Tag Archives: Retirement

The United States is an automobile-obsessed country. The main reasons for that are the place is HUGE and public transportation outside of major metropolitan areas is practically non-existent. You NEED to have a car or a truck in the U.S. or you’d be house-bound.

It’s a bit different here in Panama. Sure there are cars and trucks. In Panamá (they don’t use the word “City” when referring to the capitol and largest city in the country) it’s nearly non-stop grid lock 31. (That’s 24/7 combined). It’s nearly that bad here in David (dah VEED), too. But cars are expensive here, especially compared to the States and the prices for used cars are shocking. Gasoline and diesel fuel are expensive here, but automobile insurance is ridiculously cheap.

While the number of cars in the cities is staggering, not everyone owns a car. In my old neighborhood there are two dozen homes. Of those, only six have cars! And I believe that’s typical of most of Panama outside of the gringo havens of Boquete and Volcan here in Chiriquí.

So, how do people get around here? Lots of ways…

First of all, they WALK! And I mean everywhere! They don’t just walk around in town, they walk around in the countryside. The main road through the country is the Interamericana and as you drive or ride through it on one of the huge, air-conditioned buses you’ll see people walking along in the middle of nowhere. I mean there isn’t a house in sight for miles and no little roads branching off of the main road, either, yet you’ll see people walking along determined to get who knows where? The indigenousNgäbe-Buglé who live way up in the mountainous comarca often have to walk miles before they can get to a road where they can board a bus to get into David for supplies.

There are a lot of motorcycles and motors scooters around, but they don’t come close to how many people use bicycles as their main form of transportation. Over on Isla Colón, Bocas del Toro, there are probably more bicycles than cars, and in my old neighborhood nearly half of the homes that don’t have an automobile have at least one bike. The guy who mowed my lawn in La Barriada strapped his weed-whacker to his bicycle and rode over from Bugaba, about six miles away, to find work.

Boats are another form of transportation here. Over in the Bocas del Toro archipelago the only way you can get to Isla Colón is to take a water taxi…

They will not only take you from the mainland to the island, but they’ll whisk you around to the various islands in the archipelago or just from one place to another as you’d use a regular taxi.

There are also dugout canoes used over in Bocas…

Boats are a much-used method of transportation in Guna-Yala, the San Blas archipelago…

And deep into the rain-forest of the Darien the Emberá depend on dugouts and the rivers to get to their isolated villages and bring in tourist dollars. Some of these canoes are quite large…

The public transportation system in Panama is remarkable. Buses and taxis will take you pretty much anywhere you want or need to go. There are very few “chicken buses” here…old converted U.S. school buses. When I first moved to Panama they were phasing out the ubiquitous “Diablos Rojos” in Panamá for new, modern,  and totally unremarkable buses like you’d find in the States.

The “Diablos” had character, though, and I think much of the vibrancy of the city was lost when these were consigned to the dustbin of history…

There are still a few of these around, though not colorful like these. The buses running up to Gringolandia (Boquete) are still yellow and say “School Bus” on the front over the windshield, and the bus from David to Soloy in the Comarca are the same. The reason for the Boquete buses are that there are so many people up there they need the school buses for the capacity. The most common buses here, and are on most of the routes in the country are the air-conditioned, 30-seat Toyota Coasters

The school buses for the Comarca, though they might not have the volume of passengers to fill all the seats they sure need the room for when the indigenous come into David to do their shopping…

The buses that travel from David to Panamá are generally these…

Huge, air-conditioning so cold you could store meat, which may be how the company views its passengers, playing movies along the 7 hour trip (knock off an hour for the late night express bus). When I went to Panamá recently the fare, each way, with the Jubilado (old fart) discount was $12.65. The bus from my front door (literally my front door) into the terminal in David is a 60¢ fare. In town there’s no discount but it’s not a big deal since the fare is just 35¢.

Did you know it’s against the law to own a yellow car in Panama? The color yellow is reserved solely for taxis and they’re EVERYWHERE!

Many of the taxis are pickup trucks like this one over in Bocas del Toro…I used the local ones here when I made my moves…

Of course you can FLY from David to Panamá for about $100 each way and it only takes a bit more than an hour, but you don’t get to see a damned thing on the way.

So, that leaves one last way people get around in Panama…the horse. It’s STILL a mode of transportation in this country. When I lived in Potrerillos Arriba there was a guy a couple of houses down the dirt road who was a carpenter. In the morning he’d load his tool bags onto his horse and off he’d go to work. And just the other day this guy rode in to town to use the ATM at the Banco Nacional!

I’m not going to try and edit this post. It’s a collection of things I’d written down when I was without an internet connection as a result of my recent move.

Well, the move is finished. Done. Complete. And let me tell you, so am I. I’m beat. Whipped. Done in. The last three days (Sat. Sun. Mon.) beat me up bad, and I had help with the heavy lifting every day. Today when I was at the old house wrapping things up I could only work for a few minutes at a time and then I had to rest before I could continue.

That was written Monday evening. A pickup taxi driver, Remiro, I’ve used several times before did all the heavy lifting for me for which I was very grateful, but everything is out of the old house and into the new.  Well, it’s not a house, really, but on of two apartments in a building that was once a set of offices for the Tribunal Electoral which has ceased to be here in Boquerón and moved all its functions over to Bugaba. But the place is half again as big as the house in La Barriada, and easily twice as big as the first house I was living in, here, since I basically lived on the first floor and almost never went upstairs.

Yesterday, Tuesday, I went into David to the Cable Onda office to switch my service to the new place. Piece of cake, and they’re supposed to come do it today, Wednesday. I don’t doubt that they will because this is the FOURTH time I’ve had to have installers come to the houses I’ve been living in and they’ve ALWAYS come.  When I have internet access I’ll feel like I’m truly moved in.

The cable office move went smoothly, and sure enough, the techs were at my house a little before noon and I was back on line in an hour.

Some big goings on over by the bank and the people must have started gather in around six. Right now there’s easily more than 100 people gathered under and around a large, I guess the only way to describe it would be the roof of a tent. I just asked an old guy walking by what was going on and all I could get out of him was that they were waiting for the bank to open. That’s part of the mystery. Yesterday a guy stopped and started talking to me about coming to the bank today and something about paying rent. Had no idea what it was all about. Still don’t.

People continue to arrive, on foot, by bus and in taxis. They’ve just started letting a few people in. There are Europeans and indigenous all together.

Okay, finally two passersby explained what’s going on at the bank. There is a program in Panama that I’ll look up later called ciento para septenta. 100 for over 70. A supplemental give away of $100 to people over 70. That explains all the canes and walkers. We chatted for a couple of minutes and as they left I heard one of them say, “He speaks Spanish well.” If he only knew.

One of the street food vendors is open for business.

Last photo from La Barriada. Didn’t see a lot of this in the backyards of Fort Lauderdale…

This morning the old landlord stopped by the new digs. I was going to go to his house Saturday and give him the keys. I never told him I when I was going to move, I just did it. But this is a very small town so it probably didn’t take too much of an investigator’s job to find out where I was. My last electric bill at the old place was $9.54, and the one previous to that was $15 and change. I gave him a $20 and told him that would more than cover whatever I owed. The bill is in his name. Here at the new place it’s in my name. I did a perfunctory clean-up when I left, but with no water I was unable to mop the floors so I gave him another $20 and told him to get someone to do it. He’ll probably have his wife or daughter that lives there do it, but that’s fine with me.

La Barriada never felt like home, if you know what I mean, and I wondered if it ever would. I already feel more comfortable here in the new place. It’s fun sitting out on the front porch with my mug of coffee in the morning and watch people waiting to catch the bus to go to work. People passing by on the sidewalk always saying “Buenos dias” and of course I have to respond in kind.

Somewhere I’d written about the size of the house in La Barriada, but I can’t find it. It was small, anyway. This place is a lot larger. The living room is 15X19′ and the whole place is 15X56′. I’d say it’s at least 50% larger than La Barriada. The bedrooms are 12X12′ which is almost as large as the living room at La Barriada, and the kitchen has the largest counter space of any place I’ve live since leaving Potrerillos Arriba.

I’m sure it will take a while before this place feels like home, but I bet it won’t be too long.

Oh, and this is on the wall of an abandoned house across the street from my new landlord’s house.

When I agreed to rent the new apartment el dueño said that he was having it painted. Well, when I checked in on things Tuesday before going to pay the rent nothing had been done about painting. Yesterday afternoon I got a phone call and he said he’d gotten ahold of the painter and would I please come to his house in the morning since it seems I have the only keys to the place. I got down to the bus stop and chained up my bike just as a bus was coming along. (It’s a real uphill climb from La Barriada to the new digs so I take either a bus of a cab) When I got up to the new neighborhood I stopped at the ATM of the bank that’s about 50 yards away from my new front door to get some cash so I can pay off my movers on Sunday. The bank guard said, “are you moving in to that apartment over there?” (In Spanish, of course.) I said I was and he said he thought he seen me going in a couple of times. Kind of gives me a good feeling of security there.  Also, the police station is only a block away and it seems there is always a wagon going or coming.

So, I met Beto who was going to paint the place. I’d never spoken to him before or new his name, but of course over the last four years we’d seen each other quite a bit. I also met Hayde (Heidi) who will be coming in once a week to clean house for me. Ten bucks a day for clean floors and kitchen. Since I haven’t moved any cleaning materials yet there was nothing for her to do today, but I told her that I’d me all moved in my next week and we could start then. Seems she’s a friend of my old neighbor, Maide, from the old place, and we’ve actually said out “buenos diases” a few times when she was over visiting her amiga.

But before all that went down there was a pretty good flow of water here and I quickly was able to get a load of underwear, socks and my Levis washed. I’d been able to fill five one-gallon bottles with water and promptly had to use them for the rinse cycle since the water only ran for about a half hour today. (One of the first things I did when I got to the new place was to turn on the faucet and, wonder of wonders, water came out of it.)

After getting Beto started with his painting assignment I got a bus down the hill and then over to Bugaba to look for a stove. The first two places I lived in down here, Potrerillos Arriba and then in Boquerón were completely furnished. When I moved into La Barriada I had to buy a fridge but there was a stove here. Now, there’s NOTHING at the new place. In Panama when they say “unfurnished” that’s EXACTLY what they mean.

The first place I went to was a strange place called Franklin Jurado. Basically it’s a hardware store that sells some household appliances as well. It’s where I bought the fridge. They had a couple of small Sankey stoves at $107 and $134 but I didn’t like them. The ovens were WAY TOO SMALL. And the next step up from those was $300+. Not going to do that.

The commercial center of town, where most of the stores are located is only a couple of blocks away. I saw one place where the $134 stove was selling for $119. I finally went into Banco Azteca which offered a variety of different stoves and settled on an RCA four-burner with a decent sized oven. It came to $144.44 with tax. I took my order slip to the cashier and presented my cédula and brand new debit card and was told, “solo efectivo.” (Cash only) See. stopping at the bank worked out well.

When payment was settled they called a gentleman with a nice, brand new pickup truck to bring me to the new digs. Cost: $7, and he helped be carry it into the kitchen. I gave him a sawbuck.

By then Beto had finished painting the two bedrooms a ghastly teal color, and the coverage wasn’t very good. Sigh. But at least it was better than the grimy white that was there before. I’m sure I’ll end up repainting the walls something better. I did check out the dimensions of the place. From the front door to the back is 55-feet. It’s 15 feet wide. 770 square feet. About 200 sq. ft. more than the house here at La Barriada. The living room is 18X14.

So that was may day.

Well, the move to the new place is starting to gel. Yesterday (Tuesday) I stopped by the landlord’s house and picked up the keys. He’s a nice guy but you can tell he was a bureaucrat for 30+ years. I was going to pay him the March rent while I was there but he wouldn’t have it. Has to be paid on the FIRST of the month. Okay. No big deal since he essentially lives half a block away.

Today I went over to Bugaba to the Union Fenosa offices to set up the electric service in my name. In the five years I’ve been here the bills have always been in the name of the owners of the house. I’d get the bill in their name and just pay it. But again, that’s not the way the bureaucratic mind works. I’m living in the place the electricity is in my name.

There were only two women handling the installation and re-starting services so I had to wait a little until it was my turn. I presented the lease to the girl and she called the landlord. Busy. Then she asked for my passport. The identification number on the lease is my passport number, but now that I have my cédula I pulled that out. Funny thing was, it seemed to actually make a difference to her about processing my application.

I had to go get a copy of my cédula at the nearby church since the office was out of paper and they were waiting for a delivery. Back at the office there were three more calls to the landlord because he didn’t have the right numbers the girl needed. Finally it was resolved to the company’s satisfaction. I was a bit worried about how much I was going to have to fork over for a deposit since I’m VERY tight on cash after setting aside the rents for two places, but I needn’t have worried. I forked over the $28.12 for the deposit (that includes a $17 installation charge). Supposedly the power will be turned on tomorrow some time.

When I look at the U.S. headlines online down here in Panama I despair for my country. It’s sure not the same place I grew up in in the ’50s. It’s not the same place as when I wore a Navy uniform in the ’60s. (Believe it or not, I was 21 when that picture was taken)

Look at what the country is facing in 2016…Donald Trump leads the rabid pack of Republikunts who are looking to completely trash what’s left of the nation’s safety net, deny people entry into the country based on their religious beliefs. Build a WALL along the borders? Get REAL. And then you have twatwaffles like the CANADIAN Rafael Cruz Jr., who wants to install a Christian version of Sharia Law on the country. I’m not even going to get into the twerp whose family fled to the United States to “escape Castro” years before Castro took over Cuba. And then there’s Uncle Ben Carson who believes the pyramids were built to store grain and who forever killed the phrase, “What are you — a brain surgeon?” when referring to smart people.

On the other side of the aisle I’d love to see Bernie become president. What is Democratic Socialism? It’s  making the government give us what we’ve paid for…And no matter how horribly the Republikunts, and a lot of Democrats paint Hillary Clinton, all I can say is that in MY opinion on her WORST day Hillary Clinton is better than ANY Republikunt on their best day!

If I hadn’t done so already I’d seriously be considering expatriation if one of those joker become president.

But I already left the U.S., not for any political reasons but moved to Panama in order to have a nice, relatively stress-free life.

In 2009 I received what is known as a “Pensionado” visa which allows me to live in the Republic of Panama and not have to leave. At that time I received a “carnet” from the Immigration service and my lawyer said, as she handed it to me, “There are only two things a Panamanian can do that you can’t…One is to work and the other is to vote.” Well, believe me, I had no intention of working anymore after I started collecting Social Security, and as far as voting is concerned? Meh!

But the carnet is a cheap, shoddy piece of work. It’s a second cousin to a high school ID or a hall pass. A piece of paper with my picture on it that’s been cheaply laminated. I’ve never had anybody turn me down for anything when I’ve presented it, but most Panamanians have never seen one of these and they scrutinize it intensely when they see it.

Every Panamanian, even children have a national ID card known as a cédula, and a couple of years ago the country started issuing what is known as an E cédula. The E stands for extranjero (foreigner). It is issued by the Tribunal electoral of the Republic. It’s the size of a credit card but not quite as thick. When I first heard about them I called my lawyer about how to go about getting one for myself but she poo pooed the idea. In the last year four of my friends have gotten their E cédulas and they gave me the name of the person who helped them get theirs. I contacted Luis Arce and we started the process.

There was a complication in that my lawyer never gave me a copy of the Carta de Resolucion from immigration and when I contacted her she said she didn’t have it. So Luis had to make several trips to immigration and emails to and from me to get a copy of the letter. That done I got on the 10 p.m. bus on the second of this month and went to Panama City, arriving there at 4:22 in the morning. Luis showed up at ten to five and we went off to the Tribunal Electoral building. Those offices start the day at 7 a.m. Can you believe that? Can you imagine a government office in the U.S. opening for business at SEVEN IN THE MORNING? Unheard of.

Needless to say we were first in line and after signing a couple of papers, getting my picture taken and being electronically fingerprinted we left the building at 7:30! ALL DONE! At 8:45 I was back on a bus for the seven hour ride back to David and I was home in time to cook dinner. Needless to say I was BEAT and I went to bed and slept for 11 hours straight!

Now this E cédula doesn’t give me any more rights than I had with the carnet, but I does make me more “officially” Panamanian. I’ll be perfectly honest with you and say that if I could become a Panamanian citizen I WOULD. My friend David Baker, the only gringo I know that left Panama to live in Costa Rica recently became a citizen of that country. He’s the ONLY one I know who went to Pura Vida land while I’ve met a couple of dozen who left there to move here.

I can NEVER become a citizen through the Pensionado visa. The only way I could actually become a citizen would be to deposit several hundred thousand dollars into a Panamanian bank account (like I HAVE several hundred thousand dollars in the first place) or marry a Panamanian. The later isn’t an option, either. First there are no volunteers to fill the position and secondly I’m not sure I could stand to be with anyone for the five years you have to be married in order to apply for citizenship. And since I’m almost 74, have serious COPD, and carry three stents in my coronary arteries I doubt that I’ll be around for five more years anyway. Now, if that sounds fatalistic, I guess it is. I like to think of it as being realistic. The other day I was having lunch with some friends (the first to get their E cédulas) and that subject came up. I said I’m not saying I want to die yet, I DON’T, but I’M READY, if you know what I mean. I’ve accomplished everything I ever wanted to do in my life. I’ve sailed across the Atlantic Ocean. I helped take a boat through the Panama Canal. I owned a small sailboat and went off cruising in it alone for nine months to Mexico, Belize and the Rio Dulce in Guatemala. I was captain of an 85′ ketch on the French Riviera for three years (hey, someone was going to do it, why not me?). I’ve circumnavigated the eastern half of the United States in boats, a feat known to boaters in the U.S. as “The Great Circle.” No, I don’t want to die yet, but I’M READY.

This morning a took the bus over to Bugaba to the Tribunal Electoral and picked up my E cédula. I asked the man who was filling out the final paperwork for me to sign, and I translate for you….”Do you know what the ‘E’ stands for?” He said, “Extranjero.” No,” I replied, “it means “extraordinary.” I love it when I can get a smile out of the natives in their own language.

So, while I can’t be a citizen of Panama at least I can look a little bit as if I AM ONE. But at least the Republica sees me as a Residente Permanente.

As an aside, I don’t see myself being around long enough to have to renew the card, either.

Las autoridades municipales, en consenso con representantes del distrito de Barú, en la provincia de Chiriquí, acordaron suspender cualquier tipo de actividad relacionada con las fiestas del dios Momo ante la alerta por el brote del virus A (H1N1) en la región.

My rough translation of this story from Critica newspaper is:

“Municipal authorities, together with representatives of the Barú district in Chiriquí province have decided to suspend any type of party activities related to Carnival because of the outbreak of the A (H1N1) virus in the region.”  Barú district is home of Puerto Armuelles and La Frontera where most of the cases have come from.

Recently a friend of mine asked for some insight into publicizing his business which is the manufacturing of really beautiful paddles for Stand Up Paddle boards. https://www.facebook.com/bakerworkz/ And he asked if WordPress was a good place to post. We’d talked about this four years ago before he moved from Potrerillos Arriba, Panama, to some God forsaken shit hole in Costa Rica noted only for its good surfing, wonderful scenery and beautiful women. Other than that the place has nothing going for it.

I told him I thought it was a worthwhile site and stressed that the use of “Tags” was extremely important for drawing people to his blog. This week I have a good example of just how true that is. Like most bloggers I started off like a house on fire back in 2009. I posted every day. When I was new here to Panama I had a lot of interesting stuff to post about. I had hundreds of visitors a day who found the blog through search engines when they were looking for information such as: Retirement Abroad, Retirement in Panama, A Stroll Around Dolega has been a BIG draw over the years. But as so often happens to bloggers life intruded. I mean the mundane aspects of life. I get up, check my emails, read news stories, go grocery shopping a couple of times a week, take naps in the afternoon, go to bed at night and do it all over again the next day. Not the stuff to write about.

Recently, though, one of the things I think of as routine, hiding my computer when I’m out of the house, led me to write a post about crime here in Panama.  Since I’m not posting much lately my readership has dropped off considerably. For example, this Monday (I’m writing this on Thursday) there were 54 visitors to the blog. Tuesday there were only 45. When I wrote the crime story I added a couple of tags to it that I don’t normally use. They were Boquete and Volcan, two very popular expat locations nearby. Naturally people interested in possibly expatriating here have heard of at LEAST Boquete and search engines would have picked up my tags which people would then see and possibly click on. Well, they DID! On Wednesday there were 182 visitors to the blog. Certainly not overwhelming, but nearly a four-fold increase.

It shows the power of using the right tags that will be picked up by search engines and draw people to your site.

Okay, I need to say a few words about crime here in Panama. Naturally one of the big questions people have is what the crime situation is like here. Yes, we have it, and yes, it’s growing, just like it is in the States.

Naturally crime is worse in the Capitol, but it’s a big city with the same problems all big cities have worldwide, so I’m not even going to get into what’s happening there other than to say that most of the violent crime there is associated with drugs and drug dealers since Panama is a trans-shipping site.

We have a growing crime problem here in Chiriquí Province, and that’s directly the result, I believe of two things…David (dahVEED) is the country’s SECOND LARGEST city and big city problems come along with it. Another contributing factor is Chiriquí Province has seen a huge influx of foreigners (mostly from the States and Canada) and while there doesn’t seem to be any animus towards us, the gringos (and I’m going to use that term for EVERYONE who isn’t a Panamanian) are generally richer than the natives and that naturally makes gringos TARGETS.

Crime is a major concern for the gringos here in the Republic. (When referring to “gringos” I mean anyone who comes here whose native tongue is not Spanish.)

Many people assume that because the doors and windows have bars on them crime must be running wild. Not really. While those barred doors and windows ARE crime prevention features it is also very much a “Latin” thing, too.

We in the expat community really only pay attention to crime when it strikes us or one of our own, but the majority of the victims of crime are the natives. We just don’t pay attention to it because we don’t read the Spanish-language newspapers or watch Spanish-language television broadcasts. We live in our own little bubble.

Recently there has been an increase in home invasion crimes and two expats have been shot as a result. One, a British woman, I happen to know slightly from Potrerillos Arriba. She very nearly died, spent several weeks in the hospital and isn’t completely out of the woods yet. The other recent shooting involved a a man who was shot twice but not nearly as seriously as the lady. As if getting shot ANYWHERE isn’t serious enough, right?

One thing I know is that the lady made herself a target for such a thing to happen.  She had a lovely house on probably an acre or more of lovingly maintained lawns and shrubbery. The home would be the envy of many people in the States. Now, everybody should be able to build a nice house on well-kept grounds and live happily ever after. . .in a perfect world. In the last decade gringos have poured into this country that, despite a rapidly growing first-world infrastructure  is essentially just getting out of being third-world. To some of the people here a wheelbarrow is as big a technological leap as a lunar rover was to the States. There are PLENTY of people living hand-to-mouth here though we don’t see them too often. Most are indigenous people who live up in the mountains in shanties made of split bamboo with rusting tin roofs, and you’d generally have to trek an hour or more to get to where they live. Out of sight, out of mind.

But there is also a growing sub-culture of thuggery here though, thankfully, they don’t walk around with their pants sagging down. The law here does NOT incarcerate minors under fourteen, releasing them to their parents even after committing the most horrendous crimes including murder. Enterprising Fagins are exploiting this fact and recruiting youngsters to actually commit the crimes. These gangs often roam around neighborhoods in taxis casing homes to break into and it doesn’t matter if anyone’s home, either.

So, how do I cope with all this? First of all, I DON’T live like so many of the gringos who expatriate here. I DON’T live up in what is often disparagingly referred to as “Gringolandia.” That is the Boquete region, Potrerillos which has a growing expatriate population or Volcan. For most of the time I’ve lived here it has been in Panamanian neighborhoods where I’m the only gringo and I live in a house similar to all my neighbors. Except for the fact that when locals see me I’m instantly recognizable as an expat I blend in.

And one takes precautions. During daylight hours my doors are open to allow the breezes to blow through the house. That’s where the bars come in handy. THOSE doors are ALWAYS locked.  No one is going to sneak in. While it is possible to own a gun here in Panama it is VERY HARD to get permission to own one. In fact, within the last month, a former chief of police in another provincial town was found guilty of having unauthorized weapons and sentenced to TEN YEARS IN PRISON. They take stuff like that very seriously here. That doesn’t mean I’m unprotected, though. I have a VERY LARGE, VERY SHARP machete close at hand and honestly I wouldn’t be afraid to use it on someone trying to get into my house uninvited.

So what would happen if someone broke in while I wasn’t home? Well, there really isn’t much for anyone to steal. I don’t own a television or a stereo system. My most valuable possession is my MacBook Air computer which I’m using to write this. I have a Sony camcorder and a nice Canon still camera and a bicycle. I’ve written down the serial numbers to all these things and sent them to myself via an email so no matter where I am, if I have access to a computer I can give the proper authorities the information they’d need should they find someone with my stuff.  Those are the GOOD things. I also have three dead H-P notebook computers that I didn’t throw away and also have the serial numbers for. Why do I still have them? They’re DECOYS.

When I was house sitting in Potrerillos Arriba, which DIDN’T have bars, I’d put my computer and cameras in the clothes dryer and cover them with a couple of towels. I figured any self-respecting robber isn’t going to check there for valuables. Here in Boquerón what I do when I know I’ll be away from the house for a couple of hours is to put the computer, the power cord and this cordless keyboard into a kitchen trash bag and put THAT into a bag of actual trash. If some crook finds it, more power to him. But I figure he’s going to find the dead notebooks, say, “Aha! Good score!” and be gone.

And that’s how I deal with things here.