Category Archives: Living Abroad

July 15, 2010 · 4:20 am

Whacked By The Staff of Life

My neighbor and fellow blogger, Joyce, in a recent post in Living in Potrerillos, decried the lack of decent bread here in Panama…http://joycepa.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/the-staff-of-life/. I couldn’t agree more. What I have tried was simply inedible. Even my four-legged garbage disposal, Charlotte, wouldn’t touch the stuff and I’m hoping the remains won’t damage the compost heap. The only thing I like about bread in Panama is the name of the largest bakery – BIMBO Bread. (A big conglomerate, I guess, because I’ve seen Bimbo bread in Spain and Mexico as well.)

One of the things I truly miss about France is the bread. If happiness is a warm puppy then a crispy, fresh from the oven  French baguette is a mighty close second. It’s also a fact that no baguette ever makes it home from the boulangerie with the ends intact.

Recently I’ve made a couple of attempts at making bread myself. Previously I’ve only ventured into bread making a couple of times. One of my favorites, and enjoyed by everyone I know, has been cranberry bread. Actually this is more of a cake than a real bread and was something my mother made every Christmas time as I was growing up. The recipe is found on the back of every package of Ocean Spray whole cranberries. Around the holiday season bags are usually found in the produce section of the supermarket but the rest of the year you can often find them in the frozen food section.  Cranberry bread is easy to make and absolutely delicious but you’d never use it to construct a tuna salad sandwich with the stuff.

This is not a photo of MY cranberry bread but shamelessly ripped off from:

http://christines-cuisine.blogspot.com/2009/12/cranberry-orange-nut-bread.html

If you want something yummy, here’s the recipe from Ocean Spray:

CLASSIC CRANBERRY NUT BREAD

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon grated orange peel
2 tablespoons shortening
1 egg, well beaten
1 1/2 cups Ocean Spray® Fresh or Frozen Cranberries, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup chopped nuts

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.

Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a medium mixing bowl. Stir in orange juice, orange peel, shortening and egg. Mix until well blended. Stir in cranberries and nuts. Spread evenly in loaf pan.

Bake for 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Remove from pan; cool completely. Wrap and store overnight. Makes 1 loaf (16 slices).

PER SERVING (1 slice): Cal. 211, Fat Cal. 54, Protein 3grams, Carb. 37grams, Fat 6grams, Chol. 18mg., Sodium 313mg.

Richard’s Rating: Ease of preparation A, Satisfaction A+

The only “real” kind of bread I ever made previously was a family recipe my maternal grandmother used to make for “Shredded Wheat” bread. A light, wonderfully nutty-tasting bread that doesn’t require kneading.

I’d love to make this again, but none of the four supermarkets in David stock shredded wheat cereal and I have no idea what could be used as a substitute.

Richard’s rating: Ease of preparation A, Satisfaction A+

The other day I decided I’d try my hand at producing some of the real stuff and went online and Googled “bread recipies.” The search engine came up with approximately 2,900,000 hits. Okay, narrow it down a bit and add the word “simple.” THAT came up with 3,250,000 hits! How is that possible?

Being basically a lazy, lay-about I next tried “no knead bread” and knocked it down to only 305,000 possibilities. Here’s a video I found:

Needless to say mine didn’t turn out like that in the video even though I followed the instructions to the letter. The New York Times recipe, (click to link to it) as well as others that are basically the same, all say “dough will be shaggy and sticky.” Mine was, for, oh, maybe three milliseconds and then it turned into something else. Not knowing what I could do to change the situation other than just starting all over again I decided to just let things develop and see what happened.

The next day this is what I got:

Looks pretty good, but it would have made a better discus than a loaf of bread. One problem, I think, was that the Dutch oven I used was probably too large so the dough spread out and gave me a loaf about 2-1/2″ high. On my next trip down the mountain to David I’ll buy one a little smaller. I need to build up my kitchen items over the next few months anyway for the time I’ll leave this house.

Richard’s rating: Ease of preparation B, Satisfaction D -.

Tuesday I had a go at what was supposed to be an easy recipe for generic white bread complete with kneading. I went through all the steps required and it turned out a lot better than my first attempt and I came up with this:

Again, it’s not something I’d use to make sandwiches with, but still warm with a little butter it was heads and shoulders above Bimbo bread but still lacked a little je ne sais quoi. It did make excellent toast the next morning.

Richard’s rating: Ease of preparation C+, Satisfaction C.

I’m not going to give up yet, though.

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July 9, 2010 · 3:49 am

The Tranquility of Ignorance

It’s another tranquil morning up on the mountain in Potrerillos Arriba, Panama, like the countless billions of mornings that preceded it and the billions to come. Sitting out on the front steps with my morning cup of coffee the sky slowly lightens to my left as the sun starts to climb up the mountain range over there and you can make out the towering cloud formations. The sound of the rushing water in stream hidden behind the trees on the east side of the property plays counterpoint to the crowing of roosters in the neighborhood. A dog barks in the distance. The lights of David in the distance below are no longer visible as the day progresses and the Pacific coast comes into view.

It’s calm and comfortably cool here. Being linguistically challenged at the language of my newly adopted country means I don’t watch the local news on television or read the local press so I was completely unaware that there has been tumultuous rioting going on in two widely separated parts of the country.

A recently passed law has upset environmentalists and union members to the point that they have taken to the streets in the Capital in the east and Changuinola, in the western province of Bocas del Toro. Changuinola was once the hub of the nearly collapsed banana trade in Panama.

In Panama City protesters marched in the streets to deliver a letter to the President decrying the new law and were met by police in riot gear. I enjoyed watching the truncated live broadcast of the Tour de France on ESPN.

Things were much more violent in Changuinola.

There hundreds of people have been injured in clashes with the police and one death has been reported. As a result a curfew has been declared throughout the province and people have been ordered to stay in their homes. What this means to the tourists visiting Bocas del Toro town on Isla Colon is unknown.

But as far as I know it’s business as usual in the City of David and life up here on the mountain goes on as it always has. Though a resident of Panama I am, never the less, a guest in the country and am specifically forbidden to become involved in its political life. Sure, everyone can have their opinions on a subject but acting upon them as an outsider here is forbidden. Quite frankly in this instance I prefer the tranquility of ignorance. Besides, it’s my birthday today. Me and Tom Hanks. Oh, yes, O. J. Simpson, too, but I doubt he’s going to enjoy it a whole lot.

I’m going to have a second cup of coffee.

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July 1, 2010 · 6:35 am

You Can Observe A Lot Just By Watching – Yogi Bera

This morning as I was walking down our driveway here in Potrerillos Arriba, Panama, to unlock the gate I noticed some beautiful pink flowers growing among the weeds. I’ve always loved flowering things. Perhaps I’m genetically disposed that way through my paternal grandfather who used to grow what were referred to as “cut flowers for the trade.” Not only did he have large fields of gladiolus of which he produced several new varieties, but he also had greenhouses though they were in ruins when I was young.

These flowers are those of the Mimosa pudica (pudica=shy).

Wikipedia describes the plant as a creeping annual or perennial herb often grown for its curiosity value: the compound leaves fold inward and droop when touched or shaken, re-opening minutes later. The species is native to South  and Central America but is now a pantropical weed.

Mimosa pudica is well known for its rapid plant movement.

Like a number of other plant species, it undergoes changes in leaf orientation termed “sleep” or nyctinastic movement. The foliage closes during darkness and reopens in light.

The leaves also close under various other stimuli, such as touching, warming, blowing, or shaking. These types of movements have been termed seismonastic  movements. The movement occurs when specific regions of cells lose turgor pressure, which is the force that is applied onto the cell wall by water within the cell vacuoles and other cell contents. When the plant is disturbed, specific regions on the stems are stimulated to release chemicals which force water out of the cell vacuoles and the water diffuses out of the cells, producing a loss of cell pressure and cell collapse; this differential turgidity between different regions of cells results in the closing of the leaflets and the collapse of the leaf petiole.

The plant has serious medicinal qualities because of its alkaloid called mimosine which has been found to have potent antiproliferative (used or tending to inhibit cell growth <antiproliferative effects on tumor cells)  and apoptotic ( a genetically determined process of cell self-destruction that is marked by the fragmentation of nuclear DNA, is activated either by the presence of a stimulus or by the removal of a stimulus or suppressing agent, is a normal physiological process eliminating DNA-damaged, superfluous, or unwanted cells (as immune cells targeted against the self in the development of self-tolerance or larval cells in amphibians undergoing metamorphosis), and when halted (as by genetic mutation) may result in uncontrolled cell growth and tumor formation—called also programmed cell death) effects.

Its extract immobilizes the filariform larvae of Strongyloides stercoralis (threadworm) a nematode that can parasitize humans in less than one hour.

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June 23, 2010 · 6:43 am

Could YOU?

Okay, I’m an old guy and I wear dentures. Partials. The other day getting ready for bed I noticed, when taking them out, that I had lost one of the lower teeth sometime during the day. Probably happened when I was eating one of my homemade tostadas for lunch.  I figured if I could find it I’d super glue it back in place so I searched all around the desk where I eat but couldn’t find it. I guess, since it’s a fairly small tooth, that I swallowed the damned thing. If I did I’m sure I would eventually pass it but I absolutely refuse to search for it, and if I did happen to find it no matter how well sterilized I might be able to make it I don’t think could deal with ever having it in my mouth again. Could YOU?

So now I’m in the process of trying to find someone who can make the repair while using my fractured Spanish. Living abroad can be a challenge some days.

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June 13, 2010 · 9:49 am

English Class At American School

One of the blogs I read without fail over my morning cup of coffee is Chiriqui Chatter. The city of David and Potrerillos are in the Province of Chiriqui in the western part of the country bordering Costa Rica. Several months ago Don Ray, the blog’s author, wrote about meeting with students at the American School in David who were studying English. Native English speakers would meet with the students once a month to help them train their ears to hear the English language. One of the hardest things to do when you’re studying a foreign language is to “hear” it. I find that I “speak” Spanish much better than I “hear” it.

I remember so well when I landed in France without speaking French, that I didn’t hear anyone speaking French. All I heard was noise. None of it made sense. It wasn’t even babble. It was simply static that I couldn’t comprehend. I remember quite well the day as I was walking back to my boat after visiting Antibe’s wonderful open air fruit and veggie market I HEARD A WORD! Out of all that noise there was a distinct WORD. Not only that, it was as if the entire town had held a meeting the night before and said, “tomorrow we’re going to teach Richard a word,” because everywhere I went I heard that word. I don’t remember what that word was, but it was the start of my immersion into the French language.

I thought these sessions were an excellent idea and got in touch with a young lady named Patricia and asked to be put on a mailing list if they had one so I could attend when I finally moved full-time to Panama. Yesterday I went to my first meeting. The instructor is a young man named Marvin who actually attended American School when he was a lad before living in the States and in London, England, for several years.

It was thought that there were going to be five or six gringos (by that I mean anyone foreigner whose first language isn’t Spanish) coming. I was the only one who showed up possibly saving the day’s agenda from total failure. I had a great time. Guess it’s the ham in me. My year teaching Nautical Science at West Jefferson High School in Gretna, LA, stood me in good stead. I was placed at the teachers desk and easily went around the room asking questions of each of the students, all adults I should say, making them tell me why it was they wanted to learn English. Everyone answered that it was, first, to advance in their jobs and secondly the challenge of learning something they thought was important to them. Several of the students are teachers, themselves, and apparently learning English has become a requirement for them.

In turn I answered their question to me. They were, I’m sure, those they ask all the gringos who come to their sessions. “Where do you come from?” “How do you like Panama?” And from the girls, “Are you married?” What do you think of Panamanian women?” “Do you think you will ever have another girlfriend?” Hmmmmmmmmmm, I wonder if they’re hinting at something? Of course I’m old enough to be grandfather to each of them.

The session lasted for about an hour and a half and didn’t seem that long at all. It whizzed past and I think everyone enjoyed it. I made sure everyone participated and the level of fluency was quite good for people who had only been attending classes once a week for the past six months. There was a real level of dedication here.

When the Q&As were over cake, snacks and sodas were brought into the classroom.

I didn’t bring my camera with me and in any event I rarely take pictures of people. Perhaps I believe, just a little bit like so many indigenous people do, that each photo takes a little of that person’s soul. But Don Ray has graciously given me permission to use photos from his blog of his previous visits to the class.

These two girls, whose names I don’t remember, are teachers  The gentleman, Guillermo, is a hair dresser. Many of his clients are foreigners who don’t speak Spanish but DO speak English, and he believes, rightly so, that if he can learn English and be able to talk to the women his income will increase. I don’t know the woman in the photo.

Most of the women who attended were teachers.

These girls teach at American School. Those smiles weren’t just for the camera, they were on the whole time the class was in session.

The lady in the center of the picture and the one on the right work for Super Baru, one of the supermarket chains in Chiriqui. They are studying English hoping to advance in their jobs. I don’t know who the woman on the left is though by the blouse she’s wearing I’d say she’s on the school staff. She wasn’t there yesterday.

The girl on the right is a lawyer and the other girl is an environmental engineer. I have to confess that while I was polite with the guys and made it a point to be sure they were included in the exercise with so many attractive women in attendance…well, you understand.

Finally there were these two. Though Don pegged her as a teacher in the post where I picked up the photo, she said she was a physicist. One with a winning smile. Oh, yeah, there’s a guy in the photo. He was a nice kid and had one of the better grasps on the language of the entire group.

I’m looking forward to next month’s get together.

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May 18, 2010 · 3:31 pm

The Learning Curve

Well, my first full day of being by myself in the Potrerillos house. Yesterday Jane, the owner of the house, went to the bank in Boquete and I went along to do a little bit of shopping there. It was just a little since the market wasn’t very large and what they offered was limited. This morning I went down to David to go shopping at the El Rey supermarket and to replenish my supply of Plavix. Catching the bus down to David wasn’t hard at all. Coming back was where the learning curve began.

I got what I wanted at Rey and then walked a couple of blocks to a fruit and veggie market nearby. I waited about 20 minutes for the bus to arrive.

What happened next is part of the learning curve of riding the buses here. As you come up the road from David there are two places where road forks. Bearing right at the first fork takes you to Boquete and the left to Potrerillos. At the second fork left takes you to Potrerillos ABAJO and the right fork leads to Potrerillos ARRIBA (don’t forget to roll that double R), Jane, had told me she had once taken the bus to Abajo and then had a couple of mile hike to get to the house.

Since I had two heavy bags full of canned good and other food stuffs I sure didn’t want to have to make such a hike and this bus was a bit different than the previous two rides I’d taken before. Different driver, different assistant (all the buses have a “conductor” to help people on and off the buses, take care of their bags and collect the fares (you pay when you get off) (the bus that is). Admittedly I wasn’t paying close attention to where we were and when the bus veered off to the left hand fork in the road I assumed it was going to Abajo and called “parada” to be let off. I paid my fare and as the bus left I realized I’d gotten off where the road branches towards Boquete. I then had to wait another 20 minutes to get on a bus to take me the rest of the way to the dirt road that leads to my house.

Now, as I said, one of the reasons I went to David and El Rey was to visit the pharmacy. Two months ago when I got my Plavix at Costco in the States it cost me $154! Here in Panama all medications, except narcotics, are over-the-counter, no prescription needed. Since I’ve been on it for nearly two years now my doctor in the States said I only need to take it every other day, doubling up on the aspirin on the days I don’t take the Plavix. And I know it’s working because I bleed like a hemophiliac at the slightest scrape and bump. Here in Panama they sell the Plavix in a box of 14 instead of getting a bottle of 3o. So, here’s the breakdown on cost. Fourteen pills list for $48.86. The Jubilado (that’s me) discount is $9.97, so the final price was $39.09. Roughly $2.80 a pill versus $5.14 in the States. VIVA PANAMA!!!

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May 15, 2010 · 12:43 pm

Moving Into The New House

The Wardlaws, the people I’m house sitting for, are leaving for the States on Monday in the early afternoon. I wasn’t planning on coming to the house until tomorrow but that’s the day Panama is conducting its census and NO ONE is allowed to be out and about until they have been counted and given a pass. No church services tomorrow. No stores open, no taxis or buses. Nothing.There will be road blocks throughout the country and you will be detained for a bit, to be counted one would assume, and fined. I heard someone say there was going to be one census taker for every 12 people in Panama. If that’s true why not take the easy way out, then? Count the number of census takers and multiply by 12.

Since nothing is going to be moving until around seven in the evening I decided to make my move this morning after checkout time at the hostel. I also needed to find out how transportation thing was going to work. For such a small country there’s a lot of “the middle of nowhere” here and the house is in one of those places. As I’m sitting here writing this my closest neighbor is up the hill behind the house a good 300 or 400 yards away. Between the two houses there is a big meadow with five trees and three horses.

The buses run travel the 30 kilometers (18 miles) between here and David quite frequently judging by the number of buses I saw on the road when I was driving here last week that had Potrerillos on their front window but I can’t say yet how often they go. When I got off the bus I asked when the last bus left David in the evening. I was told 6:30 p.m. which seems quite early to me. I’ll have to ask again. The trip from the main terminal in David was on a 24 passenger bus, took 50 minutes and cost ninety cents.

When I got back to David on Thursday after returning my rental car to Panama City to avoid a $180 drop off charge I asked the taxi driver how much the fare was from downtown David to Potrerillos and he said $15. Some people said the “gringo” price was around $25 so I guess it depends on how well you speak Spanish.  If the last bus out of David IS 6:30 I guess I’ll be either spending the money or save myself half that by spending the night in a dorm bed at the Bambu Hostel.

It’s the rainy season now and it’s three in the afternoon. Dark rain clouds are obscuring the mountains behind the house. A bit of a breeze has sprung up and it’s cool here compared to hot and sticky David 2,900 feet below.

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May 9, 2010 · 5:54 am

Señor Richard’s Excellent Adventure

The other day I met Jim “Jet” Nielson, holder of four world land speed records and getting ready to try for a fifth here in David on June 6th  hoping to set a fifth at 500 mph. I’ll be writing more about him in coming days. Jim is a longtime friend of my friend Frank Hilson who, himself, was an up and coming race car driver in the Sterling Moss era until a horrible, fiery crash ended his career. Frank was the one who pointed me in Jim’s direction.

Jim is also a sailor. He grew up in Hawaii and at the age of 19 was delivering boats that participated in the TransPac races back to the States. He said he had a trimaran in the Port of Pedrigal only a short drive from David. I was down there on my last trip and decided, yesterday, to go scope out Jim’s boat.

Before leaving the States I bought a chip for my GPS with Panama maps. For some reason it wouldn’t accept Pedregal as a destination. So I went to Google earth, got the Lat/Long coordinates and entered those and received routing. The instructions told me to go to the end of the street where the hostel is located and hang a left. It directed me through a few city streets and within 15 minutes I was at the marina. During the drive I spotted several decent looking restaurants and thought I’d go have supper there. Now, I love eating at the tiny restaurant across from the hostel but their menu is extremely limited. A whole fried fish ($5), a fillet of fish ($3), and the best sopa de mariscos (seafood soup) ($2.25) I’ve had in all of Panama to date. But my mouth was telling me it wanted to taste some shrimp that evening.

Dinner time arrived and when I turned on the GPS I went to the “coordinates” and hit “Go” without verifying them. I figured they had to be the same, right? Wrong.

When I got to the end off the street this time it told me to turn right instead of left. Okay, a different route. I drove and drove through city streets I’d never been on, but who knows, right? Wrong. No more street lights and the road narrows every kilometer. Eventually the pavement ends. Now I’m on a dirt road but the checkered flag indicating the destination is visible up in the upper left corner of the screen. The dirt road kept deteriorating with huge rocks and pot holes filled with rain water. Even a four wheel drive would have been going along at the five kilometer per hour pace. The map indicated that the road would be making a couple of switch backs on itself and then I came to a huge iron gate with a massive chain and padlock. Nothing to do but turn around and go back the way I came.

When I finally made it back to the paved road I pulled over, plugged in for the destination for the airport. The road to Pedregal is right along side the runway. In under five minutes I knew where I was. I stopped at the “Mar y Mariscos” (Sea and Seafood) restaurant where I had Camarones Criolla (Creole shrimp) which was delicious. The waiter gave me the 25% Jubilado discount without my asking for it, too. I love Panama.

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May 8, 2010 · 5:28 am

Spanish For Your Nanny

I am a strong believer in the notion that if you emigrate to another country you should learn the native tongue.

Living in south Florida it was not uncommon to be approached by someone who would say, “¿Habla usted español? This is what I would tell them:

“Si, pero no aqui. Es los estados unidos.. Hablamos ingles aqui.” (Yes, but not here. It’s the United States. We speak English here.)

The looks on their faces always made me regret not constantly carrying a camera everywhere I go,

I would sometimes continue with, “Cuando estoy en España, Mexico, Guatemala, yo hablo español, pero nunca aqui en mi país.” (When I’m in Spain, Mexico, Guatemala I speak Spanish, but never here in my country.)

Now, if you think that’s rude, you’re right, it is, but screw you. If those people can’t at LEAST learn the phrase, “Excuse me, do you speak Spanish?” in English they get what they deserve. That’s how I feel about it. And when I go to an ATM machine and it asks if I want to conduct my business in English or Spanish I want to put a brick through that little screen. I was never asked that question in France, Spain or any other country where the language isn’t English and it infuriates me that the U.S. bends over backwards to accommodate people who don’t learn English. As a country of immigrants the one cohesive bond of the polyglot is the English language.

When reading the Yahoo Groups about Panama, and I’m sure it’s the same for other countries as well, someone will, from time to time, post something like: “Is there a bar, etc. in (fill in the country) where I can meet other people who speak English?” My response, for which I take a lot of flack, is “if you want to sit around drinking beer with a bunch of people who speak English stay in the States.

WARNING: If four letter words offend you PLEASE don’t play this video.

My Spanish is FAR from being fluent. It’s beginning to approach being proficient, though and it will get better as the days and weeks go by.

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May 2, 2010 · 3:28 pm

Panama Takes Their Census Seriously

With all the Teabaggers and conservatives screaming bloody murder about the census in the U.S. people like Glenn Beck would  have a cerebral hemorrhage (oh wait, that wouldn’t damage a vital organ with Beck) if they tried to do in the States what they’re doing in Panama with its census.

On Sunday, May 16th, Panama is holding its census and everyone is REQUIRED to stay home starting at 7 a.m. until the census taker comes to your door and you fill out a 12-page form. That means EVERYBODY including tourists. When the form is completed you will be given a “pass” so you can leave. If you’re caught outside without the pass you’re subject to a  fine.

There’s not much to do even if you do leave the house since all stores and churches throughout the country will be closed.

Now, this means that I count as TWO PEOPLE. I filled out the census in the U.S. and now, since I am a resident of the Republic of Panama and moved down here last Thursday I’ll be counted here, too. Sort of like the old Chicago slogan of “vote early…vote often.”

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