October 16, 2010

Went to immigrations on Friday. I wore longer pants knowing shorts cannot be worn into any government or business office here, but the guy in front of me in line had a baseball cap on. He got stopped by the officials and had to remove it. And while we are on the topic of clothing, I saw a school uniform today that I would certainly have home-school my children rather than them having to wear it. These boys were wearing long pants that were BRIGHT ROYAL blue. Then, they had a knit shirt with a royal blue collar and royal blue ribbing on the sleeves.
I was taking a walk after school one day with my friend. Up ahead, we saw a car stopped, people were getting out of it and SOMETHING was on the ground in the middle of their lane. Fearing it might be something we didn’t want to get close to or maybe something they had hit, we held back for awhile. Then discovered it was a sloth! I guess frequently they will be “resting” in the middle of the road. These “nice” people stopped, grabbed a big branch from the edge of the jungle, came back and encouraged the sloth to grab onto it and then carried him back to the jungle. We got to watch it ALL!! It was just so cool. Then, we watched the sloth very slowly find a tree and begin to climb. How cool was THAT. We were close enough we could have touched it, but we have been warned not to. I guess they are full of bugs, up to 600 different kinds of bugs actually live on them and moths actually grow in their hair because they are just so slow. But oh my, how adorable their little faces are. In fact, I was so excited I told my Panamanian neighbors when I got home. However, they looked about as excited as I would be if someone in Cincinnati told me they saw a cat while on a walk.

October 6, 2010

Interesting day on Wednesday. Wayne was going to drop me off at school rather early, so he could get downtown to meet our lawyer’s assistant and give him a paper that I had to sign for immigration. So, just before we were leaving to go to school, I got that “great phone call”. School was called off due to a wide spread water outage down in the city. The government called off ALL public/private schools in the city. We did have water, but you can’t fight the government! Having not had a break for 9 weeks (plus two weeks of in-service) and none for the next 4 weeks, it was a welcome relief. So I went downtown with Wayne. It was fun, as there were literally hundreds of school kids roaming around. Most of the kids that go to public school wouldn’t have had a clue they had no school until they arrived at the school building. But what was fun is that there were dozens of various uniforms. By law, all students have to wear a uniform. The kids ALL looked so nice, clean, well groomed. Most of the guys had a shirt and a tie that matched the color of the girl’s uniform. I guess we are really casual at my school with knit shirts (with a collar) and beige pants. But you know these kids are very poor just because they go to public school, yet they all looked so nice. As we were going by the Children’s Hospital downtown, we saw dozens of “fondas” (see the picture). These are little eating establishments that were certainly busy. We walked through them more than once just looking at the food that they had prepared and that the people were buying. Every place had big pans of fried chicken available. At 7 in the morning!! No donuts, no bagels, no pastries. Lots of fried chicken and hot dogs though. Really, which is worse? Fried chicken or donuts???
Wayne had to go downtown the day before, again for an immigration run. Coming back, he got stopped by a street demonstration that can be frequent here. It was during lunch time and many construction workers were in the middle of the street waving flags, blocking traffic and yelling something. All they did was to completely screw up the traffic and the “protesters” seemed to be completely delighted in doing so. Wayne just waited it out knowing that when their lunch hour was over, the protest would be over as well since they had to get back to work. But, he heard sirens in the distance, so the workers started breaking up and allowed traffic flow to resume. A typical occurrence in Panama, I guess, just the first time one of us was caught in one.
You will see two pictures of critters on this blog. One is a crocodile that they captured in a drainage ditch just a couple miles from our apartment. Three meters long and approximately 800 pounds. I did not see it and I am glad. That picture came from a news story. The other is an iguana. My neighbor “caught” it in our back yard. It was eating his newly planted bushes. No deer or rabbit problems here, just iguanas. Now, why would he catch it??? And why plant bushes when the jungle is just about 30 feet from our back door?

October 4, 2010 Tourist and facts

Ace and I were taking our morning walk before church and while walking near the canal, we saw two cruise ships entering into the locks. I guess there are not a lot of cruise ships that actually go through the canal since the tolls can be very expensive. In fact, the most expensive toll ever paid was for a Disney ship that went through one time. The cruise ships have to pay for each person that “could” be on the ship whether the ship is full or not. But right now, many of the cruise ships are repositioning themselves from Alaska to the Caribbean. However, there are at least two cruise lines that do take regular trips through canal.
Saturday, we did the tourist thing and went to visit the Miraflores locks. Actually they are just across the street from our neighborhood, probably less than a mile from our apartment. In one of the pictures, you can see our “city” in the background. It has all the “army” looking building left over from the days when the US was here. I guess the average ship costs over $100,000 in CASH paid 72 hours prior to entering the canal. Some can cost upwards of $300,000 to $400,000 to transit the 50 miles or so, but it can sometimes save the shipping company up to $1,000,000 by not going around South America. New and larger locks are to be finished in a few years and can handle ships a lot larger than the current locks can handle. Toured the museum at the lock’s visitor center afterwards and got to see samples of all the “bugs” that live in the jungle. Oh my. Don’t want to go there. Yet, we live surrounded by jungle. All of it is protected by the government to provide a watershed for the canal. Beautiful, absolutely BEAUTIFUL. But don’t want to step in it. And some people actually go camping in the jungle????

October 2, 2010

Being the beach people that we are and to walk along the beach is one of the most pleasant things we can do, I am surprised we haven’t done that since arriving in Panama. Come on, no place in this country is more than 50 miles from an ocean! Granted, we often go to the causeway to walk, sit, eat overlooking the entrance to the canal, but that isn’t a beach. So on Sunday after church, we drove to Vera Cruz to visit a nearby beach (20 minutes). Large beach, great for walking, but no one was swimming and few were walking or even sitting on the beach under an umbrella. Most were sitting at a beach bar / restaurant. Guess few in Panama swim. Few walk. Many drink. We did get stopped at a check point on the road for an ID check. Thankfully, they only asked for Wayne’s. Who knows who they are looking for? If for illegals, they check everyone in the car; if for someone else, it is just a glance into the car. I now carry a letter from my lawyer saying they are working on my visa, just in case. It is just strange to have check points where they stop your car, especially when one of the policemen is carrying an automatic rifle. I am getting used to it though.
It was an OK beach, (check out the pictures), but most of the really nice beaches are an hour or more away. I guess the best ones are on the Caribbean side, but along with more rain and bugs. The tide was so far out when we were there. But, it was partly sunny and windy and just perfect for being outdoors.
About immigration. I had to go to the lawyer’s office to sign more papers on Wednesday morning. The lawyer wasn’t there, since he was delayed at a doctor’s appointment. So the meeting was basically with his two secretaries who spoke NO English and the lawyer on the phone. At one point, he needed to talk with his secretary. I asked which one and he just said, “Oh, she is the FAT one”. I was really taken back by that comment only to realize after talking with others that “fat” is NOT a big deal here. It is really an endearing comment! It is NOT an insult. Thus, I guess that is why all the women at the mall that are quite heavy wear clothes many sized too small. It is just the culture. Many Americans would get really put out when a Panamanian man calls you “gordo” (which is fat). Yet, they really think you are pretty and they are attracted to you. This information was from the single girls from the states that I teach with. So, the immigration saga continues. What we have to do is almost insane. Like who is escaping from the US to come to a third world country? Why do they make it so difficult? Eventually, according to several at school that have done this process, we can expect a multi-hour interview where Wayne is in one room, me in another and they ask us the same questions and compare answers “just to see” if we really are married and he isn’t trying to sneak me into the country. Good grief! One gal said immigration actually showed up unexpectly at her door step on Saturday morning. Again, the fascination continues with being in a foreign country.
We have a favorite pizza place that we occasionally walk to for dinner. We have had several different pizzas, NONE with sauce. I guess that is a custom here. No sauce. Tonight, several people sitting next to us were all eating various pasta dishes. Again, no sauce. I had a terrific Greek Salad. It was really good, yet I bet it had maybe a tablespoon of lettuce in it. All green peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, etc. Different.