Category Archives: Living Abroad

October 8, 2011 · 6:00 am

Trip to Boqueron

Yesterday I took a trip out to Boquerón. I wanted to see what was going on with the collapsed bridge  to see what damage had been done to the house I’ll be renting and the lot behind the house.

I was mistaken about the bridge location. It’s further to the west on the Interamerican Hwy. Between David and  Boquerón there’s a similar set of bridges a short ways before where you have to turn off to go up to the pueblo. The price of the ride from the terminal in David has gone up from 50¢ to 60¢ since the last time I went there, but it’s still an outrageous bargain compared to riding on public transportation anywhere in the States.

The damage done to the lot behind the house was much greater than I’d expected. There used to be a chain link fence around the property and the lot was full of grass and weeds. A footpath ran down the side of the lot and around behind it. It was used daily by Indians who live on the other side of the river down in that direction. They’d wade across the river and then walk up to the main road to catch the buses. It was a much shorter route for them to get to transportation that way.

As a point of reference take a look at this video I shot last year. At about the 33 second mark you are looking back up the footpath back towards the house. You can see the chain link fence that marked the lot and you can see some trees growing at the side of the river.

Here’s what it looks like from roughly the same spot today.

This is looking in the other direction, down towards the back of the lot.

Here are some of those trees.

Take a close look at this picture. You can see where the water level was this morning and it’s usually like this. Now, note how high the bank is above the water level. During the storm the water must have come up at LEAST 12 feet or more.

While the torrent didn’t wash anything away on our lot, water apparently did get inside the house. It has been described to me as being quite a “mess inside.” I haven’t got a clue to that means. The gate was locked so I couldn’t even get on the lot to try and peer inside. I just got the phone number of the neighbor girl who is looking out for things and I’ll try and get in touch with her over the weekend. I’m sure there’s a lot of mud inside though I have no idea how high the water might have risen. I didn’t see any waterline left on the side of the house. I’m sure there’s a lot of mud in there. The river, which is usually clear enough to see the rocks on the bottom was the color of coffee this morning five days after the storm. I was also told that, as of a couple of days ago, there was no water service in the neighborhood. That happens all over the place because the sediment clogs up the filtration systems at the water plants and they usually don’t have spares on hand. Also, the water infrastructure is definitely “third world,” and mainly consists of PVC piping and most of it just runs along top of the ground.

Well, it’s all part of the adventure of living in a developing country, though they didn’t seem to fair much better in Vermont from that last hurricane than we did in this tempest.

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September 18, 2011 · 5:12 pm

Thinking of a move to Panama? Read This First

There is a feature for WordPress bloggers called “Tag Surfer.” It hones in on what other bloggers have written that you have expressed an interest in. Today I found a post by an unknown (there’s no”About” section attached to the blog so I don’t know who wrote it. It’s called:

http://livingtheamericandreamineurope.wordpress.com/

And the title of the post was: “So, You Want To Move To Europe? Part Two I have to admit I didn’t see Part One.

Anyway, the unknown author presented an article from Cracked.com and the post:

http://www.cracked.com/article_19363_6-reasons-your-plans-to-move-abroad-might-not-work-out.html

Now, Cracked.com is a humor site, but there’s a lot of truth in this post. Here are the six reasons given and I’ll add my own notes but you need to read the article for yourself if you’ve ever thought about moving to Panama or any other country that’s not your own…

#6. The People There Probably Don’t Want You

Personally I haven’t met anyone here in Panama like that, but I know they exist. My lawyer told me once that she has friends who don’t like gringos. Hey, I understand. I don’t like most of them either.That isn’t to say I don’t have some gringo friends here, but for the most part I avoid gringos. I went to the Tuesday Market in Boquete once and I shudder to think of ever having to go back again. I bought what I came to get and left as soon as possible. But then again, I do that with shopping in general. That may have something to do with sex. (No, not THAT kind of sex. Sex as in which one you were born into.) Most women go love to go “shopping.” That doesn’t mean they’re going to buy anything when they go, but that’s the term most women use. Men, on the other hand when they have something they want or need to get, they go to the store, find the item or items, pay for them and leave.

#5. Their Governments Don’t Want You, Either

Panama is a little bit different. They are actually trying to make it easy for people, retired people that is, to move to this small country where they will voluntarily spend their retirement income.

#4. Other Countries Treat Illegal Immigrants Worse Than America

Who knows about Panama? I do know, that despite having a Pensionado Visa, and am “legal,” I am perpetually a guest in this country and can be told to leave at any time for any reason or no reason at all. I hope I never have to find out how their extradition process works.

#3. What You Hate About America, You Find Everywhere

Now this is spot on. Don’t think moving somewhere else is going to change a lot of things. I never went to McDoo Doo’s in the States and I’m NOT going to go to one here. But I hate having to go all the way to Panama City for some tasty, spicy fried chicken. LOVE that chicken from Popeyes. Pio Pio just doesn’t cut it and KFC which is here in David, gets the same treatment as Mc Doo Doo’s. Didn’t eat it there won’t here, either. Same thing goes for Domino’s, Pizza Hut and TGIF,, all of which have a presence here in David.

#2. Adapting Will Be Harder Than You Can Imagine

I think this is something most new expats never really expect. Good old CULTURE SHOCK. It’s GOING to happen to you. There’s no way you can avoid it. You’re not in Kansas anymore. Again, personally, I haven’t been hit with culture shock here even though I’ve been “in country” for a year and a half. And I think I know why. About six months into my three year stay in France culture shock punched me in the gut. I wanted to leave. But I had a job that I said I’d do and I stuck it out. Things got better. Then, about six months after I got back to the States I experienced culture shock again. I wanted to go back to France so bad you can’t believe how much. But I didn’t have the money to do so, so I stuck it out and things got better, sort of. Now, I think having gone through two bouts of culture shock before I’ve simply learned to take things as they come. Things aren’t going they way you want them to? Well, TOUGH TITTY! That’s the way things are…DEAL WITH IT!

#1. You Will Likely Just Hang Out With Other Americans

This is definitely true for WAY TOO MANY GRINGOS who move here and settle around Boquete and Volcan. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that but it’s just not how I want to live here. Yes, as I said, I do have gringo friends here but, by and large, I avoid most gringos as if they had some kind of infectious disease. But that’s just me. Your mileage may differ.

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August 20, 2011 · 8:55 am

Surrender

Let me say in my defense that I am not a complete Luddite. I have had a computer for over 15 years but it took me a while to overcome the technophobia attached with such a purchase. At the time I was living on a small sailboat so a desk-top model was out of the question and the price of a notebook back then was simply out of the question. Not only was it a question of space and money but it centered around what I wanted to do with the equipment. All I wanted to do then was to write about the previous five years in France, sailing across the Atlantic and my single-handed, nine-month trip to Mexico, Belize and Guatemala, and I couldn’t justify the expense of a notebook computer to do that and to play a few games when I got bored.

One day when I was at one of the big box stores looking at the notebooks I came across a Brother notebook word processor. Perfect. It would do what I wanted and it was about a fifth of the cost of a “real” notebook computer. It also had a version of the Tetris game which I became really, really good at. But the machine was also very, very, I mean molasses slow. I believe it probably used an old 286 chip and you had to store whatever you’d written onto a floppy disk. Remember those? It wasn’t one of the big floppies but the ones with the plastic shell. As my stories got longer it took forever for the machine to work its way to the end so I could continue writing.

In 1994 the Pentium chip was introduced to the market and I boldly entered the computer age. But my Luddite gene did influence my purchase. My first notebook had a 486 processor, not a Pentium. Naturally the prices were slashed on the 486 hardware and I also figured it was probably better to have the last of the old technology than it was to have the first of the new that didn’t have all the kinks worked out of it. I was very happy with that piece of equipment. It had MS Word on it and when I wanted to get to the end of a piece I was working on it went there instantly instead of taking two or three minutes, literally, for the old word processor to work its way to the last word in a story.

I am not technophobic, but you’re not going to find me camping out all night waiting to be one of the first to buy a new iPad or anything like that. I don’t have a “smart” phone. The one I have is a “dumb” phone. It does one thing. It makes phone calls. Period.

Now, I love to read. Have since I was a kid. I mean when I took the standardized tests in school I had the reading level of a college freshman before I even hit junior high. But when Amazon came out with the Kindle and Barnes & Noble introduced the Nook I didn’t run right out and buy one. No, I like “dead tree” books. No way did I need or was I going to buy one of those electronic doo hickies.

But I moved to Panama. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find books in English here? There’s a terrific used book store in Dolega called the Bookmark and they fill a very big niche. But over the years of living on boats I’ve developed an aversion to collecting books. They’re big and bulky and a real pain in the old wazoo when you move from one place to another.

But still I avoided the temptation to buy an electronic reader even though I wrote and published a book that is only available in electronic form. I got my reading material in a couple of ways that bow to modern technology. I subscribed to Audible.com and download wonderful books to my iPod. Yes, I’ve had one of those for quite a few years and it’s loaded down with over 3,000 songs. I “read” 40 hour-long books when I would take my dog Penny for her afternoon walks and I listened to books when I was living in Boqueron and didn’t have a television. Listening to audio books takes me back to the days of my early childhood when I’d sit on my maternal grandfather’s lap and we’d listen to the evening news with H. V. “There’s gooood news tonight” Kaltenborn, Jack Benny, Amos and Andy et al on the big console radio in the living room together.

I’d also discovered Project Gutenberg with over 36,000 free public domain ebooks. I’d download the ones I wanted, copy them and paste them into a Word document and save that into a special folder in My Documents to be read at my leisure.

When it was announced that Amazon had come out with an app you could download for free that simulated their Kindle for your PC or Mac, I did it instantly. The only problem with this solution is that it’s not easy to read a book outside in a hammock. The glare on the notebook’s screen makes it nearly impossible to read. Besides that the computer is heavy, it gets damned hot sitting on your stomach or in your lap and the battery life is quite limited.

Slowly I developed the urge to actually get a Kindle or my own. Trying to get one delivered down here isn’t easy. First of all there is no home mail delivery and I don’t have a mailbox at the post office. Also there are no real addresses. For example, on the water bill the address for the house in Boqueron is listed as “The two-story house near the health clinic.” Personally, I think that’s priceless. I mean no company in the States is going to deliver something to The two-story house near the health clinic, Boqueron, Republica de Panama.

There is a gringo couple I know who live in the third house up the mountain from me. They’re in the States right now but will be returning in October. I thought that I’d buy a Kindle, have it delivered to them in Montana and have them bring it to me. Since they could declare it as their own personal property it would circumvent having to pay import duties on it. So, I’d only have to wait another couple of months or so and I could have my own Kindle and be able to lay out in the hammock and read on a lazy, rainy afternoon. That’s like every afternoon, folks, since we’re now deep into the rainy season here.

Then I saw a post on the Yahoo “Gringos in David” group from someone who said they were coming to Boquete and did anyone here need anything brought down from the States. A Kindle is quite small and light and wouldn’t take up much luggage space so I immediately got in touch with Al and we made arrangements for him to bring down a Kindle for me. We got together this past Thursday and voila as they say in Antibes, here it is along with the holder I bought to protect it:

I’ve used it in the hammock and it’s great. Yesterday I spent a lot of time riding buses. I went from  home to Bugaba to buy some cigars from the factory there and then from there to Boquete to pick up the charger for the Kindle since Al forgot it when he came to Potrerillos to give me the unit. Then I had to ride the bus back down from Boquete to Dolega in order to get the bus back to Potrerillos. In all I was on the road for nearly eight hours and while I ususally listen to an audio book while riding on the buses I read my Kindle instead. On the ride from David to Bugaba a young guy sat next to me who was fascinated with the Kindle. He’d never even heard of such a thing. So, it’s turned out to be a way of meeting people, too. Turns out the young man is a border patrol agent. He showed me his I.D. I guess if I ever have any problems trying to get into or out of Costa Rica I’ll have someone I can appeal to. Who knows?

 

 

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August 1, 2011 · 1:53 pm

Hanging Out On A Rainy Afternoon In Potrerillos Arriba

A neighbor’s puppy just hanging out on a rainy afternoon in Potrerillos Arriba, Panama.

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July 14, 2011 · 11:41 am

La Viajera Encantada (The Enchanted Traveler)

I recently came across an extremely well-written blog by a young Peace Corps volunteer, Jessica Rudder, who is working in the Comarca Ngabe-Bukle (more often written as Ngöbe Buglé). A Comarca is a semi-autonomous region in a country with a substantial indigenous population. There are five Comarcas in Panama, three of which are of substantial size.

The country’s first Comarca was that of the Kuna Indians of the San Blas archipelago.

The Kuna have become the symbol of the indigenous peoples of Panama through their colorful molas and they are often depicted in travel posters and brochures. They have a population of around 50,000 and are often seen in Panama City.

Then there is the Emberá-Wounaan of the Darien jungle who number around 15,000. They live more traditionally than the other tribes, it seems. They, too, have wonderful craft traditions of basket making, some of which cost hundreds of dollars

And wonderfully tagua nut carvings like this one I bought on one of my early exploratory visits.

By far the largest indigenous group is the Ngöbe Buglé who make up 63% of the nation’s Indian people with a population of well over 110,000. Their Comarca takes up a large area of Chiriqui and Bocas del Toro provinces. Ngöbe women and their daughters all wear a mumu-style dress foisted upon them by the earliest religious zealots. There is rarely a time riding the bus from Potrerillos Arriba to David that there aren’t at least a couple of Ngöbe women on board though they rarely go farther down down the mountain than Dolega.

Jessica is a good writer, has some wonderful photos illustrating what life is really like in the interior of Panama from the perspective not of a tourist but of someone living in a semi-isolated community and of how things work there.

Anyone looking for a good read (I’ve spent hours fascinated with her story) should check out her blog, La Viajera Encantada. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

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June 27, 2011 · 3:28 pm

Tee Shirt Wisdom–Food For Thought

It’s strange where we pick up nuggets of wisdom and food for thought. Some people find them in Holy Scriptures like Ecclesiastes, and there’s some good stuff there. Sometimes we find those nuggets in secular books we read. I’ve found good mental nudges on bumper stickers, too, though the only thing that pops into my mind at the moment is “My kid can beat up your honor roll student!”

Today as I was riding down the hill to do some grocery shopping in David the young kid who is sort of the bus “conductor” was wearing a tee shirt with a phrase written in English. I wonder if he knew what it said or if he’d had someone interpret it for him. I’ve often wondered whether people in my travels know what it says on the clothes they wear. I remember once seeing a Mayan Indian woman in Fronteras, Guatemala, with a tee shirt that said “Sometimes I wake up grumpy and sometimes I let him sleep in.” I doubt if she had a clue.

Anyway, what this young man’s tee shirt said I liked so much that I dug out my shopping list and wrote the phrase on the back of the list. It read…

The Most Important Things In Life Aren’t Things

 

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May 26, 2011 · 10:27 am

The Texas Of Panama

Texas has always had an inflated opinion of itself. Growing up, of course, it prided itself as the “biggest” state in the Union and I was delighted when Alaska became a state and relegated Texas to second fiddle status. In the last year there has been talk about them seceding and becoming several additional states instead of just the one.

Here in Panama Chiriqui Province, where I’m living, the people have a similar opinion of themselves. Chiricanos have a distinct “pride of place.” They almost see themselves as a country in and of themselves, and would probably secede themselves if it was possible. The highest point in the country, Volcan Barú is located here. It is often considered the “bread basket of Panama.” In the highlands around Volcan and Cerro Punta you’ll find huge fincas growing a wide variety of vegetables. There are large cattle ranches in Chiriqui as well as some of the finest coffee plantations found anywhere in the world. On the dashboards of the majority of cars here you’ll see not only the Panamanian flag but that of Chiriqui Province as well. Men wear baseball caps embroidered with the name “Chiriqui” on them. The pueblo of Boquete here in Chiriqui is touted by such publications as Forbes and Money magazines as one of the top 10 places to retire abroad.

Whether this pride is deserved or not isn’t for me to say. I simply note it as a fact.

As I wrote in a previous post I am enjoying listening to “Tipica” music and when I go to bed at night I hit radio station WCHT which specializes in the music. Last night, though, I forgot to set the sleep timer and about two in the morning the following song woke me up…

But let’s not think Chiriqui is the only province with pride of self.  Herrera province, which is actually the only other place in Panama I thought of settling down in has its own anthem sung by Karen Peralta who sang the song above.

This form of tipica music is known as “Tamborito.” Wikipedia says, “Tamborito, literally translated to “the Little Drum”, is a genre of Panamanian folkloric music and dance dating back as early as the 17th century. The Tamborito is the national song and dance of Panama. The dance is a romantic, couple’s dance, often involving a small percussion ensemble, and in all versions; a female chorus. The Tamborito is performed in formal costumes in front of large, interactive crowds that form a large circle around the performers. The members of such crowds often participate in the percussion of the song as well as the actual dance itself[1]. The Tamborito is most commonly performed during Panamanian festivals, and in particular, the Panama Carnival.” For the whole post go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamborito

And the Tamborito dancing starts at an early age as I saw in the Mother’s Day celebration in Boqueron last November.

Panama opens itself to me anew every day.

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April 29, 2011 · 10:57 am

Two Nights – No Lights

We’re just starting the rainy season here. A little rain each day after weeks of none at all. And yesterday we had our first real drenching downpour in a long time.

Wednesday morning started wet and dreary. Rain and then fog. I usually meet with a group of gringos who get together on Wednesday mornings to practice speaking Spanish with each other, but with the fog cutting visibility down to about a hundred yards at 8:30 I wasn’t about to risk the bus ride down the mountain. Bummed me out because I would be missing my third session in a row. However things cleared up around 10 and I went down to David to do some grocery shopping.

When I got back to the house around 3:30 it was raining pretty heavily and there was no power at the house. This isn’t too unusual around here when it’s raining so I gave it little thought. But as afternoon turned to dusk and still no lights I began to worry and then when I saw lights in the houses below and above me I was a little peeved. Fortunately I have a couple of lanterns and the stove uses gas so I was able to eat. Of course there was no internet connection and I get testy when I can’t get online at will. I like to read and there are some books here at the house I’ve never read so I wasn’t at a complete loss for something to do and I ripped through The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz. It’s about seven prisoners who escaped from a Siberian camp in the Soviet Gulag just at the beginning of the Second World War. They walked from the camp near the Arctic Circle to India. They walked  across the Gobi Desert. Eventually four of them made it to India.

In the morning I went to the home of Feli and Alba, my nearest neighbors and asked if they’d had lights the night before. Alba said they had and then went into the house and returned with my light bill in her hand and an attitude of “oh, here.” The bill was 30 days past due and the power had been shut off. Now here in Panama the bill is hand delivered since there is no mail delivery. There are no real addresses, either. My electric bill in Boqueron had an address of “the two-story house near the health clinic.” (You’ve got to love that.) Here in Potrerillos the bill is given to Feli who then passes it on to me, but right now he’s working off in the mountains planting tomatoes and Alba…well, who knows.

Anyway, I hightailed it down to Dolega where I paid the $48.36 due and a reconnection fee of $10.99. The woman at the Union Fenosa branch office said the electricity should be on by the time I returned home. Well, it wasn’t. I called the company around 1:30 in the afternoon and they said it should be turned on by 3:30. It wasn’t. I called again at 4:00 and was assured I’d have power soon. Then came our downpour for the next couple of hours. I called again at a quarter to six and was told the man who reconnects the power doesn’t work after six.

So, another night without lights. I listened to Bryce Courtney’s Brother Fish on my iPod until the battery died and then ripped through The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby before turning in for the night.

Now, I’m getting a little worried because everything in the freezer is starting to thaw out. Not a good situation because there’s a lot of food there and I sure can’t eat it all before it goes bad.

This morning, at 9:30 the power got turned on again. Whew. Most of the stuff in the freezer is a bit soft but we’ll just see how things develop.

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April 26, 2011 · 2:31 pm

Panama’s Latest Road Hazard

Well, today, just before noon I completed the Panamanian Driver’s License saga.

I arrived at the license bureau in David at about a quarter to 10 to stand at the end of a long line. On a previous visit I’d asked the guard at the door if there was a day or time that was better than others. He said there wasn’t. You just had to take your chances.

The line actually moved quite rapidly, my papers were all in order and accepted and then I simply had to wait to be called. That took about an hour and a half. Quick photo followed by an eye test and immediately afterwards a hearing test. Go pay $40 and wait again for about 20 minutes and there it was. In living color with an absolutely horrid photo but done and done. I’m now eligible to take part in the demolition derby known as Panamanian traffic.

To be honest, the Florida DMV could take lessons from the office here in David. They were courteous and efficient and a lot easier to deal with.

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April 21, 2011 · 9:49 am

Panamá Wrap Up

I finished my trip to Panamá shortly after six p.m. last night when I unlocked the door to the house on the side of the mountain. I accomplished everything I wanted to do in a whirlwind of activity.

Sunday took the bus to the city and checked in to La Jungla House Hostel at the edge of the El Cangrejo (The Crab)  neighborhood which is where I have always stayed when in The City. It’s full of good restaurants and it’s probably one of the safest areas there, too. I can’t find a home page for the hostel but just Googling it will bring up dozens of hostel booking sites where you can check it out for yourself.

Hostels aren’t hotels and you have to accept that by hotel standards hostels are generally dumps. However hostels have some advantages over hotels which is why I prefer to stay in them. They are generally less expensive than hotels, especially if you’re willing to take a bed in one of the dorm-type rooms which I’m not. Dorm room = $10 Private Room $28. But I had A/C and a ceiling fan. The bed was comfortable and being at the back of the facility it was quiet.

Downside: shared bathroom. It was very clean but only cold water shower and sometimes when you REALLY gotta GO, someone else is using the place so you search for one of the other bathrooms which might be empty.

La Jungla is on the sixth floor (5th by their reckoning) and on Monday afternoon and evening the elevator was out of order. HUGE bummer!

They have a big kitchen and a lot of the really budget guests cooked their meals there. They have a GREAT, FREE, pancake breakfast. A local girl comes in and cooks them for everyone between 7:30 and 8:30. There is also a cooler where you can purchase a variety of cold drinks, sodas, Gatorade, beer, at reasonable prices or you can go to one of the “super minis” nearby and keep your stuff in the refrigerator.

What I like most about hostels is meeting the other guests. In a hotel you get your room, and unless there’s a bar/lounge in the hotel you never get to meet anyone else, and I’m not a bar/lounge habitue anyway. At La Jungla there were people from all over the world, but only one other old fart like myself. Here’s the lineup of guests I met there. They came from Brazil, Argentina, Israel, Australia, England, Wales, Sweden, Holland, Canada and a couple of other gringos who were in PC studying Spanish. The Canadian had ridden a bicycle from the US/Mexico border all the way to PC. He had 25 flat tires on his journey.

I got the the bus terminal Wednesday morning a little before 8 a.m. to find the line to the ticket counter for David stretching, no exaggeration, more than a city block long. It took an hour and twenty five minutes to get up to the counter to buy my ticket. I was absolutely positive that with all the people in line I wouldn’t get on a bus that would be leaving before the middle of the afternoon but was pleasantly pleased to be leaving on a bus only an hour later. One thing to remember on these nice, shiny new buses is that they are air conditioned and they love to crank it up full blast. Knowing this from previous trips I always carry a small travel blanket and it saved me yesterday.

We pulled into David at ten to five. The bus for Potrerillos Arriba leaves the terminal on the hour and there’s only one each hour. Fortunately my bag was one of the first unloaded and I was able to scramble up to my local bus gate and get on board about three minutes before it took off and I arrived back home at just after six o’clock, tired but satisfied with my little trip.

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