Tag Archives: Retirement
Another Shock
I recently posted about my shockingly low electric bill. Last week I got another bill from Union Fenosa. This one was slightly higher. They said I owed them $10.94 for the period between November 7 to December 7. I went to the Plaza Teronal shopping center to buy my monthly medications and stopped at the Union Fenosa payment center at the El Rey supermarket and received another shock. The girl said I only owed $8.46, not the $10.94. I figure the way things are going Union Fenosa will start paying ME for being hooked up to their service sometime around the end of April.
Third Christmas In Boquerón
This is the third Christmas I’ve spent in Boquerón, Panama. Christmas Eve was a little different than the previous two in that no carolers appeared to sing for anyone in the neighborhood.
In the early evening my next door neighbor brought me a delicious plate of arroz con pollo and the most delicious platanos maduros I’ve ever put in my mouth. Another neighbor invited me up to her house for hot chocolate and some moña bread (click here to find out what moña bread is ) which is a tradition here in Panama. This was the same family that invited me to the wife’s birthday party back in July, and like then, I was the only person outside the family that was invited. When one of Llalla’s daughters and her husband and their two kids arrived. Their little six-year old girl, who I’ve only met a couple of times, came up to me and gave me a warm hug and a hearty “Feliz Navidad.” Really sweet for this old Gringo.
After a couple of hours of trying to follow the rapid-fire Spanish conversation the party broke up and I made my way back to my house having to say, “Feliz Navidad” about a dozen time between Llalla’s gate and my own.
As is the tradition here, people have been setting off fireworks for the past few days. Primarily bottle rockets and Roman candles. But at the stroke of midnight, turning Christmas Eve into Christmas Day, the whole area erupted. An incredible din of fireworks being set off reverberated all over the area. A racket you just have to actually be here for to believe how much money is going up in smoke. The other day I passed by one of the almost endless number of Fuego Artificiales stands and noted that boxes the size of a case of canned Budweiser was selling for about $175. (It’s easy to know what it costs in terms of U.S. Dollars since there’s no need to do any currency conversion since Panama uses the dollar as it’s paper currency. (Officially the currency here is the “Balboa” and the coins, one, five, 10 and 25 coins are the same size, weight and metal content as their gringo equivalents, plus the B/1 coin as well.)
About five minutes after midnight mi barrio’s display began. Judging from the angle from my house I think I know who set off the display. There’s a large house just down the road with a couple of expensive SUVs in the drive most days. I’m sure it was them. The following videos took several HOURS to upload to YouTube this morning. I’m sure their servers were working overtime with people uploading vids of their kids opening presents. The first display was more than six minutes long. Then there was about a 15 or 20 minute delay, though the hills were still echoing with distant detonations, and a nearly three-minute encore ensued. Unfortunately the camera didn’t capture the brilliant colors but you’ll get the idea. Enjoy. I did.
Filed under Boqueron Panama, Living Abroad, Living in Panama
One of the happiest places in the world…
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It Wouldn’t Be Christmas Without Fruitcake…
My cyber-friend, Linda, who writes a wonderfully literate blog recently railed about fruitcake…
http://shoreacres.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/the-fruitcakes-revenge/
She’s probably right about the stuff, but I have to admit, to my everlasting shame, that I rather like fruitcake though I’ve never been accused of being one.
Today when I went shopping there were a selection of four or five different brands on display. I opted for the smallest and most colorful one they had.
Then I brewed up a nice cup of locally-grown coffee and enjoyed.
Filed under Boqueron Panama, panama, Retirement, Retirement Abroad
The Problem With Yard Maintenance
Part of the agreement I have with the owners of the house where I’m living is that I maintain the yard. That’s not all that easy since everything grows ten times faster here in Panama than it does anywhere else I ever lived. I could choose to pay someone to keep the lawn trimmed, but I do it myself. The only problem I have is that it’s a two-hour yard and I have a one-hour back.
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Filed under Boqueron Panama, Living Abroad, Living in Panama, Retirement, Retirement Abroad
Tropical Storm Sandy
The weather here in Panama, the last couple of days, has been really lousy. While we are in that part of the “rainy season” when our rainfall is greatest what we’re been going through now is unusual. Just to recap what I’ve said about the “rainy season” before…It doesn’t normally rain 31 (that’s 24/7). Most mornings are glorious. Blue skies, puffy white clouds until early afternoon. Then things start to cloud up and just before early evening the sky dumps several inches of water in a couple of hours. Yesterday morning (Wed. Oct. 24), was one of those very rare days when I woke up to rain. I can’t remember more than three or four mornings like that in the two and a half years I’ve been living here. Worse than that, it rained all day long. Not the usual downpours we’ve all come to know and love, but a light, steady rain that just didn’t stop. And it’s still raining this morning and probably will all day long.
Why? Believe it or not, Tropical Storm Sandy which is hovering over Cuba as I write this. We don’t get hurricanes here in Panama. It’s too far south, but that doesn’t mean the storms don’t effect us. They do! Hurricanes are giant weather factories with far-reaching consequences. If you remember your high school science lessons you know that hurricanes, cyclonic disturbances, rotate in a counter-clockwise direction, and that’s what’s changed our weather pattern here.
Look at this NOAA photo of Sandy.
That’s Panama just under and to the left of that huge patch of red. As you can see, the storm is drawing its strength from water vapor all the way into the Pacific Ocean and dragging the bad weather across the isthmus. We’re only about 50 miles or so between the Pacific and the Caribbean here. And it’s causing big problems.
In Tonosi, at the foot of the Azuero Peninsula about 300 houses have been affected by flooding when the Tonosí river overflowed its banks.
(Photo from Panama Guide.com)
Here in Chiriquí Province the river in Puerto Armuelles (about an hour and a half away by bus from my home) over on the Pacific side on the border with Costa Rica, has been threatening to overflow its banks. People in Nuevo Chorrillo, in the district of Arraiján, near Panama City, are living under the threat of landslides from the super-saturated hills above their homes.
While other rivers are threatening homes the river a mere 25 yards or so from my house is doing fine. I’ve written about, and posted videos, about how fast the river can rise to frightening levels in a matter of a few minutes. Right now it’s what I would categorize as “high normal.” Most of the huge boulders as still well above the water level. Since the rain has been light but steady the watershed isn’t being overwhelmed and there’s little to worry about right now.
Filed under Boqueron Panama, Living Abroad, Living in Panama, panama, Retirement Abroad
Panamanians Bearing Gifts
There’s no need to beware of them.
It’s no secret that I love my neighbors here in Boquerón, and I feel their love in return. They’re always bringing me things to eat. I’ve had some fantastic homemade tamales that can’t be beat. During mango season I was deluged with the things, and there was a bumper crop this year. Nearly every day when the avocados were in season one or another of my neighbors would bring me some. I got guacamoled out. Recently I wrote about the pibá. Today I was given a large “pipa” (pea pah). That’s a young coconut filled with delicious, refreshing and healthy coconut water.
There’s a coconut palm in my back yard that has a lot of nuts growing but they’re not ready to be picked yet. Just on the other side of the front fence, in my neighbor’s yard is a huge palm…
It’s at least 60 feet tall. (I measured it by visualizing the 65′ Hatteras I used to run in New Orleans standing on end against the tree) From time to time while sitting out on the front porch puffing one of my stogies I hear a loud thump as one of the nuts falls to the ground.
Yesterday my neighbor brought me one. It was filled with enough water to fill a large glass. The water is not only refreshing, but it’s loaded with potassium and antioxidants. With the water transferred to the glass my neighbor cut the nut open reveling the soft, sweet “pudding” inside.
According to Wikipedia, unless the coconut has been damaged the water is sterile and it has been used as an intravenous hydration fluid in some developing countries where medical saline was unavailable.
While Boquete is touted by many publications as one of the best places outside of the U.S. in which to retire, I try to avoid what many of the locals call “Gringolandia” and which I refer to as the “Gringo Ghetto” preferring to live among the natives, like a native. Living as I do certainly has its advantages. I can’t imagine the gringos in Boquete receiving the treats I get from the locals, though I may be wrong in some instances.
I love it here.
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Filed under Boqueron Panama, Living Abroad, Living in Panama, panama, Retirement Abroad
Why No Posts Lately?
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here. Lots of bloggers post every day. I did when I first started this project several years ago. Others post every other day, and some, like my cyber-friend Linda at http://shoreacres.wordpress.com/ who writes finely-crafted posts and puts up one a week.
Me? Well, none of my posts are finely-crafted. They’re essentially first drafts, quickly written and carelessly checked for misspellings. I post them when I feel like it.
Recently I’ve been negligent about posting anything. There are several reasons. 1) Life gets in the way and other things that take precedence. 2) Nothing noteworthy has been going on and 3) Sometimes I just don’t feel like it. Number 3 has been my excuse lately.
It’s not like I’ve been comatose since the last post, so I’ll give you a few updates over the next couple of days.
As my regulars know, I bought myself a motorcycle for my 70th birthday.
I call it the “Orange Arrow.”
As luck would have it I threw out my back a week after I got the bike. I was in severe pain for the first week afterwards. In so much pain I was THIS close to going to see a doctor. But it’s getting better now and I only get a twinge every now and then.
But another problem came up. I found out that my Panamanian driver’s license isn’t good for motorcycles and if I get caught riding without an endorsement I’m going to get a ticket. What are the odds of getting caught? Excellent. There are traffic cops all over the place daily setting up road blocks everywhere and checking people’s licenses.
I went to the license bureau last week to see what I need to do to get the endorsement. It was pretty discouraging. It seems that I have to go to a driving school which will cost me a couple of hundred bucks. Then I have to take a written test (in Spanish) and pass a practical test. Then I have to go through the whole licensing rigamarole all over again…photo, eye test, hearing test, another $40 fee.
The worst part is that now that I’ve turned 70 I have to go to a gerontologist or an internist and get a letter saying that I’m physically and mentally fit to drive a motorcycle. I could probably pass the physical part okay, but isn’t there something suspect about a septuagenarian’s mental health if they have gone and bought a motorcycle?
Oh, well, we’ll see.
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Filed under Living Abroad, Living in Panama, panama, Retirement, Retirement Abroad
Thank you, I’m honored…
I’ve been living here in Boquerón for nine months now. Everyone knows the old gringo and they’re all friendly. Walking up to the bus stop everyone says “hello” in English, and one man always says, “hello, mister.” Carlos and Fulvia’s little girl says “Hi” since I told her that’s how friends greet each other back in the States instead of the more formal “hello.” But one never really knows how you’re accepted into the community until something like what happened yesterday occurs.
Half way up the street towards the main road is the house of Lleya (Jaya) and her husband. They are the local dealers in the barrio for the gas everyone uses for cooking, though you’d be surprised at how much cooking is done outside over a wood fire. Lleya and her husband, Carlos, always have a smile and a wave for me as I pass by their house and she is always telling me to “drop in anytime.” In Spanish, of course.
Yesterday was Lleya’s 63 birthday and she was having a party around noon time. I’d been invited a couple of weeks ago. In the morning I made a cherry-blueberry dump cobbler* to take with me. What surprised me when I arrived was that except for her eight children and their wives, husbands, their children and Lleya’s lifetime friend, Alicia, I was the only one there outside of her family. She loaded me down with a plate of food I couldn’t have gotten through in two days, free-range chicken, rice (of course), salad and half an avocado.
My cobbler was actually a big hit. It was served along with the birthday cake and ice cream and I know that nearly everyone had a second helping of it and I saw two young boys hit the pan for thirds.
I have to admit that I spent most of my time talking to Alicia. She had been married to a gringo and lived in the States for many years. When we discovered that we’d both lived in New Orleans for many years the conversation was filled with references to Cajun cuisine and music. One of Lleya’s daughters speaks English quite well, but for the greatest part of the afternoon I tried my best to follow the Spanish conversations and I received compliments on how well I spoke the language though I think it was mostly flattery.
I definitely enjoyed the afternoon and feel honored to have been invited and accepted into the group.
* Cherry/Blueberry Dump Cobbler
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 can each of Mussleman’s cherry and blueberry pie filling (which is more than the 32 oz of pie filling called for in the original recipe)
1/2 cup butter
Heat oven to 350 F. Melt butter in a 13 x 9-inch pan. Mix flour, baking powder, salt, milk, and sugar in mixing bowl. Pour into pan. Add the cherry pie filling to the batter in the pan and spread evenly. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Batter will form crust on top of cobbler.
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One More Good Adventure 