August 25, 2010

Kids told me yesterday that Panama has a LAW that ALL students must wear uniforms. I guess it isn’t a school’s decision. CCA (my school) has what I think are pretty nice uniforms. If you go to the mall, you see literally tons of kids walking around in their uniforms of many types. Most I don’t like. Our kids wear knit polo shirts with the school emblem on them. But the elementary kids have one color, middle school another, high school yet another color and the seniors have black ones. Then they can wear capris, long pants, or skirt (knee length) in black or beige. The kids look nice. I have YET to see the dress code broken. No shorts, no capris that come to the knee or above, no holes in pants. Jean day is every other Friday and NO holes. So far into week 4 and I have yet to see a dress code infraction. Wonder if that will happen eventually? But yes, we do have the cell phone infractions. Guess that problem is universal and no one has yet to figure out the solution.
We found a veterinarian yesterday that was in a location we could actually find without being led there first. Not easy when the directions are” turn when you see a “pinkish” house, another turn when you get to the house with the large tree in front, and then blab blab blab”. Who would ever think there might be street address and street signs? But, the vet spoke perfect English, although the receptionist spoke none. Charades worked, but not very well. We just wanted to meet a vet in case Ace needed one quickly and to get recommendations about dogs living in the tropics. Good news is there are no fleas here, rabies in dogs is non-existent, and no Lyme disease. Yet there are a lot of other diseases that ticks carry and there are LOTS of ticks. So, she gave us a 30 minute lesson on ticks. Yikes. She suggested Ace be shaved close for the time being, so we can easily see them and know what to look for. Later, once we are educated, we can allow his hair to grow a “little” longer.
I realized that in Cincinnati, one of the first things I said to Wayne everyday was “Did we get anything interesting in the mail?” When he picks me up after school, I tend to want to ask that same question to him out of habit, I guess. So, seven weeks here and NO MAIL. I mean, there just isn’t mail. Mail delivery just does not happen, likely impossible because there is no rhyme or reason to street names or numbers. So, no political stuff, no junk mail, etc. Weird??? You bet. However, utility bills do get dropped off at your house / apartment by a company courier. If you do need to receive mail, you have to rent a post office box. The school allows us to use their courier service that happens once a week for letters but who writes letters anymore??