March 31, 2013
Protests happen here in Panama a
lot, as I have mentioned before. But
last week was a crazy one. The firemen
were protesting about their pay or whatever.
But typical of protests, the police toss tear gas into the group to try
to quickly break it up. So, as that
happened, the firemen put on their gas masks they normally use during a fire. Then, they started fighting the police by
turning on the fire hoses at the riot police.
Meanwhile, during the “battle”, there was a major fire in one of the
department stores at a nearby mall. So,
the firemen quickly stopped the silliness and tried to leave to fight the
fire. But, then the police started to
arrest the firemen for protesting!
Really, I do wish I understood the language a lot more, so I could
actually understand the dialog during the news casts. All I can get is the American translation of
the events or translate the captions as they stroll across the television
screen.
Once again, I am going through the
immigration process which really never seems to end. My temporary card expired and I was leaving
the country and had to get everything going again quickly. Wayne and I had to have our second “marriage”
interview. This one we had to have a
licensed professional translator. Going
into the immigration building was a trip in itself. There was a gal ahead of us
in a spaghetti strap top. They stopped her
and wouldn’t allow her to continue without covering up. Me, I had to remove my sunglasses. I got caught on that one when I went in to
get my driver’s license renewed also.
The government offices are very strict around here about sunglasses,
proper shoes and clothes. No shorts
allowed, no flip flops, no sunglasses.
I think I have mentioned before
that smoking here is illegal in most places.
It is just frowned upon by most
everyone. Cigarettes are very expensive
(how that compares to the states I really don’t know since I don’t buy them),
but they do whatever they can do deter smoking in Panama. We were out the other night with a couple
where the guy smoked. I noticed his
cigarette pack on the table and was shocked.
On the cigarette package, they had the most unbelievable pictures of
deformed children/cancer/ whatever they find something that smoking can
cause. Really very ugly. I was going to
put one of the pictures on here, but they are just too gross.
We just returned from a week visit
to Michigan. It was cold. Thankfully, our boys met us at the airport
with coats, sweatshirts, etc. We froze
for a week, but at least being with the grandkids made it all worthwhile. Lately, traveling gets more and more
interesting. We have been out of the country now for almost three years. When back into the range of “USA television”,
we are glued to the commercials. The new
products coming into the market that we have no clue about are pretty amazing. The pictures are from the last visit to the cold cold Northern territory!
