We woke up this morning to the news of not one but two more mass shootings in the USA. We have been living in Panamá for the past three months and although I do check the news daily we had become a bit insulated from the day to day happenings in our home country…until this morning when we heard about the tragic shootings in El Paso and Dayton. It was heart wrenching. We wonder if things will ever change or if this is really the new normal. It seems like there is something dark growing in the heart of our country to make people hate one another so much and for no good reason. Is this the best we can do?
If we as a country don’t find a way to seek some common ground and work together on solutions and to making things better Nancy and I fear for the future. And now we grieve for the victims…
We’ve been living in the mountains on Panamá for two and a half months now and we’re still adjusting. I don’t think we expected the emotional changes we would be going through. Missing the old routines, missing the old house, cars, even missing the old jobs. Most of all missing family and friends that we haven’t seen and have limited contact with. It all takes far more getting used to and adjusting than we expected. Every day that goes by it does get a bit easier, but its been difficult. We’ll be back in the states for a visit in a couple of months and we are really looking forward to seeing friends and family. Panamá, despite all the gringos in our current neck of the woods, is a different country, with a different language, and culture. Just driving a car is challenging because of the way people drive here. Its much more of an “every man for himself” mindset once you get behind the wheel. The food here has different flavors, even the eggs and milk. Not bad at all, but not the same. Most of the usual brands are available in the food stores, but you generally have to hunt for them. The milk is not refrigerated, and neither are the eggs. The milk is triple pasteurized so it keeps for a long time without refrigeration, and the eggs are not washed which apparently makes it far less likely that they will be spoiled by bacteria. (There are a lot of indigenous people living in this area that do not have refrigerators.) We have no inside hot water heater – an outside propane tank provides gas for hot water and cooking. When the tank is empty you take it almost anywhere and trade it in for a full one at a cost of under $6, which is enough for a month plus for just the two of us. Despite our best efforts at learning Spanish we still have a long way to go. Its possible to get by without speaking a lot of Spanish, but its going to be much easier for us once we’re at least functional speaking the language. The government bureaucracy here functions differently. Its not necessarily better or worse, but definitely different. Things take longer and there is far more waiting in government offices (some new buildings, most not so new). Patience is a required skill here. Its normal to wait in line just to get into a bank (usually past an armed security guard). In Panamá “mañana” doesn’t necessarily mean tomorrow but it definitely means “not today”. (“When will the car be fixed? I really need it!” “Don’t worry señor. It will be ready mañana.”) We were living here for a couple of weeks mostly without internet before we figured out that rebooting the router will normally bring it back. The public water system mostly consists of white PVC pipes, some buried, some not. The water runs for a few hours per day with virtually zero water pressure. We have a couple of large tanks that fill up overnight and a pump that pumps the water into the house on demand. The electricity is fairly reliable but it will flicker on and off at least a couple of times a day. Our online life got a lot better once we got a battery back up for the router. We call it the “trifecta”: water, internet, and electricity all working simultaneously. The more time we have invested in our lives here, the better it seems to get. We have made some very good friends both Panamanian, and not. The country is spectacular and hiking can be really great (and a reminder of how out of shape we are…). There are plenty things to do and friends to hang out with. We just have to hang in there!
Nancy and I were in the house around 2:30pm last Sunday; Nancy was sitting at the counter and I was standing in the kitchen with a beer in my hand when the earthquake started. The shaking started slowly and gradually increased in intensity. At first I thought a huge gust of wind was shaking the whole house but then Nancy shouted “Earthquake!!” and “What do we do?!? Quick! Stand in a doorway!!” I just stood there just thinking “Wow – welcome to Panamà…” as the shaking slowly changed to rolling; it almost felt like we we’re on a ship. A unique sensation. Then after maybe twenty or thirty seconds it was over. Apparently some nearby towns like Puerto Armuelles had stuff flying off shelves, buildings getting damaged, and a couple of injuries. So for Nancy and I this was a new experience. For others, maybe not so much…
After the sale of our house on March 28th, we needed extra time to get our things in order before making our move to Panamá. We stayed an Airbnb for a month. During that time, we sold both our cars and secured a rental that we could drive down to Florida to visit my brothers. After 5 fantastic days in Fort Pierce and Lake Park, we were off.
Early on Sunday April 27 we left my brother’s house and drove to Miami International Airport where we caught our Copa flight to Tocumen which was fairly uneventful other than the challenge of trying to get all of Nancy’s luggage through the airport and then again out of Tocumen to the taxi. Needless to say, she was not (and generally never) traveling light. I thought the handle on her large suitcase would never survive the trip – I was mistaken about that, but another one of her suitcases lost a wheel which made thigs REALLY challenging. We checked into the Executive Hotel which is now our go to place when we’re in Panamá City.
at immigration
The next day we went to see our lawyer Marcos Kraemer where we left our passports and temporary residency cards to get sent back to immigration. We followed them to immigration about an hour and a half later (immigration was just as charming as we remembered it to be) and three hours after that we walked out with our passports back in our pockets and our brand-new permanent residency cards in our wallets. It felt like quite an accomplishment after all the effort spent getting fingerprinted, getting FBI background checks, gathering paperwork, and spending a day in immigration back in December. Time for a cerveza or two.
Before leaving for the western part of Panama, we also started the process of getting a Panamanian drivers license, which I will get into more detail in another post.
While we were in Panama City for the purpose of obtaining our residency visas, we stayed at the Executive Hotel, which we chose because its within walking distance of our lawyers office and a lot of shops, restaurants, and bars. On our first full day in the city we had visited our lawyer and taken care of some banking business when we decided to go out and get sim cards for our phones. We were walking and going to cross Vía España which is a wide road with a lot of traffic. We were standing at a very high curb and when the crossing light turned green we stepped off the curb (I did anyway) and Nancy came down on her left foot very hard and fell in the middle of the street. We didn’t get very far after that before her foot started to swell alarmingly and she was in quite a bit of pain.
We hobbled back to the hotel where they called paramedics for us. The paramedics came up to our room and examined Nancy and said she needed her foot x-rayed. So into the ambulance we went for a drive across town to a private hospital, Hospital Nacional on Avenida Cuba. The traffic was very heavy and I said to the driver something about “mucho tráfico loco” so he smiled and turned on the siren. Cars and trucks started scattering (or trying to) right and left and I was laughing, the driver was laughing, and even Nancy in the back of the ambulance was laughing. It was quite a ride.
When we got to the hospital they took Nancy right in to the emergency room while I paid the cashier a $500 deposit (they were not familiar with our health insurance so they would not take it). The girls at the cashiers desk only spoke Spanish and my Spanish was pretty limited but we muddled through. Meanwhile Nancy had seen the emergency room physician and they wheeled her off for x-rays. When she got back to the room a nurse came in to give her a shot in her ass for inflammation which she took like a trooper (she yelled so loud the nurse said “everyone is going to think I’m killing you in here!”). Soon after that another nurse came in and fitted her for a boot and then an orthopedic specialist came in and went over her x-rays with us. The orthopedic specialist (who spoke perfect English) told us she had a possible a fracture of one of her metatarsal bones and in any case it would take a few weeks to heal. He gave her a DVD of her x-rays in case she needed to see a doctor when we got back to Pennsylvania.
She was fitted with her new boot, the orthopedic specialist gave her his cell phone number and email address and told her to call if she felt any undue pain or swelling. I was sent to the pharmacy to get Nancy her drugs and then I went back to the cashiers desk to settle up. The total bill including ambulance, doctors, boot, shot x-rays, and drugs cost just about $800. No complaints about the quality or cost of Nancy’s care for this little mishap.
They got us a taxi back to the hotel, we had a couple of drinks, and did not get to do a lot of walking for the rest of our stay. We spent the next day in immigration but thats another story…
