I’m always snapping a picture here and there of things that catch my attention, and then they accumulate until I get around to sharing them.

I bought two little Moringa trees a few years ago. Moringa is supposed to be super nutritious and good for you (I don’t know much so do your own research). The trees are really beautiful and they have thrived here.

This one got eaten by leaf cutter ants and I thought it was dead. It eventually came back up from the roots.

This one has done wonderfully, though I still keep an eye out for ants

The big one is very full of flowers and seed pods this year

I opened a dry seed pod

Take off the brown covering and you find the white seed inside

The flowers are small, white, pretty, and lightly aromatic. I think the seed pods look really cool! The seeds are super sweet with a bitter undertaste. I learned that one should eat Moringa in small amounts, especially before your system becomes accustomed to it. You can learn from experience 🙄 or research it.

Other plants and flowers…

This beautiful flower just popped up in a flower pot. There have been two more, but no leaves or anything else. Odd, it beautiful.

Wisterias are blooming around town

Ut oh, flowers coming

Pretty, but stinky

Another large, impressive flower

The stinky flowers are stepelia gigantea. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stapelia_gigantea..  I have given some starts to my neighbors. One day my friends across the street smelled something bad, maybe a dead rat or mouse. They looked everywhere, moved the furniture, checked above the drop ceiling, and couldn’t find anything until the nephew realized it was the flowers from their plant. Another neighbor pulls off the buds before they can open. I went looking myself a couple days ago until I realized it was my plant!

Food items….

Passion fruit! Scoop out the inside, put in blender with water, sweeten to taste, enjoy! It’s my favorite refreshing drink.

Home made Panamanian cheese from a street vendor. You can also find it in every supermarket. It’s like solid cottage cheese.

Score!

It’s a joke here that if you find something, buy a lot. But it all! You may never see it again. We have learned the truth of this by experience. There was no Balboa  beer for weeks in Pricesmart. We even had to look for our favorite dinner beverage in the supermarket 😮 It eventually reappeared and now we have four cases. 😁

I have no idea what this is about! I was riding around town and saw these toys fastened to poles at every corner of this intersection.

Yesterday was a Good Friday, almost no traffic in town. I don’t go to my favorite bike route very often because crossing the Panamerican Highway there is a real pain. Yesterday though, it was so lovely to see some of my favorite views – living fences, green fields, cows, and if there weren’t so many clouds you could see the mountains in the distance.

And last but hardly least, I was headed home and stopped for a bit in the Pizza Hut parking lot. I was cooling off, getting a drink, and looking at my phone when a young man in a Pizza Hut uniform came up behind me. Are you lost? Are you OK? Thank you, I’m fine, just resting for a while. OK, I just wanted to help if you needed it.

This is the biggest reason I love it here! This sort of thing has happened more times than I can count. These people are the best. Here, I never feel lonely, never feel like I’d be without needed help, and I never feel excluded even though I am different in so many ways. It’s one of those things that can’t be explained until you feel it yourself, but then you never want to go back.