February 12, 2011

The movie is from our mall at one of the three food courts within the mall. Well over a hundred stores and they are building more stores. But, still can’t find anything for me to wear. I don’t really like the clothes. And they are made for short people, too!
A friend told me at school on Friday that starting this Monday, traffic was going to get bad around here. Like has he never been out driving in the past eight months we have lived here and seen the horrible traffic? Good grief, how much worse can it get? I guess they are going to start construction on a metro system here in Panama City and dig up some of the main streets. Also several major intersections are getting “roundabouts”, overpasses, etc. You think I-275 is bad. This place is just plain crazy, particularly since the problem still continues with one of the only two bridges that cross the canal. Should be nice when it all get done (if that ever happens).
Panama is known for not having earthquakes, tornados or hurricanes. That is one of the pluses for people coming here I guess. But that was proven wrong last Wednesday. Guess there was an earthquake about 50 miles from here. Very very rare in this country. Of course, they never had flooding conditions either, until we moved here. One of my friends lives on the 27th floor of an apartment building. Guess she certainly noticed the earthquake as her building swayed. Unfortunately, they likely did not build everything to be earthquake proof.
We went to the mall today. Funny to see all the back-to-school sales going on right now. The local schools (not the international ones) get off January, February, and part of March for “summer”. So they are gearing up to go back. All the international schools (mine included) follow the American style schedule.
I guess there is a very large copper deposit that they are trying to develop in the Interior and they are now passing laws to allow mining. Many of the Indian tribes are against it; the environmentalists are against it and of course the college students, who support all such causes. Subsequently, there have been a number of demonstrations that require riot police and tear gas. Most of the riots around here occurred in front of the University of Panama down in the city. They cancelled class this week to try and stop the kids from rioting.
I am loving this dry season. There are some afternoons that I would like to see some clouds, since the afternoons can get really hot. Sky is totally clear and the sun beats down. If you are in the shade, you are fine. But then about 5:00 pm when the sun starts to go down, it is just as beautiful as you could ever imagine. Cool, windy and just incredible. I would never have thought that was possible in the tropics. I guess that is why this is also the high season for tourists, lots of cruise ships, can’t get a hotel room near the beach (if you can you pay the price). The overcast days in the rainy season are nice, but it does bring humidity. I have lunch duty most every day and it is just plain wonderful. Our cafeteria is outside, kids can be as loud as they want and the noise just dissipates out into the jungle, probably scaring the critters out there.