November 18, 2010

Some more on the Day of the Dead. Apparently in Panama you are not allowed to purchase liquor, drink liquor, play loud music or dance on that day. So parties may start before 12:01 am but you have to keep the music down or be fined if caught. But what I thought was really interesting is that I was told lines start forming at 11:30 pm outside any establishment that sells alcohol so immediately at 12:01 they can purchase what they need. The culture here is apparently not to “plan ahead”. You know the stores will be closed one day a year so buy what you need before that day?
We had plans to head to the beach this weekend. To get to a good “tourist” beach is about a 90 minutes drive. Got to admit that is a lot better than a day and a half drive to Myrtle Beach or the Panhandle in Florida. It was a great time to go because the skies were overcast all day on Saturday. Granted, not what you might want on the beach but we could be out right by the ocean the entire day and not worry about getting burnt. We didn’t mind at all. We met a couple that were there from Canada and they were talking about the snow being on the ground when they flew out a couple days earlier. That made the weather seem all that much better. Sunday morning it rained (thankfully AFTER our long walk on the beach). We could have waited to be shuttled around by the hotel shuttle (like everyone else) or just head out and walk through the downpours and deep puddles. We opted for the later and had such fun. Like being a kid again. Not bad when you already have your bathing suit on and it is still 80 degrees. Ace found a schnauzer friend that he got to spend the weekend with. Granted it couldn’t have been as much fun as spending time with Dr. Nancy’s 4 little white doggies but more fun than a kennel.
We booked our reservations as a “Panamanian” and in order to get registered we were in a large convention room. A man came in at “checkin time” and talked for 5-10 minutes all in Spanish (wonder what he said??). Then we had to listen for our number to get registered. Needless to say we practiced and practiced saying our number (26) to each other so we would hear when they called our number (obviously in Spanish). We listened so careful yet some guy next to us had to poke me when they called for 26. Thankfully he saw our number and figured we were clueless (we were). Somehow we did get registered and did get to our room. We were the ONLY gringos in that large room filled with people.

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!

Actually from Oct 24

October 24th although didn't post until today
Goodness, it has been ages since I updated this blog. I guess things just don’t seem so “weird” anymore. They finally are beginning to pick up our trash on somewhat of a regular basis. I guess the city has 50-60 trash trucks, yet most were broken down. No one wanted to pay to have them fixed.
One of the reasons the government is anxious to get all the trash picked up is the first week of November has all kinds of holidays. Finally, after 14 weeks of non-stop school without a single day off except for our “water emergency” a few weeks ago, we get a number of holidays in November. The first week of November there are four holidays, all for independence from someone or the other. I guess people go rather nuts and the officials knew there would be enormous amounts of extra trash during the holiday time, so they wanted to get ahead of the need. The local shopping mall is full of RED, WHITE, and BLUE so it must be kind of like our 4th of July. (the flag of Panama is also red, white and blue). It is of course mingled with all the orange and black for Halloween. A lot of Halloween merchandise is available, but nowhere NEAR what the states has. I asked my 8th graders if kids went trick or treating and they seem to, but with all the houses and apartments gated in with bars etc, I wonder how it is really done. Guess I will find out soon.
We went down into the city to wander around the other day. There is picture of a city park that is really beautiful. Yet the sign going into the park says “no smoking”. Interesting, as I wonder where all the people that are in the office buildings etc go to have their smoke? As I have mentioned before, I seldom see anymore smoking here, so maybe it isn’t a problem. But I don’t think I have ever seen a non smoking sign in an outdoor area in the states before. Now, if that would only translate into “no tossing trash everyplace”.

I still have a window on my computer that displays the current temperature in Cincinnati. I envy the 70 degree days there, but not the 30 something that I sometimes see in the morning. We have actually had our air conditioner off several days this month, because the temperature gets down to the mid 70’s at night. Nice to have our windows opened all night long. With a fan, we are very comfortable. We can keep our windows open all we want, because there are bars over all the windows. Very difficult for someone can break in. Also, it is not necessary to watch the weather forecast every day. “Warm, humid with a chance of showers” is all they can say. The “dry” season is about to come upon us. I guess that is when all the tourists want to come to Panama, yet the locals seem to like the wet season the best, because there are overcast days and the rain can be so refreshing. And it is!

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.