March 4, 2011

So, we know I don’t cook, but now I have yet another reason not to. Trying to find ingredients here is beyond crazy. I needed brown sugar one day, ran into the store after church while Wayne waited in the car since finding a parking spot is about as difficult as finding anything. Found the sugar section, lots of sugar, sweetener, and things associated with sugar. But, no brown sugar. Scanned all the shelves close by, no sugar, so left the store. While complaining to someone later on in the day, they told me at THAT store the brown sugar was on the other side of the store near the ice cream (???). So the same thing happened again when I went looking for baking soda. Found the baking powder, found the baking supplies, but NO baking soda. Then I found it in another store, someplace completely out of the way among things that it didn’t belong with. You have absolutely no logical method to finding anything. If there is a spot, they apparently put it where ever.
Traffic, as mentioned before, is totally nuts around here. Out driving today (the last day of the month) is particularly crazy. Locals get paid on the 15th and the last day of the month. Everyone is out those two days spending what they have. Every place is mobbed. There are long lines at the banks. So now I get to experience Carnival this coming week. Panama apparently shuts down as the entire country becomes one great big party. The celebration goes crazy from Saturday through Tuesday (the day before Ash Wednesday). Then, every place is still shut down on Wednesday because apparently most are hung over and don’t go to work. Then things turn back to normal again, or so we hope.
This is Friday night and I am writing. We have always gone out on Friday evenings, but decided to stay in because we have heard such horror stories about traffic on the day before “Carnival” week. Apparently, everyone goes to the Interior (any place outside of Panama City) to celebrate and with only two bridges, that obviously can be problematic. The city reportedly becomes deserted. So, anyway we took a walk tonight and it was almost scary. NO noise, except for the sounds from the jungle, no kids screaming in the park, no cars, no soccer games, no nothing. Really eerie! I guess what people say is rather true. But, the word is that this is a “dark” time of the year for Panama. People party like crazy. Many pregnancies occur, people get drunk and their kids run loose. A couple of missionaries from the school hold camps for some of the youngsters to keep them busy. But, on the other hand, I guess that driving in the city is wonderful for those few days while people are out of town. We have also been told not to go any place without our passports and identification cards, since they have lots of roadblock set up looking for drunk drivers and illegals but obviously not for broken tail lights or outdated license plates.. So anyway, it should be interesting to say the least. The city shuts down.