My Own Little Peyton Place

While the actual Peyton Place was in New England, I think I've stumbled into my own little corner of it down here in Central America.

If you're not familiar with the 1956 novel, here's a link. It's basically a "fictional" expose of a small town in New Hampshire. And while I haven't discovered any of the incest, abortion or lust of the novel there's plenty of murder, thievery and people running from the law down here.

Or as my Mom puts it, "It's like Peyton Place but without the sex."

Making the social rounds with my Mom, I've heard much of the same "bochinche" (Panamanian for gossip) over and over again--although I'm still looking for the Internet expose of the Ex-pat community in Vulcan.

So far, there's been everything from the extreme:

• The US Marshals coming to Boquete last month to extradite a Wisconsin man who had been fleeing for years from a child sex abuse conviction
• The recent capture of "Wild Bill Cortex" near the Costa Rican border. Apparently, he and his girlfriend, both avid weigh lifters and white separatists, have confessed to killing at least 5 people in order to steal their property. Property laws are much different down here--basically whoever has the deed owns the property even if there's no bill of sale. Ol' Wild Bill rented a house that one of my Mom's friends later bought and there are some mysterious lumps in the back yard near the ocean. It's kind of a morbid inside joke that she might have bodies buried on her land.
  

To the mundane:

• One American absconded with $8,000 in checks from another little old American lady he went into business with
• The Canadian handyman who works for my Mom was cussed out and called a thief by another drunken Canadian after she blacked out and forget she lent him the car
• Two old lesbians spent half the night telling me about their past lives and their energy fields
  
• One young American couple I met confessed to me that they weren't monogamous and that she was a burlesque dancer back in the States (what is it about being abroad and having people tell you TMI)?
• One old lady, who is a friend of my Mom's and who is a major shopaholic, bought 40 bras at once and has now decided she needs to get rid of them. She asked me what size bra I wear right after I met her and then promised me some. I don't think I'm going to hold her to that promise.
  
• The Canadian handyman who works for my Mom told me he had been on a diet and tried taking that Herbal Chinese Diet tea but it made him get severe diarrhea when he was driving and the only thing he had to wipe himself with was his friend's shirt which was in the backseat. Needless to say, said shirt was thrown out along the side of the road. Again with the TMI!

A Luxembourgian, a Welshman and a Rockette walk into a bar...

For such a small community, Boquete, Panama certainly has it's share of foreigners. I've met more nationalities in 2 weeks here than in 2 years in the States.

Each week, local bar Zanzibar hosts a charity quiz night. Owned by a couple from Luxembourg, this is a North African themed bar.

The first night I went, I met the owner's daughter who is married to the Panamanian who owns the language school I go to (Habla Ya), a girl from Manchester, England (whose parents live here), 2 Americans (one who lives here and one who is a Rockette back in NYC) and a Columbian.

So random.

The next week, I met this horrid 25-year old Canadian dairy farmer, a Scottish girl (who is one of the only Scottish people I've met who I could actually understand), a gay Welshman and an Australian guy (not to mention the people I'm volunteering with--an American woman from DC, a guy from Essex, England and a Belgian girl).

I've also started Spanish lessons and 4 hours a day (5 days a week) of conversation is tough.

I'm in the advanced class and there's only 1 other girl in my class (a German lesbian who has been living in NYC for 5 years with her Puerto Rican partner), but trying to have a 4-hour conversation in English is difficult enough, let along another language.

But we manage.

Today we get a new student--a guy named David from California. Hopefully he's decent.

I've also been volunteering. I spent a morning at a recycling center helping to sort materials and helped to paint a literacy center way up in the mountains.

I teach an English class 3 mights a week, which I love. Teaching really is so fun, but this group presents some serious challenges, since they are extremely low. Like some of them can barely manage "Hello" and "Thank you". There also aren't really any materials. Remember this is a free class run by volunteers, not a language school.

Luckily, the Canadian handyman/English teacher who works for my Mom let me use one of his beginner's books.

Tomorrow, I have a vocabulary competition planned and grammar about location prepositions. They all want conversation but they don't have the words yet, so I'm going to focus on vocab building. Also, they've only done the present and past tenses, so maybe we'll work on the future.

They are all at different levels and some have had absolutely no English, but others have had at least 4 years in school and are still really low.

I have to speak to them in Spanish for part of the class, but I make them repeat it in English afterward. I know there are people who say that you should only speak in English, but I think it's better to at least understand what someone is saying to you and then learn it in English.

For example, if they don't know the word for cow in English, I could spend 10 minutes saying things like, "It's a big animal who lives in the fields. Usually it's black and white and it gives milk...blah blah blah"

Or I could just say, "vaca".

I brought a lot of ESL material with me to donate, but it's all WAY too advanced. Although I did bring a Bingo game that is used to review the past tense.

The 67-year old housewife in my class is excited about that at least.

Early Morning Stroll through Boquete, Panama

I haven't posted many pictures of the town I'm staying in, so I thought I'd remedy that with this post. Here are some pics I took last Sunday morning when I walked into town.


This is the road into town from my Mom's house. Many of the indigenous people who live up the mountain walk this road into town everyday (as do many Panamanians and myself). From my Mom's house, it's about a 20-minute walk to downtown.

This is my Mom's dog Daisy (Margarita in Spanish) who loves walking into town.


This is a view from the fairgrounds. Every January, there is a huge coffee and flower festival. Coffee is one of the main exports here.









Here's the Caldera River (which flooded a few weeks ago) and floods at least once a year. The bridge by my Mom's house has been washed away twice so far and the government won't rebuild it, which means we have to go the long way into town.



This is the local chicken shack by day, disco by night. Don't ask.











Local supermarket by my Mom's house. Panamanians love them some chicken.






Another view of the outskirts of downtown.


Hopefully, I've given you a small idea of what life in Boquete is like. More to come!

Somebody Shoot Me! I've been reduced to wearing Crocs and I think I like it....

Let me just say this is my last doom and gloom post (even though it hasn't stopped raining since 10:30 in the morning).

Part of why I've been so cranky is that I was attacked by a rogue band of coffee flies. Apparently, some people have a terrible allergic reaction to them and I was one of the lucky ones.

My feet looked like I had leprosy for almost a week and a bite on my arm turned my left forearm bright red and was hot to the touch (and hard at the bite mark).

Gross I know. That's why I'm sparing you pictures.

I spent the better part of the morning on Tuesday at the doctor's office. However, how they conduct appointments here is entirely different than the States.

Here, they don't really make appointments. Rather, they tell everyone to come at 10 a.m. and they allegedly take you in the order you arrive.

However, the doctor didn't even arrive until almost 10:30. I was about the 4th or 5th patient in line and I swear to God, everyone before me must have had the plague, syphilis, or IBS or something hard to diagnose because they took FOREVER!

Maybe they were all just chatting in there, who knows? It's definitely different than the assembly line mentality in the States. Although, the military's health care I've always thought was great. Much better than civilian.

A $15 doctor's charge and $32 in pills and cream later, I was on my way.

I'm getting better but they still itch like crazy and since it's the rainy season, there are a million more bugs out than normal. Lucky me. This is the worst rainy season they've ever had apparently. Usually, September and October are the worst so I only have more of the same to look forward to.

If there's one lesson to be learned here, it's don't come to Panama from August until December.

On to why I'm wearing Crocs and loving it.

The only pair of sneakers I brought here are suede (which will get ruined in the rain) and my flip-flops get my feet all dirty since it's so muddy here (and I think that's how the bugs were able to feast on the tops of my feet and toes so much).

Plus, it hurt to put too much pressure on the tops of my feet.

I spied Mom's Crocs one night when we were getting ready to go to dinner and waffled. I've always hated Crocs. They're an, no make that THE, abomination in footwear.

I don't care how comfortable people say they are--they're hideous. (They also make a high-heeled version but that's another entry entirely).

Once I slipped them on though, I was hooked. They are perfect for the rain. They dry immediately, they have a decent amount of traction and who cares if they get ruined? Plus, they're loose enough they don't kill my feet.

Yes, they're disgusting and I'm slowly slipping into the senior lifestyle down here, but hey, they're comfy and I'm not looking for a date.

The best thing about them?

They're black padded "pleather" Crocs. lol

Sunday at the Panamanian Spay/Neuter Clinic

aMy Mom helps take care of a 21-year old handicapped girl down here (she has cerebral palsy and her family won't/can't really help her out).

So yesterday, we picked up the little dog--Estrellita "Little Star" to take her to the low cost spay/neuter clinic run by a local volunteer group.

The clinic started 5 years ago and has fixed about 5,000 dogs. They have 2 vets, a Costa Rican and an American, who volunteer their services. When they first started, it was only foreigners bringing dogs (either stray or their Panamanian friend's dogs) but today it's about half Panamanians bringing in dogs. Which is a nice thing because it shows their attitudes towards pets is changing and they realize it's not so nice having packs of wild dogs running the streets.

My husband grew up in Puerto Rico in the 70's and he's told me some horror stories about all the street dogs and how horrible their life was.

Today, the group did about 70 dogs, including Estrellita.

I know this is going to sound terrible, but I really want to tell the handicapped girl the dog died on the operating table and smuggle the dog back to the States.

Now I know there's a special circle of Hell for people who steal dogs from handicapped people, but this girl has a history of not taking care of animals.

She got a kitten and she almost starved it to death. My Mom had to take it away.

She got a rabbit and let the neighborhood dogs kill it.

She can't look after herself without assistance, so I don't know why she thinks she can look after a dog.

My mom figures the dog has only eaten rice it's whole life and it had ticks on it when we picked it up.

If you still want to condemn me, just take a look at her picture.

She's too, too cute!

I know there's no way I can keep her, but I made Mom promise to check up on her every week.

I would hate myself if something happened to this cutie.

2 airplane rides, one 8- hour layover and a 6-hour bus ride later...

After a grueling 24-hours of travel to get to Boquete, Panama I arrived yesterday morning around 6 a.m.

The trip involved a 6 a.m. flight from Detroit (forcing us to get up at 3 a.m. to be there by 4 a.m.), an 8-hour layover in Atlanta, a 30-minute taxi ride from the Panama City airport to the bus terminal; a 2-hour wait until the midnight bus to David (Panama's 3rd biggest city) and then a 6-hour bus ride through the Panamanian countryside and up into the mountains. Crazy! But I made it.

I thought the humidity in Toledo was bad, but in Panama City it's ungodly. You step outside and there is literally sweat dripping off your face within 2 minutes (and down your back which is especially icky).

I thought I could wait in the bus terminal's waiting room, but it was like an Indian sweat lodge in there. Although, I seemed to be the only one bothered as everyone else was taking it in stride. I guess people can get used to anything.

5 minutes later (and 3 pounds of water weight lighter) I had had enough. I remembered I saw a bar in the terminal that had it's doors closed (which meant A/C).

Stumbling over with 3 bags in tow, I was greeted by the 2 bouncers.

Remember, this is a bar in a bus terminal so I don't really see the need for bouncers, but whatever. Apparently, it's quite the destination nightclub in that part of town.

It was pretty crowded in there (also remember this is 11 p.m. on a Wednesday night). The bouncers told me they don't normally allow luggage in the bar, but this time they would make an exception.

Silly me. I hadn't realized I'd stepped into such an exclusive place. I guess it all depends on your perception. But it was nice to finally get cool.

One bus ride later, Mom picked me up and we went out for breakfast and bought some groceries.

Then for the 30-minute ride to Boquete.

I managed to survive 2 airplane flights and a long bus ride, only to almost be smeared on the side of a Panamanian country road by my mother.

Deciding she wanted to pass the truck in front of her, she pulled out into the other lane.

However, she didn't accelerate enough and then tries to downshift into 3rd gear, but missed and almost put it in 1st gear. By this time we have no acceleration and the guy coming at us at 50 mph isn't slowing down.

Seeing my life flash before my eyes, she finally swerved into the ditch, narrowly missing the guy that almost creamed us. And he never slowed down. Nice.

I think I'm going to suggest (read insist) that I should drive from now on.

One thing my mom had neglected to mention is that we're currently in the rainy season. Which means it gets dark at 1 or 2 p.m. and then rains the rest of the day. Not the nicest time to visit.

They had a pretty bad flood here last week because of all the rain. It washed out a couple bridges and ruined quite a few businesses in town.

My mom had 8 inches of mud in her driveway and a couple inches in her house.

This is what Boquete looks like when it's back to normal.

I also signed up for 4-hours a day of Spanish lessons, so hopefully I'll finally be able to understand direct objects and indirect objects.

I don't think I even understand those in English...