Oh, well. Keeps me from being bored.

Living With the Language

2008-05-10T07:48:00.021-04:00

Spanish is not my 2nd language--Portuguese is. I learned it in the best way--total immersion, staying with a Brasilian family, not hearing a word of English for weeks at a time. I have a lot of funny stories about those experiences, although some of them are amusing only in retrospect. I speak Portuguese fairly well; I feel comfortable traveling anywhere in Brasil, where, outside of a few tourist areas, very few speak English.

Given the speed with which we moved to Panamá, I had almost no opportunity to study Spanish before we got here--enough to know that the grammar was very similar to Portuguese, that verb conjugation was nearly identical, and that pronunciation was radically different for some consonants (depending on placement in the word) and diphthongs. The two languages were enough alike, though, to give me some confidence. There had been my learning experience in Brasil, and I felt if I could survive that, I could survive anything.

Plus I was assured (incorrectly) by acquaintances in Boquete (source of most of my erroneous information in my 4 years here), that it wasn't necessary to know Spanish, that lots of Panamanians spoke English and one could get along easily without it.

Now, that's probably true. Then, it was flat out wrong.

We bought land rather quickly, decided on a contractor even more so (lucked out on both of those decisions), and pretty soon we were involved in construction.

Because I'm out of the construction loop these days, I don't know how it works now, but then, if you were smart, you served as your own purchasing agent. Given how one of our future neighbors is going to be fleeced so badly he'll be lucky to survive with his shorts, I think it's still a good idea. The builder was the general contractor and he gave you lists of what you needed. Because I had been in project management, I knew to allow for lead time, etc., so it wound up being an invaluable learning experience for me and an unusually smooth construction for this area--we moved into our house only 6 weeks later than we had been promised, a delay that was not due to the builder. From start to moving in, the house was built in less than 6 months. Even counting the bodega, which was built first, it was something like 7 months more or less.

So Chief Purchasing Agent Joyce, lists in hand, had to go to David and deal with construction supply companies where not a word of English was spoken at that time.

As happened in Brasil, although in a different subject area, I quickly enlarged my pathetically small Spanish vocabulary in a very specialized sector--construction terms. Those were pretty easy to learn. However, nouns are nowhere near enough--verbs get the action done.

Dictionaries are inadequate, to put it mildly, to look up verbs given that Spanish verbs are so irregular thanks to the prevalence of the stem-changers. Portuguese saved my life because I knew, from experience in Brasil, what I had to look for. Differences in conjugation in the tenses I needed were so minor as to be ignorable. Spanish uses more reflexive verbs than Portuguese does (and orders of magnitude more than English)--at least the way it's spoken here--but that was ok--I could still understand and be understood and at that time, that's all I cared about. When I didn't know a word in Spanish, I would desperately fall back on Portuguese and hope. That worked about 50% of the time; the other 50% of the time, I would get polite but blank stares. Since I am Italian by ethnic heritage, I used my hands a lot, searched for different ways of saying what I wanted to get across--and it all worked.

There were a few minor problems--misunderstandings--but nothing lethal. And I learned, believe me, I learned.

So then came daily life. I knew from Brasil that if I wanted to be comfortable here and minimize unpleasant experiences, I had better improve my Spanish. You simply don't understand a people or a culture until you speak the language.

One of the greater ironies of my life is the pronunciation of "r" and "rr". Because I grew up in a household where Italian was spoken often, I was quite comfortable with rolling my "r"s just like you need to do in Spanish. BUT one of the bigger differences in Portuguese is that, not only do you NOT roll "r", but depending on the position in the word, you either aspirate it--it just about disappears at the end of words like "por"--or it becomes an "h" sound ("rio" is pronounced "HEE-o" in Portuguese, for instance). I had to beat it out of my pronunciation, suppress that ability entirely.

Then I moved to Panamá--and discovered that an ability which I'd had for over 50 years had disappeared in less than 10. I have as bad a time as most linguistically-challenged Americans with "r". The Espinosas are constantly and gently correcting me, and I am constantly and far from gently frustrated. I've got it back partially, but I mourn for my lost ease. Since there are other differences that come up practically in every sentence, I despair of ever losing my Portuguese accent.

Another aspect I had a terrible time with, although I've just about mastered it, is the use of reflexive verbs. English uses what we call a passive voice; Spanish uses reflexives, far, far more than in Portuguese. Same is true with the concept of transitive and intransitive verbs--except for the usual culprits in any language ("to be" and "to have"), Spanish doesn't have intransitive verbs--it uses reflexives.

I'm still struggling with indirect pronoun redundancy, although I'm getting there, I'm getting there. Brasilian Portuguese just about ignores it, which is totally symptomatic of that laid-back people, so I never learned it.

And finally, I'll never forgive Spanish for not having the marvelous, the glorious short-cut constructions that allow you to avoid having to use the plural conjugations except in certain cases. Here in Panamá, I've had to learn 5 conjugations for each tense; in Brasil, I rarely needed more than 3 in any tense and only occasionally 4. I'm also much, much fonder of the way Portuguese sounds due in great part to its nasality, second only to French; it's so much softer than Spanish which, I've decided, is the harshest of the Romance languages.

There's really only one way to learn, and that's to jump in there and talk. And listen. Again, from experience in Brasil, at first I paid close attention to advertising, because it's always pitched to the lowest common linguistic denominator. I picked up a lot of Spanish that way. Reading the newspaper every day helps a great deal. I'm advanced enough to ask Maritza to help me with constructions I simply don't understand. I say "advanced enough" because I have to understand the explanations in Spanish--neither she nor Ricardo speak English. But Maritza is a retired public school teacher and is used to dealing with children, so we get along just fine! Mary and I alternate weeks going to their house for Spanish lessons and visiting; she goes for formal lessons, I take my notebook with phrases I don't understand, constructions that have me baffled, and questions as to when you use one word and not another. I feel I've made a huge leap in my understanding in just two sessions.

Plus, she feeds me. What an incentive to learn!

The big exception: I don't do well on the phone. I dislike it in English and avoid it whenever possible in Spanish. Many times the connections are not good, cellular to cellular, and just trying to figure out what's being said, never mind translating it, is nearly impossible, what with static, the dialect, and the fact that in the early days when I asked people to speak more slowly, they 100% of the time doubled or tripled their output per second. So I don't ask anymore.

One of the paradoxes is the better I get in Spanish, the more a salesperson or someone else will either slip into dialect or use idioms I've never heard before and ramp up their speech to Mach 2 (if I'm lucky) or Mach 4 (if I'm not). I'm totally familiar with this from Brasil, and I'm resigned to it here, although there are times when I wind up feeling I've made no progress whatsoever in the language. I paraphrase and ask questions; so far I've managed to survive. But I still hate the phone.

I download and print out at least one article from La Prensa nearly daily, and read it--for vocabulary, for grammatical constructions and for Panamanian usages. Many times the paper is boring, but last Sunday's edition had a whole section on the food crisis that was every bit as good in its local focus as the series of articles that have been running in the NY Times and the WA Post. I had bought a hard copy at our mercadito; I still have that section.

Around the house, we speak a mixture of Spanish and English. I've gotten to the point that at times I have to search my memory for the English word because I'm so used to using the Spanish one. There are many times when there is no English equivalent, so we wind up speaking Spanish out of necessity.

I can't understand people who refuse to learn the language. They miss out on the wonderful whimsical Panamanian humor, for example, and on important aspects of their lives, their culture--and most importantly, their food! My life would be far poorer if I couldn't exchange gossip with Darío, or joke or laugh with him (why do I get the feeling that his wife has been listening to his jokes for 40 years, and he's ecstatic with his new audience?). I would miss out on the warmth and affection of the Espinosas who have for all intents and purposes taken us into their family. I would never learn to avoid pitfalls that you can fall into if you're ignorant of the language.

I do study (not nearly enough). I have some excellent workbooks, particularly for verbs, all of which can be purchased through Amazon.com. Here is a list of those and other books I've found useful:

Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary, 2nd edition. Available locally--we picked ours up at PriceSmart, I believe

501 Spanish Verbs by Kendris and Kendris. I consider this indispensable. I have its companion for Portuguese. I bought mine through Amazon.com before we moved here.

Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verbs and Tenses by Richmond. Outstanding--I can't recommend it more highly. BUT--you have to have the self-discipline to drill yourself.

Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions by Richmond. Ditto.

Larousse Diccionario de Sinónimos Antónimos. We just recently picked this up at Rey, and I'm starting to use it more and more.

Read, read, read--La Prensa for starters. Something else I've found useful (and it will be more so as my Spanish improves) is to buy a book I already have in English and read it in translation or the original Spanish. Rest and Relax in Boquete has books in the original Spanish by Isabel Allende and Arturo-Perez-Reverte, two of my all-time favorite authors. I picked up a couple in Spanish last time I was there. Mary also has the first Harry Potter book in Spanish, which I think is even better because Rowling pitched that book to pre-adolescents in a marvelously non-condescending way. Almost everyone has a Harry Potter book (we, like most of the known universe, have all 7).

She also has another booklet she picked up somewhere in David; she says it's available in just about any supermarket in David: Escuela Para Todos 2008. This is a 192 page booklet with short, relatively simple, informative articles. She does not speak Spanish as well as I do, so this might be a nice resource for beginners and just beyond beginners. I haven't read it yet, although I will sooner or later, since the articles sound interesting.

These resources may not suit everyone, and I'm sure there are many, many others equally as good, but these are the ones of which I have first-hand experience. Unlike Portuguese textbooks, I haven't found an equivalently good Spanish textbook, so no recommendation there.

I hope these are of some use.

5/12/08: This in from Don Ray of Chiriquí Chatter: "http://www.mangolanguages.com/ has a pretty desent free portion that will assist with getting started in Spanish."

5/13/08: A few more good language links--these from Mary Farmer in the Comments section (check for descriptions):

For iPod users: Learn Spanish--Survival Guide

For free, written material: About.com

Food!

2008-05-10T04:00:00.003-04:00

Don's Chiriquí Chatter blog is, as far as I'm concerned, THE resource on all sorts of food places, good, bad and indifferent. We check it out for new restaurant reviews. I remember the time we wanted to know where you could get the best hamburger in town. Contacted Don, he pointed us to TGIF--and sure enough--it was terrific.

But overall, I have to say that the restaurants in this area are disappointing. There are a few good ones but no place really special.

And what is worse, so much típico food that you find in restaurants is terrible. This was a major disappointment for me, since I was used to Brasilian food where even in the cheapest dives in the northeast, you get terrific food. Anyone who wants to tout Argentinian beef over Brasilian beef--meet me in the nearest coconut grove at dawn, BBQ grills at the ready.

That's in restaurants. Casera (home) cooking is very different.

We've been the grateful beneficiaries of both the cooking and culinary lessons of Maritza Espinosa in Potrerillos. I feel right at home--Maritza, like all my Italian female relatives, feels that there's something wrong with you, probably life-threatening, if you don't eat three times what is necessary to fill you up.

What has been revelatory is the number of ways you can use corn.

First, tortillas. Like most non-Hispanic Americans, I suppose, when I thought about tortillas while living in the US, that meant Mexican-style. I know I was rather smug about the fact that I preferred the corn tortillas--but still, it was the flat Mexican style.

So, I was unprepared for tortillas Panamenian style. I'm not big on fried foods, and my initial introduction was in restaurants. Not impressive. For a long time I resisted what I did see of the corn tortillas.

We live close to a very good mercadito, and from time, we'd see packages of ready-to-fry tortillas in the store. We finally bought some, and discoverd that we did like them. Still...

And then came the day when Maritza made her own. She ground the corn in a special grinder that looks like the one my mother and I used to use when we made Italian sausage. An old-fashioned, hand-crank grinder, except that this one is designed to grind corn. It's called a molino, which is Spanish for mill.

She made us some of the most delicious tortillas I have ever eaten, bar none. She gave us a ball of masa, and we had a gluttonous time the next week frying up our own tortillas.

Then there are bollos. These are cylindrical rolls of masa, wrapped in bijao leaves. That's our plant in the picture; you can see two boldos to the right--medicinal plants. After wrapping them, you boil them for an hour or more depending on what's in them.

I've had strictly corn bollos and I've had them with a spicy chicken and chopped vegetable mix. I've also had bollos from masa mixed with cheese. I love them all.

There was the empanada lesson. You make flat discs out of the masa, and the way to do that is to pat them between your hands. Well, I had seen enough Western movies that showed Navajo and Mexican women doing that, but sort of tossing the masa back and forth between their hands in a flip-flop manner. Not to be outdone, I started going that too--and because I'm incorrigible, I called out to Maritza, "Soy indigena!" Evidently, I provided more entertainment that way than the TV, because Ricardo came rushing in from the living room, as did their two grown children, all of whom, including Maritza, wound up laughing hysterically. Somehow I don't think I made a convincing Ngobe Bugle woman. We were taught the correct way to fill, to seal, and to fry.

There's lots more, but what I want to end up with is a Potrerillos specialty, called churú--I think. Spanish spelling is even more phonetic than Portuguese, and that's sure what it sounded like even though it's rare in my experience for a Spanish word to have the accent on the last syllable.

Anyway: it's a sort of soup, but what a soup!

One of Maritza's aunts and her husband, who have a farm, had slaughtered a pig. If there is one thing common to peasant economies around the world, it's the use of all parts of an animal. And I do mean all parts. I once had a really funny conversation with Maritza and Ricardo when Maritza asked, entirely too innocently I thought, if I liked mondongo. I replied rather tartly that I didn' like tripe in Italian food, although it was one of my father's favorite foods, and I certainly wasn't going to eat it Panamanian style! Again, Joyce the clown. Provided no end of hilarity for her and Ricardo.

I can't remember if I've seen it at Rey or Super Baru, but if you go to the more Panamanian-oriented stores, it's not unusual to see a pig's head, usually split in half. We often see one at our local mercadito. I'm sure it's used in other ways, but as we discovered, the pig's head, brains, and some of the meat go into this dish.

But first, the day before, Maritza put in kernel corn into a huge pot and cooked it for 8 hours on her outdoor wood-fired stove (fogón). She cooked it even more the next day while the kitchen help--us--chopped and diced I can't even think how many heads of garlic, peppers, and onions. It took us hours. That went into the pot, as did the meat, to cook even more. At the last, Martiza put in oregano.

By that time, her aunts and their husbands, some cousins and others had drifted in. Ricardito and Marizin, the Espinosa children, showed up. We all sat down to steaming bowls of what turned out to be delicious soup, with Ricardo teasing us by eating the pig brains and smacking his lips at us, grinning all the time adn telling us how delicious it was. His son turned a little green and his daughter refused to look. Modern-day chiriquenos. Maritza despairs about her daughter because she says that Marizin can only cook what's in a package from the store.

But if you were careful of what ended up on your spoon, it was excellent. We took some home with us, enough to make several days' lunches.

The Espinosas have an incredible garden, and grow much of their own food, which they share with us. We'd have our own chayote vine by this time if Ethel, our black Lab, hadn't uprooted and eaten the last one. I've liked yucca since I first met it in Brasil, where it's known as macaxeira; Ricardo gave me two yuccita plants which are supposed to produce a finer tuber that will give a rich creamy paste. I have 3 aji pepper plants growing, thanks to Ricardo; they're very small peppers that have a different taste from ordinary ones, and are supposed to be very good with meat.

So, little by little--poco a poco--we're learning how to cook and eat Panamanian style. But I think it's going to be a while before we attempt churú!

Theft

2008-05-09T07:53:00.003-04:00

My sense of time is rather vague these days. I haven't worn a watch in just about exactly a year (and don't know where it is) since my trip to Brasil last year, and that was only to make sure I caught planes. I only know the days of the week (and even then wake up thinking it's Wednesday and it's actually Thursday) in order to unlock the gates and the bodega for Darío, our world's wonder gardener and handyman.

Which brings me to the subject title.

About 3 months ago (or last week or last year--that time sense again) or so, an email went around a particular email list from a woman who wrote about the crime wave, basically, that had been taking place in the Jaramillo area. I won't go into details, but basically this woman and others had moved down here having bought into the total BS that Panamá in general and Boquete in particular was "Paradise". She actually used that word when describing her shock and disappointment at having discovered the serpent--a fine old Latin American activity called the High Science of Theft. She talked about how she and others didn't have the iron grates (verjas) on their windows, no security doors--and to my dropped-jaw disbelief, how they never locked their doors and left their windows open. And then, poor babies, they were shocked--SHOCKED--when they were robbed.

At first I refused to believe the email was real--I thought it was someone's idea of a joke. Tell me, is there any place left in the US where you'd do that? I don't think so. My brother lives in the Phjoenix area and when I was there about 2 years ago on what was my first and hopefully last visit to the US since moving here, the paper was full of stories about armed robberies (we won't discuss 5 murders in the two weeks I was there) and even a series of 3 atttempts to steal ATMs by means of fork lifts!!

So why do it here? Especially in Latin America where good neighbors will steal from one another. One of our Potrerillos acquaintances was complaining that he thought his neighbor was stealing his chickens (but then he's obsessed with these chickens, I swear, so who knows).

In Brasil, every house is its own compound. Almost all are surrounded by at least 10 ft brick walls with portões--iron security gates like our puertas here, and they are topped--set in concrete--with shards of thick glass from broken Coc Cola bottles or the equivalent. The houses have grades on the windows and portões for all the doors. The doors themselves have triple locks. I saw that everywhere in the Northeast where I spent the most time--in the cities, towns and countrysides unless it was really poor settlement.

The people I stayed with the most often and longest were marginilzed. One year when I arrived there, Lúcia was in a state because the night before, someone had managed to get over their gate and steal the dishtowels she had hanging overnight on the line. I spent a lot of time talking with missionaries of various denominations from various countries (I was especially fond of the Irish ones), many of whom had spent time in other Latin American countries, such as Chile. The situation varies from country to country only by degree. Theft is a way of life. Prejudiced as I am in favor of Brasilians, whom I adore, I think they run the cleverest scams in all of Latin America. Brilliant, creative people.

So, when I came to Panamá, I simply assumed that's the way it would be. For a year, we rented a Panamanian house not far from where we are now, and the house had it all, including a security alarm system. The only thing that was missing, I noted, was the broken glass on the concrete walls; I was told that it does occur in Colón. I was quite surprised when I saw gringo houses that didn't have the verjas and puertas. I was told it wasn't really necessary here in rural Portreillos. Nevertheless, when we started building, we ordered heavy duty iron doors for our main entrances, and I also ordered verjas for the windows. I ignored the extraordinary helpful American who flatly told me that he wouldn't live behind bars like some common criminal. He's the same one who now has razor wire on top of his walls. Every time I pass that house, it reminds me of a concentration camp or the Baghdad Green Zone. I prefer our functional iron grates, and our fence gates are really pretty. But to each his/her own.

We, too, have been robbed, but not in the house. We built our bodega (storage structure) first, in order tto keep cement and other construction materials safe. The C-beams (cariolas) and barra we kept at our rental house, since I was warned that, given the price of steel, cariolas had a tendency to wander off from a construction site. Eric, our builder, and I discussed the design, if you can call it that, and he suggested ornamental blocks for the two small ventilation windows. We both agreed (because I specifically asked him) that it was unlikely that anyone would break in through those windows.

Two years ago, I woke up one morning, went out to the bodega--and discovered that $800 worth of gardening equipment, including our lawn mower, and tools had been stolen in the night. We'd been hit by a gang (as it turned out, out of Dolega) of at least 4 people who had a vehicle on the ganadera road in back of us beyond the small pasture that borders our property. We could see the wheelbarrow (ours) tracks across the grass to where the vehicle had been parked.

The ganadera has a post and barbed wire fence along the boundary line of the two properties. What the thieves had done was to remove a post--4" x 4" x 6 ft--and use it to oh so carefully and quietly break down the window on the side of the bodega that faces away from the house. It was raining that night and we had the windows closed in the house. We had two dogs at the time, but they are inside dogs (as these people knew because it clearly was an inside job) and will remain so--I have no intention of having our dogs poisoned over a lawn mower.

There had been two robberies down the road from us within the past month, and I already knew the procedure. I took myself dutifully down to the police station in Dolega. Services here are split weirdly, and for police, we're in the Dolega district. I had to transport the two police officers here to our place, because at that time, the police had no vehicle whatsoever. They looked around, made obvious comments, and then I returned with them to file a report.

Technically, after that, the PTJ--the investigative arm--was supposed to come up from David and do their thing. They never showed. I never expected it, anyway--I'm too used to Latin America to have any faith that an understaffed, badly trained police force on foot was going to have any impact. While I detested losing this stuff and having to replace it at higher prices, still, it's only stuff. If you're typically American and are going to get raving uptight about this kind of thing--you're so attached to your stuff--do yourself a favor and stay in Phoenix. Don't move here.

There's a lot more to the story but for the sake of space and potential boredom, I'll leave it out. Suffice to say, it probably was due to a sullen young man we had here for a brief period of time as a worker who was an informante for the gang--for who knows what--a drink at the cantina? Some money? Because his girlfirend's brother was in the gang? At least the representante (sort of like our Congresspeople) was convinced it was so. He advised me to get a gun. Absolutely not, period, next item. He was distressed that, at that time we didn't have cyclone fencing around our house. We still don't, although we have put up fencing to keep stray horses out and Fred in. He arranged for random, increased patrols by temporary help in the area. For whatever reason, we've had no more of that type of theft, although we had another major robbery next door about 2 months ago.

Again, my time sense is awful, but it seems to me that about 4-5 months ago--some time last year--the Dolega police accompanied by a major in the National Police from David came around in a brand-new Mitsubishi police van, to "show the flag" (and show off their new vehicle) in the area. I happen to like the Dolega police--I think they're nice guys. Our next-door neighbor gives them cookies and juice when they come around to inquire about the robbery. At our age, they're sort of like adopted nephews.

A few weeks ago, they appeared at our gates. Turns out that while the government supplied money for the vehicle, they had not allocated the funds necessary to keep it up. The vehicle needed minor repairs and routine maintenance, and the Dolega police did not have enough. So they came around to us, the gringos and the middle-class Panamanians who live in the neighborhood, asking for donations. We immediately donated, as did others. They told us later that they had managed to get most of what they needed from us and then scraped together the rest (god alone knows how and I don't want to ask).

And before I get tut-tuts of superior indignation, the US does EXACTLY the same thing only in a different way. I remember perfectly well how, 5 years ago, the sheriff of Island County pleaded for money for two more patrol cars (we had exactly 3 for I don't know how many square miles--probably about 75) and more personnel. Instead, since the enlightened voters of the county like Americans everywhere voted down an increase in property taxes that would fund such services, the force was actually cut despite a dramatically increasing crime rate.

Recently, there was a horrible robbery in Buena Vista, on the way to Volcán. If you want to read about it, go to Chiriquí Chatter (link on right), Don Ray Williams' outstanding blog, because he has the story as we know it. I had lunch Wednesday with a dear friend of mine who lives in Volcán. Sharon was concerned that the prime suspect was let go, despite what appears to be a great deal of incriminating evidence against him. Still, no one knows the complete story. And who knows whose brother, son, nephew, cousin or in-law he was?

Two days ago, a very well known blogger who lives in Honduras was robbed. You can read about it on her post in La Gringa's Blogicito--link at right.

I happen to think that the Panamanian Federal government wants to protect the ex-pat community because they do recognize the goose that's laying the golden eggs. I have found most local people (with the exception of Boquete where anti-Americanism is on the rise and for both good and bad reasons) favorably inclined towards the ex-pats for the same reason. So I'm reserving judgement.

Physically, I feel safer here than I ever felt in the US, but that's another story.

The lesson, I think, is that the probability of being robbed is near 100%, but you can take steps to minimize your losses. And believe me, the majority of Panamanians are on your side because they get robbed, too. If anything, they're more afraid than we are because unlike most of us, they don't have the reserves to replace what little they have. I gossip a lot with Darío, and know the situation here in this pueblo. But just be aware that you're in a culture where this is a way of life and there is very little help for you if (probably when) it occurs.

And for god's sake, please don't anyone write to tell me, the way they have Don, that guns and vigilantes are the answer. We've had 4 years of that mine-is-longer-than-yours attitude in Iraq and it's worked so well. And if guns were the answer, the US would be one of the safest places on earth. It's so safe that even your kids are blowing away their schoolmates and college campuses are places of fear. All that will happen is escalation and then we will have a US here in Panamá--the worst aspects of our culture. There are other ways.

Time for the regulation hour and a half of weed eating.

Women in Coffee

2008-05-09T05:00:00.006-04:00

At heart I'm a farmer. I've taken an interest in coffee farming, since it's such an important commodity in the economy of this province. And as might be expected, there's plenty of colorful history behind the farms.

This picture shows four generations of women in the Ruiz family who have worked the Ruiz farms and have been involved in the business from the beginning. At the top is the great-grandmother, Claudia Jaramillo de González, who was the wife of the first mayor of Boquete. To her lower left is her daughter, Rosa Lía González J. de Ruiz. On her lower right, the mother of the current Ruiz generation, Elisa Aurora Araúz de Ruiz. And finally, baby Lía Ivette Ruiz de Pech, "US coffee distributor". Having met Lía and one of her children (who was having a great time being a barista, making cappucinos), and knowing her energy, this picture just tickles me.

By the way, all pictures here are copyrighted by Dr. María Ruiz and are used here by her permission.

Great-grandmother Claudia was a successful commercial flower grower. Her daughter, Grandmother Rosa, married into the Ruiz family, and not only continued to be a very aggressive, succesful flower grower but also was deeply involved in coffee production as well.

Doña Rosa was quite an entrepreneur. María Ruiz tells any number of stories about her grandmother that are both affectionate and also give an insight into Doña Rosa's imagination and creativity, nearly unique for her times. It was Doña Rosa, for example, who bought the first Kodak camera in Chiriquí; she took many of the photos of the farm and family.

Doña Rosa was so successful and had such an impact here in Chiriquí that she received national recognition for her work by the Panamanian government. This is a copy of a photograph from a newspaper article about her, clearly taken earlier than the photo at top. I don't have exact dates on many of the photos I'll show, because María Ruiz herself is not sure of them.

Doesn't that photo just radiate intensity?

In Latin America, overwhelmingly it's the women who hold the families together and contribute to their success. Doña Rosa is just one example, but a truly remarkable one. We're talking 60-70 years ago, if not more, and in this rural area. Don't judge Chiriquí by what you see now. Some of the paved roads aren't even 15 years old. And like most Latin American countries the "interior" meant very little to the people in power in the capital. I read once that even today, the "interior", as far as the residents of Panama City are concerned, starts about 15 miles outside the city limits. Of course today no one dares to ignore Chiriquí, given its importance to the economy, but there are several derogatory nicknames that are still used for the people of the province. We take instantaneous communication for granted, but 70 years ago? Here? So she must have been quite a dynamo to have the powers-that-were in Panama City actually raise their heads and take notice. And of a woman at that.

So--hats off to an outstanding woman in any country.

Some Good Links

2008-05-08T06:36:00.003-04:00

I've had very kind reactions to my last post. As a result, I want to add a few more links to this site and would urge you to use them.

Eric Jackson publishes The Panama News out of Panama City. It is the best English-language publication with which I'm familiar (and I'm certain there are others) to get a feel for what is going on politically in Panamá. Yes, his slant is from the capital, but he does make an effort to visit and talk about other places in the country. In this edition's home page, among other things, he talks about the confirmation hearings of the proposed new US ambassador to Panamá, the "Pink Revolution" in politics that has swept most of Latin America, and other topics both great and small. I don't read every edition, but when I do, I think it gives one of the best English-language views on what is happening in Panamá overall that I know of.

I read La Prensa nearly daily, and I recommend doing that but for the most part, the newspaper is dull and since it tends towards the party in power currently, more or less sweeps ugly political realities under the rug. Still, it's useful.

The other link I would recommend highly is Boquete.org. It's constantly updated and contains a good deal of useful information. It is one of the first places I turn to for possible info on the latest laws that affect the ex-pat community (such as driver's license renewals, for example). It by no means is comprehensive but it is a good place to start.

If there are other links anyone would like to recommend, please let me know, I'll check them out, and if I think they're worthwhile, I'll publish them. Send me spam and advertising of whatever stripe and I promise I will blister your rodent's behind in public. I'm too old to care about what you think of my insolence.

Frankly, most of the time, I would rather post about my bougainvillea, our dogs and cats, the spectacular gardens around here, more on the coffee growing process, and other such topics, and I will. I'm planning a series of posts on the gardens of our Panamanian friends, the Espinosas, and the one of another Panamanian friend, Gladys Haynes. Much closer to my heart.

But I will continue to post, as I am moved (somewhat fitfully) on what I see around me. I repeat: I like Panamanains, I enjoy their culture with all its warts, and I love living here. But I am if nothing else a hard-headed realist. I should put in my profile that on my best days I am a cynical misanthrope (in my book, the adjective is not a redundancy); you don't want to know about the worst.

Thanks for all the kind comments, those of you have have written. I appreciate them.

A Resource-Driven Culture

2008-05-07T17:00:00.005-04:00

One of the reasons I chose to live in Latin America (and wound up in Panamá), is that unlike in the US, Latin Americans are real people with whom you can have real conversations about real things. While I can sputter with the best gringo over the near-doubling of the price of sand and gravel over the past two years, most Panamanians aren't really concerned about that. They are far more concerned about putting food on the table, clothing their families and digging up enough money to outfit their children for school.

Those are universal basic concerns but how people go about it varies culturally .

We had lunch not too long ago with a Panamanian friend who had an interesting perspective on US culture and those of other "developed" nations. Let's stick with American, since that's the one I know best.

She said that Americans have 4 cultural assumptions: 1) I like it 2) I want it, therefore 3) I need it, so 4) I deserve it.

Read progressively from 1) to 4), I thought she'd hit the mark perfectly from a certain perspective. There are other American cultural attitudes as well, but these are the one seen from the "developing" countries. I've spent a lot of time in Brasil with poor and marginalized people, politically active ones. While they would not have phrased it so succinctly, I guarantee that this is the way they see the US. And they're right. All I have to do is conjure up the knowledge of how my daughter-in-law--a wonderful, hard-working, decent, compassionate woman, dearer to me than my own children, is raising my grandchildren, and there you have the next generation of Americans born, raised, shaped and ready to consume--by right. Whatever they like, they want, they need and by god, they deserve. A few years ago, I was appalled at what they received for Christmas. The cost would have fed a Brasilian family of 6 for nearly a year. They aren't exceptional. I had acquaintances in the US who spent even more on their children. To me, this is obscene.

Intrigued, I asked our friend what the equivalent Panamanian cultural attitudes were. Her reply: a primary cultural attitude was doing what was necessary to get the job done, collectively.

That's very nice, very admirable. The four listed above, frankly, are not. Yet without much trouble I could list several outstanding American cultural attitudes such as the way we open our pocketbooks to pour out aid to those in distress. And often we even do it without our so-called leaders setting political strings on it as the current administration has attempted to do in Myanmar. Certainly we do so as private citizens. Look at what happened with Hurricane Katrina and natural disasters in Honduras and other areas of the world. Not the governmental response, thanks (same administration)--but the outpouring from hundreds of thousands of Americans. It is definitely a cultural attribute and one in which we can take enormous pride.

I made no comment, but it set me to thinking what my equivalent list would be, as an outsider looking at Panamanian culture the way she, as a Panamanian looks at American culture.

The one I have to deal with the most often is called "playing the game". Another name might be "charging all that the traffic will bear", and another might be "cheat whoever and whenever you can, particularly if they're stupid Americans". This is not new for Panamanians. In another post, I reviewed a recently-published book called "Path to Empire:Panama and the California Gold Rush". From the earliest days of crossing this isthmus to get from the Atlantic to the gold fields in California, Americans and others have come up against that Panamanian attitude. For assistance with mules, boats, food, lodgings, and other services, Panamanians did indeed charge all that the traffic would bear. We would call this rampant capitalism and I'm sure that there are many CEOs who in their dreams fantasize fondly about such an atmosphere in the US. Panamanians don't just dream---they do it.

And lest you think I made up that bit about "the stupid Americans", I actually overheard this in David one day while I was getting my hair cut. Panamanians pretty much assume that no American can speak Spanish. My Spanish is rather good, and I had no trouble understanding her along with her contemptuous voice tone. The owners of the shop froze, practically literally, because I always made small talk with them--in Spanish. None of them speak a word of English.

I got mine back without ever saying a word, and left that shop satisfied with the net exchange. I believe she'll think twice before trying that again (soon).

But that's how many of them see us. And, for that matter, each other except that since they're all Panamanians, they all know the rules of the game and my guess is that it's pretty much a stalemate.

I try to deal with fools as little as possible, but it's hard to avoid when so many are immigrating here. I am particularly entertained when they announce solemnly that they truly understand that this is not the US and then proceed to act as if it is--with all the protections, both formal and informal, that US law and custom gives.

We Americans are a people accustomed to obedience to laws. It isn't because the US has laws and Panama, say, or Brasil, doesn't. The best constitution I know of is the Brasilian one but its guarantees in many instances aren't worth the paper they're printed on because there is so little law enforcement. Panama, for one thing, just doesn't have the resources.

Which leads me to the main point.

We all agreed that day at lunch that Panama was a resource-limited economy--and I would argue, culture--but in reality what our friend was talking about was money. Money is in short supply in this relatively poor country (although its per capita income is second only to Costa Rica in Central America, I believe). And so we return to basic survival needs--such as putting food on the table for your family.

I emphasize the family part because Panama's culture, unlike that of the US, is family-based. Oh we Americans give lip service to it but that's all it is. If Americans were ever given the choice of having a real family-based culture but with the knowledge of what the price is, believe me, most if not all would reject it instantly. I've seen the lengths to which all members will go to aid one another in the family in Brasil, for instance. Americans are far too self-centered and too invested in personal privacy to go to such lengths.

As a diversion, I want to mention the not uncommon sight of seeing older American men with young Panamanian wives and sometimes children. I've seen it in David, I've especially seen it in Boquete, and we even have such a couple here in Potrerillos. We're all familiar with the American male mid-life crisis and what he's most likely to do so there's no need to go into it. I don't think it's a bad thing here myself because usually the man has no real idea just exactly what this transaction is going to cost him. If you get married in the US, chances are really good that you can pretty much ignore each other's birth families, if you want to. But if you marry a panameña, you just don't get her--at no extra cost, you get her entire family and you get them for life. Believe me, the woman is perfectly well aware of what she's doing--as is everyone in the community--I've had enlightening talks with Panamanians in Potrerillos on the subject. Hey, so long as everyone is happy.....

So that's one way of charging all the traffic will bear and feeding your family--all of them.

I've seen in Brasil and heard stories here from Panamanians about the daily struggle to get enough money to put that night's dinner on the table. Not next week, not tomorrow--right now, today. It's been going on for a long time in this poor country, and much of it is due to wealthy Panamanians exploiting poor Panamanians. I've had several conversations with people in Potrerillos who really like dealing with Americans--honest chiriqueños who are not out to cheat. Why? Because Americans pay their bills. They pay their workers. That's not always true of Panamanian employers, especially in the construction industry. Boquete is littered with gringos who have been forced to pay the wages of workers who were left high and dry as the contractor went broke or just left without paying them. By the way--that's panamanian law. If the builder can't pay them--you have to. Because they don't have much money and never have had, they don't know how to manage it when they get it, either. And too many construction contractors are notorious crooks. There are so many ways to fleece "the stupid Americans" in construction. What is particularly funny is to see how those Americans who assure you that they know that this isn't Kansas, think that something like a contract is going to protect them. I should be a TV producer of a comedy show--I have material for years with stories like this.

But still, there's that problem of putting food on the table right now, not tomorrow. Your kids are crying with hunger now.

It doesn't matter that better times have come. It doesn't matter that you have more income now than you've ever had, thanks to the latest American invasion of Panama. Culturally, you're resource-limited and resource driven--and that's the way you act. Tomorrow may never come--your deeply-imbedded, unconscious cultural imperative is food on the table today.

One of the interesting consequences of this is with the small Panamanian businessperson, such as a taller or workshop. In the US and Europe, too, I imagine, one of the assumptions businesspeople act on is that if you give good service and charge fair prices, sell quality goods, then you will profit in the long run by returning satisfied customers. I have listened to Americans here rave about how they're going to get even by never going back to that d_____d store, taller, contractor, whatever.

What they don't understand is that for the most part, your individual Panamanian kiosko owner, vendor, workman, whoever--doesn't even remotely think like that. The fruit and vegetable vendor by the side of Via Boquete in Dolega doesn't worry that you won't come back to his stand because you realized when you got home that he charged you 3 times the price for those tomatoes that he charges his Panamanians customers--who are most likely his neighbors. He's not looking for your "return business". He's putting food on the table today and tomorrow will have to take care of itself. Besides, as PT Barnum put it so well, there's a sucker along every minute. There's always the next stupid American who doesn't speak Spanish and who doesn't have a clue as to what prices really are.

Even relatively large operations will do the same, especially when the target is a gringa, but any American who looks dumb enough--or is caught in a fix bad enough--will do. About 6 months or so, there was a flurry of posts on Boquete.org about an auto service and parts store in David that was just outrageous. Anyone will tell you that there is no honest car mechanic in the US as well, but there you have recourse to law--and here you might as well forget it. As my insurance agent told me when I had to appear in court after some idiot driver nearly killed us by ramming into the back of our truck at high speed in his loaded produce truck, totalling ours, you never know who the judge is--could be the guy's brother-in-law. And family being what it is--he recommended that we take advantage of the free lawyer the insurance company provided. I had already decided on a lawyer; I was ecstatic when it was free. It should have been an open-and-shut case since we had two Panamanian witnesses, but it was not routine--the judge--in this case, the mayor of Dolega--questioned each of our witnesses for nearly two hours each. But we had a Panamanian lawyer and Panamanian witnesses and we won the case. I can name two gringos under similar circumstances who lost because they either didn't have the lawyer or didn't have the witnesses.

Some Americans just plain ask for it. I listened in stunned silence as some Boguete gringo told me how, at the gas station, a Panamanian man came up to him, hailed him in broken English, talking about how they had met recently, asked him how he was (but never called him by name)--and then hit him up for a loan because he was in an emergency. His wife was going to the hospital, his car was broken, and he had to get to somewhere--can't remember where--within the next two hours by bus, and he didn't have the bus fare. He wanted $100. The gringo gave him all the money he had in his pocket--only $70, poor thing. Just for your information, the bus fare to Panama City at that time from David was about $12. The Panamanian walked away, promising to repay him that day. The gringo asked me plaintively if I though that this Panamanian, whom he couldn't recall having ever seen before, would pay him back. I stood there, wondering how the guy managed to put his pants on in the morning without a 10 page booklet of instructions and a set of detailed maps. No wonder they call us "stupid Americans".

Our middle-class Panamanian friends certainly don't approve and by no means all Panamanians are dishonest. But to Panamanians, it's just playing the game, and they have to put dinner on the table for their family--all of them--tonight.

Unless you learn Spanish, leave your gated community, make an effort, talk, and listen (and have on hand at least two functioning brain cells)--you're never going to know "them" and they will continue to play the game against "us".

Gardening and More

2008-05-07T07:38:00.011-04:00

We moved into this house on June 15, 2005 and from that moment on (if truth be told, a few months before), I started working in the garden. Never mind that we didn't have electricity (and wouldn't for 6 more weeks), that was immaterial as far as I was concerned. After all, who gardens in the dark?

To talk about this, first I have to amend some of my posts. It's hard, really, to live with one of the Technically Correct Police Force. Give me a Politically Correct Policía any day-- much easier to bear, I assure you. I've been saying that we live in "this valley", in order to distinguish it in the eyes of people who may not live here from Boquete. Boquete is in a valley; we on the other hand live on a savannah or type of plain. Valleys presume mountains and mountain views of which we have none. Of course that begs the question of what those things are that stick up to the north that I was used to calling mountains in another life, and our plain has an interesting angle of inclination but who am I to argue with the Technically Correct Police?

That out of the way--and aren't all our lives so much better for knowing this?--an ex-geologist Canadian friend of ours has called this area an alluvial plain, and alluvial means water. The combination of lots of hard rainfall and sugar cane production, which is a heavy feeder of just about all soil nutrients, in a volcanic area has left us with practically no soil on a hard, rocky surface. Trying to garden under these conditions is not the easiest thing I've ever done, and I've lived primarily in areas that were either heavy clay soils or sandy soils with clay 2-3 feet under the surface.

There is a wild abundance of palms here--I plan one of these days to do one or more posts about them. The very first plants I bought, by sheer accident, were multiple palms, about 2 ft tall. I planted those in April or May, 2005 along our entrada. The fairly recent picture above shows some of them. By sheer luck, I had chosen tough plants that grow relatively easily and rapidly. A couple of them are now over 6 feet tall, and you can see the multiple trunks thickening out.

That was the end of the easy stuff. The rest of the planting, except in certain areas, was agonizingly hard work--digging holes, removing rocks, filling with other dirt and gallanasa. It took us two hours one day to dig exactly one hole for a bougainvillea plant to try to assure drainage, since they do NOT like wet feet.

Which brings up a major point--working in the tropics.

I'm used to hard work. I'm also 71 and under any circumstances, simply can't work as hard as I used to when a mere youngster of 60. At that time, I was working and gardening at around 49 degrees N latitude, and there is a monumental difference between that and 9 degrees N. latitude. The heat in the tropics makes it so much harder. I whine a lot about how little time I have but actually it isn't time I lack--it's energy to do anything with the time after I'm through outside.

I get up about 4:30 every morning, take care of the animals, then do various things until dawn, which nowadays is just before 6. The dogs and I walk around the property where I take note of what needs to be done, what's doing well, what isn't--and enjoy the cool air, the songs of the awakening birds, and the breathtaking beauty of what's around me. While keeping an eye on Fred who usually is looking longingly at the bull next door who, Fred is certain, is just dying to play with him.

From that time on, with a half hour out for breakfast, I'm outside working, and it's usually hard physical labor. This is not puttering around the rose garden with a pair of pruners territory. I remove rocks, fill in gullies with small rocks and stones, repair stone fences, plant, fertilize, weed eat, paint, maintain about a mile of water lines, and more.

By 11, I'm exhausted. Sometimes I'm so tired I have to rest before I have enough energy to take a shower. I've also learned to drink water, an activity I used to scorn as being for lesser mortals. A minor bout with heat exhaustion cured me of that attitude fast. So afternoons are for reading or other light work inside the house, and a nap. There is a reason for the siesta. The dogs certainly understand that!

A real problem with living here is weight gain. Almost every gringo I know regardless of nationality struggles with weight gain; a few lucky souls are genetically gaunt, which I resent. I'm 15 lbs heavier than I was when I moved here 4 years ago and am slowly, grimly losing weight. It isn't easy because your BMR (basal metabolism rate) drops as you move from temperate to tropical conditions. You don't burn as many calories in order to maintain an internal temperature in a tropical zone as you do in a temperate climate. Most of us also can't work anywhere near so hard as we did back in Minnesota, New York, Washington or wherever, given the heat, although that probably varies depending on altitude. Here we're at about 1800-2000 ft and it is significantly hotter than in Boquete ( around 4200 ft and higher) and Volcán, which I think is about 5000 ft. David, at sea level, is truly uncomfortable for me and for quite a few Panamanians, who complain about the heat there.

Since this is a poor country and resource driven, you don't see that many overweight Panamanians, especially not here in the campo. Our part-time gardener/handyman/general savior is a 68 year old man, Darío, who is tall, thin, with the muscles of a man who has been doing manual labor for his entire life. HE can work all day in the sun--he paces himself brilliantly, and I've learned from watching him. He gets an amazing amount of work done, and burns up those calories.

In the US, obesity is so common as to merit no comment anymore. But in 4 years we've seen exactly one obese person here, in David, working at a classically sedentary job, in a computer tech store. Occasionally you see an overweight adolescent, always male, and it's so unusual that it takes you by surprise. Prosperity has come to David (although I think it's about to disappear) and people have more money for food. Which here is high in starch and much of it is fried. We eat in a combination of Panamanian/American eclectic fashion, slowly going over more and more to Panamanian food as we learn how to prepare it. It doesn't help with weight control. One of the hidden costs of living here!

Yet I look at 3 years' worth of if not back-breaking, certainly backache-producing labor and I am well content. Darío is filling holes and leveling certain areas, and more and more of the maintenance can be done by lawnmower instead of weed eater, a true blessing. Our fruit trees and bananas are starting to produce and the bougainvillea, gingers and other decorative plants are a joy to my heart. Life is good.