Saturday Afternoon, November 22
We are sitting in our living room of our casita reading our most recent newspapers while we listen to the noise of the motorcycles racing on the property next door. Our neigbor, JB, is a Panamanian plumber who spent years working in the states and has returned to his land that he inherited with his two siblings. He races motorcycles as a hobby. When the sun goes down, we are invited to a party at his place. His workers have been sprucing up the grounds for the last few days. They painted and filled the swimming pool and cut the grass. There is a large wheel loader parked behind our property that was being used to move some dirt.
The ten floor condominium development called Ocean Front is the next property over from JB's. The developers have been giving JB many truckloads of dirt which his is using to fill in some contours on his land. The Ocean Front developers did not make adequate arrangements for parking or a suitable sewage system, so now they need to dig some large holes. The development is a few months past the promissed occupancy. The building itself looks almost complete. We haven't been in the building since we were here earlier this year since it is now locked up and guarded. In fact most weekends there is work going on.
The noise is something one has to get used to. It is not constant, but the Panamanians love to crank up the music for parties. JB says his will not be too loud. We will see.
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We had several breakfasts with friends this week. We started on Monday with Ty and Kris coming over for a swim and breakfast after buying fish at the co-op. Friday we stopped by Kurt and Kimi's house to complete our walk, went to the co-op, and had breakfast at our place.
This morning we went to Moti and Sue's casita in our development. We brought the jucie and Sue prepared Huevos Rancheros. The meal was good. We had to laugh about our last experience with Huevos Rancheros. We were in Mexico and the dish we were served was a plate of tomato sauce with submerged eggs. It was awful.
Our breakfasts start about 9:30, after our swim and walk, possible co-op visit and a cooling splash in our pool. We finish up about noon.
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Moti lives in one of the end units of the two rows of casitas. His and the unit directly across from his have more land than the rest of us, and each has added other structures to their casita. I am using his architect to produce drawing for our proposed addition above our terrazzo. She has missed two opportunities to meet with us at scheduled times, and has not sent us any drawings by email as promised. Her price is very reasonable, and if we paid more there is no guarantee that things would go any quicker. I called her today and she says she will be here Monday Morning.
I say that Moti lives here because his wife Susan is only hear a few days each week. She teaches English for the U. of Louisville, which has a campus in Panama City. She comes out to Gorgona a few days each week, and Moti goes into Panama City a few days each week. They seem to have a loving and respectful relationship. They have college age daughters who are exploring their options. One has completed a year at the local campus of Florida State and is therefore eligible to attend FSU in Florida while paying in-state tuition.
Moti and Jayne and I are among the ones who spend the most time here, so we end up discussing administrative issues for our complex. We have made some great strides since construction was completed one year ago. There is a fence all the way around the property, with a remote controlled gate. We have a full time worker on the property. Plantings have been done, though some more would be good. The pool is being handled by a contract and is kept clean.
The association has been paying one of our members $500 per month to make sure things get done. He is only here on weekends. You can tell when he is coming by how hard
Dimas is cleaning. Onel thinks Dimas is overworked. Moti and Jayne and I think we need to create list of things for him to do and fire Onel. With one of more residents here most of the time, we should be able to see that the work has been done. As it is, we end of completing with each other and paying Dimas to do little things for our individual casitas. We just need to pay him a fair wage, which we are already doing, and be clear about what needs to be done.
Anyone who has lived in a condo or a co-op can relate to these issues. This being Panama, the emphasis is on freedom. The board has just endorsed a resolution that we supported (we are not on the board). The resolution says basically that any owner can do whatever they want to do with the back of their property, including adding on, but that the fronts and common area are restricted.
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On Thursday we drove into La Chorera, which is a large suburb of Panama City. We have shopped in the local shops and the large XTRA store, where we bought soccer gear for Sarah's boys last year. This day we drove through town the the Machetazo. Bill and I had stopped there a week or so ago.
We spent the afternoon looking for Christmas lights and presents. There is quite a selection. The store is a big box store that is like a Target with groceries. There is also a Pharmacia and a Cafe. Jayne and I had lunch for $5.08. I had Puerco, Plantainos, and juice. Jayne had Arroz con Pollo, beef and a drink. The prices are subsidized so that the workers, and shoppers, can afford to eat there. It is quite nice.
The Machetazo had a small section for religious candles, another for religious books, and another for religious statues. In some ways the country is less Catholic than Mexico. We don't see streams of people going into the churches, and are told that is in part because there are not enough priests. I had made some inquires regarding the presence of Unitarian-Universalists in Panama, but have not found any so far. There is a “non-sectarian” service in Coronado, but personal testimony is that the service is fairly conservative protestant. I should give it a try and see for myself.
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We ran into Don and Eileen at Mail Boxes. They are from the Seattle area.
On Wednesday evening we had dinner with Bill and Lyne and their friends Greg and Sharon. The discussion turned to politics and I think Greg and Sharon are more conservtive than the rest of us at the dinner. The people who come here are generally very adventurous. Some have a libertarian streak that finds resonance in Panama. Panama is about to have a presidential election. The woman who is the front runner from the major party has been accused of being too close to Chavez, and therefor a communist. Sound familiar? I have my doubts that there is much truth to the assertions.
Panama has outsourced some interesting items. The traffic enforcement is handled by a company based in a South American country. Two major toll roads in PC are owned by Mexico. The tolls are fairly expensive and the traffic enforcement is dominated by bribes. We paid two last year, twenty and ten bucks each.
We are trying to finalize our building plans for our Altos lot. We hope that might help us sell it. We are not very interested in building that far from the beach. Once our addition is completed for our casita, we will have most of our personal accommodations handled. The other piece might be part of a small condo in the city, so that trips in would be less stressful. It is a long day to drive in and back in one day, and reasonable hotel rooms are difficult to find. Beyond that, we will buy some land for development.
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We will head over to the party soon. Tomorrow we hope that the Cable and Wirless installer will arrive to hook up our DSL.
End Dispatch 2.1
Saturday Morning, November 29, 2008
It is one week later.
The cable and wireless people did arrive. They couldn't find us, so I had to drive to where they were, which was nearby, and lead them back here. After overcoming their objections that there was no phone or internet service here (we had them call the original technician who examined our situation), they began working on the hookup. At one point we had the two of us, the three of them, and two bi-lingual neighbors, Moti and Onel, discussing and pointing.
The technicians discovered that our dedicated cable from a distribution point in our complex to our casita a was “rotten.” We assured them that a temporary one could be run over our neighbor's lawn. The line has worked well. We have had good internet access for the entire week. We listent to NPR from an East Coast city every morning and are able to call our kids on Skype and generally surf the web. We are thrilled. One of our surfing efforts is a search for a car. We need to return our rental and buying a car will be much cheaper.
Today, Franco, the electrician who installed our ceiling fans last January, is here working on installing a permanent line. Kathy, who manages several other units in Costa Grande, thinks she may need the same service to replace what she suspects are bad cables, asked me to call her so that she could negotiate a deal with Franco. I called, but got her answering message.
I am past my swimming time. I try to go to the beach by 7:30 or 8:00 and it is now 9:00. On normal days this is very important, as the sun begins to beat down passionately by 10:00. We have been having an abnormal period of almost continuous rain since Tuesday. It is still 80 degrees and bright, but not so sunny as normal. Jayne tells me that she is fine with supervising the cable installation and that I can go swim. If I don't get my morning exercise I tend to be grumpy, even when we have good sun
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It is 5:00 PM. I had my swim and walk on the beach. The waves were very large and strong today, as a result of the low tide being at 11:00 AM and the stormy weather that Panama has been experiencing. There has been flooding in Bocquete and the road to Panama City is down to one lane because of mud slides.
We had Victoria clean the two casitas that we will be using when our daughters and their families arrive.
We had a pleasant visit with Larry and Marianne who are renting #12. They are birders who have travelled quite a lot. They RV'd for 4 years in North America. He is an American who has adopted Canada as his country. He has a PH.D in computer use in literacy
The leader of our tree cutting tree dropped by with his own translator, his sister in law. They showed up last Sunday and got most of the agreed on work on the tree done. They were a crew of four. One climbed up in the tree in his bare feet and used a machete to cut the limbs. The other three handled the ropes which were designed to keep from damaging the roof. They did a good job, damaging only one tile section.

We have expanded our thinking on our addition. This will necessitate cutting down the entire tree, so we are negotiating a new price for that. The tree seems to have some disease issues, including not producing very tasty mangoes. We are surrounded by other trees and greenery, and will be planting some other trees. One will be our Christmas tree
To cut down an entire tree wee need to get a permit, but this should not be difficult.
We will leave shortly for dinner and a small festival at one of our new restaurants: Twister, which I think I have described.
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Thanksgiving was a day like most days. Things seemed to be moving slowly, perhaps because of the additional Independence Day that is coming up on Monday.
We prepared our two lobsters we had purchased at the co-op last week. They were frozen, not fresh, but were very good. Two of them weighed one pound and cost $5.
We talked to one daughter and family on the phone, and made contact with the other on Friday. The Skype with video is really a treat!
On the evening before Thanksgiving we had attended the monthly ex-pat dinner at El Rincon del Chef. It is a good restaurant and the chef is good. He helps me with my gluten allergy. I don't think he really understands the typical side dishes that go with Thanksgiving. The crowd was about 70, substantially less than normal. It think the rain kept people away.
We have been having an abnormal amount of rain. I have heard that this may continue for two weeks, but this weather is still warm and bright. One just has to go inside more often, but not all day.
The expat dinners are always fun. We meet new people and renew acquaintances with others. Many come from surrounding communities, include Altos del Maria, which is about 40 minutes away and where we have a lot that we had bought for building on. With the economic scenerio and our love for Gorgona and the beach, it is unlikely that we will build there. We will probably put it on the market and use the cash, if it is sold, for other Panama investments or paying for our addition.
At the Ex-pat dinner we met Anthony and Sue from Great Britain who want to be somewhere warm and relatively near their family on the East Coast of the US. They seemed to like our life style in Gorgona more than the condo style that some promote. A young American man named Steve was their while his Panamanian wife is back in the states. He is working on his visa paper work and planning to begin an agricultural endeavor with some land near Chame. He is thinking about growing pineapples and/or some coffee. He has been a mortage banker in the states! We saw Gary and Sharon and their daughter Haley, whom we met at the Twister. We saw Lesly and Eldon who live in Vista Mar. Ziggy and Howard of the pink car and who used our architect Cesar to build their house while they were in Canada. We saw Mike and Janet. Bill was their without Lyne.
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Last Tuesday we skipped our swim and drove into Panama to meet with our attorney to finalize our Pensionado Visa card. An associate in Carlos's office drove us to Migration. In about 40 minutes we had picked up our papers, which had been there since shortly after we left Panama last march, had our pictures taken, attached to a form we signed, platicized and given to us. We have heard some real horror stories about this process, but it was good for us.
We had an early lunch at at vegetarian restaurant on Calle D near our attorney' office, price $5.50 for two. We walked a few blocks to the Alhambra cinema, but found it didn't open till late afternoon. We walked a few blocks to Price-Smart, formerly Price-Costco. We bought a router for our wireless connection.
End Dispatch 2.2