Tag Archives: Retirement

Now that I got my motorcycle endorsement added to my Panamanian driver’s license on Thursday some might wonder if I’ve been out riding yet. The answer is no. I had a motorcycle thirty years ago, and although I know HOW to ride it’s been such a long time since I HAVE ridden that I’m back to classifying myself as a novice rider. All day Friday it looked like it was going to rain any minute and I don’t think that’s a cool thing to do even for an experienced rider. How about Saturday? Actually I think the weekends would be the WORST time for a beginner to try and get out and ride. Much more traffic. Everybody that’s been working during the week is now out and about with their cars if they have one trying to get their shopping and other chores done. I’ll wait until the middle of the week before I venture out.

A couple of people have asked me what’s happening with getting my motorcycle endorsement added to my Panamanian driver’s license. Well, me, too.

After going through the school it’s supposed to take 15 working days to get one’s diploma okie dokied by the agency in Panama City. It’s been nearly twice that long and I’ve heard nothing so I went to the school to check on what’s going on.

The owner of the school greeted me with his usual shiny smile and his “Buenos dias, Señor Richard.” I asked him how come I haven’t gotten my diploma yet and he said the school had made an “error” on the diploma. A Panamanian driver’s license has an alphabet soup of letters at the left side bottom of the license that tells what type of vehicle you are authorized to drive. Mine says “A” and “C.” The “A” is for a bicycle (don’t ask, I don’t know why this is one it) and “C” is for an automobile or certain kinds of trucks. One can also have the following letters on their license: B (motorcycles), D (light trucks up to 8 tons and small buses for up to 16 passengers), E1,E2,E3, (all for carrying passengers) F (trucks over 8 tons), G (articulated vehicles-trailer trucks) H (dangerous cargo vehicles) and I (heavy equipment). It seems that the school had marked my diploma application for the “D” classification instead of for the “B.’ Naturally the drivers bureau didn’t approve it so a new app had to be submitted. I was promised that they would have the correct diploma back by this Saturday and I’ll be taking the test next week some time. Well see.

Unlike the States or Europe, there are only two seasons in Panama. “Winter” and “Summer.” The “wet” and “dry.” Being that Panama sits nearly on the Equator, my house is 8°30’84” N, our seasons more closely correspond to those in the Southern Hemisphere than they do in the Northern. Summer, the “dry” season, is roughly from November to the middle of April. It’s when the kids have their longest school recess.

And it gets HOT here in the summer. A dry, searing, heat that turns lawns the color of Cheerios and it crunches like Rice Krispies under foot when you walk across it.

The river next to my house has been nearly bone dry.

A few months ago I wrote about my electric bill only being eight dollars and change. Monday I paid the most recent and it was just a few cents shy of $60. That’s because in the middle of the afternoon it has been like living in an oven and I’d run the air conditioning every day until well after dark when the cool air from the mountains sinks down onto the flat.

For the last couple of weeks nature has been toying with us. There have been a few sprinkles here and there. Not much, but enough to stimulate what passes for grass, here, to sprout. While the lawn looks forlorn, all of this stuff is indigenous to the area and adapted to the yearly cycles of wet and dry. Just add water. Some days, of late, thunder could be heard up in the hills in the afternoons and at night the southern sky would light up as lightning flashed out over the Pacific Ocean. But it was just a tease. There was no rain accompaniment.

On Monday, April Fool’s Day, I had an afternoon doctor’s appointment for a physical which is required for me to get a motorcycle endorsement added to my driver’s license since I’m over 70. While in the office the skies opened up and it rained so hard and so loud for about 15 minutes that it nearly masked the doctor’s questions. But it only lasted a few minutes and then it was hot all over again.

But this afternoon (April 4th) it changed. Around three o’clock, as is usual in the “rainy” season it started to pour. It was like the entire barrio was sitting under a water fall. Puddles formed in the low areas of the yard and thunder and lightning assaulted the area. It lasted for nearly two hours. That’s how it is, here, in the “winter.” The mornings are glorious. Blue skies. Cotton ball clouds. In the early afternoon it starts to cloud up and we get a couple of hours of rain. So, in the “winter” you get up, get what needs to be done, done. Get your laundry up on the line to dry before noon, do your grocery shopping and then settle back for the inevitable rain.

For the most part, people here like the rain. It moderates the temperature and makes living comfortable. I don’t need to turn on the a/c. A fan will do. And for the first time in months, when I step out onto the front porch, I can once hear the river running over the stones again.

This was the final day of classroom instruction at the driving school, and am I glad. It means I don’t have to set the alarm to wake up any more. I usually wake up around the time the classes started: 8:30 a.m.

I didn’t do too bad today. Enough of the first and second day’s Spanish must have leaked out during the night because I was able to follow most of what was going on today. We talked about road conditions, signs, road markings, stopping distances and speed limits. That sort of thing. I’ve always said my big problem with Spanish comes in “hearing” it, and today was no exception. Aldo, the instructor, kept saying a word that sounded like “casada” which means “married” in Spanish. It made no sense in the context of the subject we were talking about at the time. What could married possibly have to do with road conditions? Perhaps the Spanish language uses “married” as something to do with where the rubber meets the road? Then he wrote down the word, “La calzada” which means, “the road.” Calzada, not calle or avenida, or routa. And perhaps it’s a Chiricano (those who live in Chiriqui province) accent thing where the “L” is glossed over so it pretty much sounds like Casada.

With the calzada/casada mystery cleared up it felt pretty good to actually be able to contribute to the class for the first time. Aldo, knowing of my language deficiency avoided asking me direct questions yesterday, which I appreciated. At the end of class we were given two short tests which were sort of “open book.” The second one which was about first aid was read to us by Aldo and he told us what the correct multiple guess answers were. These tests, along with the diplomas the school made up for us with our pictures on them, will be sent to the ATTT (Autoridad de Transito y Transporte Terrestre) office in Panama City to be duly okie-dokied. It takes 15 working days to do this. So that gives me three weeks to study for the test. You have to present the diploma in order to be able to take the test.

I have one more day of school left, though. It’s the practical part where I get to ride around on a scooter for 5 hours. I have to be at the school at 2 p.m. They also will provide a scooter, for a fee, for me to take my test on.

I do want to say this about Aldo whose school it is. He is grossly overweight. Sweats through the class while the students shiver because of the air conditioning. My guess is he’s in his mid to late 30s. And he’s a good teacher, too. His lectures are four hours long, non-stop without notes. Of course he told me he’s been doing this for 13 years so that has given him plenty of time to get it together. He keeps constant eye-contact with each of the students throughout the four hours and addresses parts of his lecture as though he’s talking to just that student and no one else if you’re on the receiving end. He has good skills.

I’ll keep you informed of the progress.

Slept much better last night and woke up refreshed and ready to go. The Boquerón bus was packed like a sardine can this morning and even after the crowd headed west to Bugaba, La Concepcion and the border got off there were still no empty seats. I wasn’t about to stand up all the way in to David, especially considering that the driver of this bus is one of the well known kamikaze breed you often find here. So I paid my 35 cents and crossed the Interamericana to the bus shelter there. After six or seven buses stopped, all containing standees, this being, after all, commuting time for workers, a Frontera bus stopped with empty seats and I headed on my way. Now, the buses here aren’t silent buses. There is always something blaring over their loud speakers. It’s whatever the driver wants to listen to. Most of the time it’s music but occasionally you get one filled with religious fervor and he had someone preaching:

So I plugged into the iPod and continued the story Dissolution.

I mentioned that I’d filled my head to the saturation point with Spanish during yesterday’s four-hour class. It seems that enough didn’t leak out over night because today, with Aldo teaching the class I was lost. He’s a typical Panamanian who speaks with machine gun rapidity. By the time I’d figure out what he was talking about he’d have finished with that topic and moved on to the next. I pretty much zoned out for most of today’s class though I know we covered the various categories of Panamanian driver licenses, penalties for various driving infractions, causes of accidents, both from substance abuse and physical forces such as gravity, centrifugal forces, etc.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the final day of the classes to be followed Saturday and Sunday by hands-on practice on a motor scooter. I’ll update the progress.

Actually, I like the Irish a lot. The ones from the auld sod, I mean, and I’ve known a lot of them. They get a bad rap, especially about fighting. I lived in Antibes, France, for nearly three years. There are a lot of Irish, Brits and Scots there. In all that time I NEVER saw an Irishman in a fight. On the other hand, for the Brits and the Scots it was nearly an every day occurrence. The best boat delivery I ever made in a 20 year career as a Coast Guard-licensed captain was one from Ft. Lauderdale, FL, to Hyannis, Mass., with Jerry from Kerry and Anne from Limerick. We hit every happy hour between those two ports and met many wonderful people who became intrigued when they heard the girls accents and invited us into their homes and took us out to hear local bands and party. And when I sailed across the pond in ’91, Martin, from Dublin, kept us in stitches with his stories every night at dinner. God bless ’em all.

However, it’s mainly the Irish in the States who practice this…