November 3, 2010

Just read what I wrote a couple weeks ago, but I didn’t post until today. FINALLY, I have a day off. It has been a long haul without any time off from school. I have been very busy to say the least. Now, some downtime. There are four national holidays this week and we get three of them off. I guess “EVERYONE ELSE”(according to the students) got yesterday off (Tuesday). It was the Day of the Dead or something like that. You honor the dead by decorating your family’s graves. Anyway, we have a cemetery next door to the school (which I have mentioned before) where they bury the bad guys. Apparently, again, according to the kids, there have been gangs there “honoring ”a bad dead guy” and fights break out between gang members. The boys were wanting to go to the window to “look” to see what was going on all day. It was very pretty as you pass by the cemetery because there were many many flowers all over the place. But our school didn’t get off and the kids whined all day. (Obviously, kids in every country in the world are alike in that respect). Also, apparently you couldn’t buy alcohol anyplace on Tuesday, either. In the past, many people got pretty drunk “honoring” the dead. Today is Flag Day and I hope to post a picture of all the flags at the entrance to our neighborhood (an old army base). Really pretty. Tomorrow is something else and Friday is yet another holiday. Then, next Wednesday is something else again. Our neighbors across the street had a party last night, which must have been “one” of those parties that I have heard about here in Panama. It was going strong when I came home at 9:00 pm from a Bible study and, it was going even stronger at 2:30 am when I woke up and could hear thumping music thru the closed windows of my bedroom. It was STILL going strong when Ace and I left for our walk at 7:00 am this morning and again when we came home around 8:30 am. So, they do know how to party down here. Don’t know when they really ended the party, but it is now very quiet around here.
Sunday, we went down into the city after church and walked. We headed into the area where the million dollar high rises are. The building were beautiful, lobbies (from what we could see from the outside) were spectacular. One of the buildings is Donald Trump’s. It is about ready to open and I guess apartments are close to a million dollars apiece. However, with all the construction still going on at multiple high rises, the streets, sidewalks, etc. around the neighborhood are an absolute mess. Yep, there are a lot of really wealthy that live in this country, along with the massive amount of poverty.

Check the pictures. One is the NO SMOKING sign in an outdoor park. What a beautiful place to swing, right by the ocean!