The Panama Adventure

Is the expat life for you? It works for many. It doesn’t work for many others. You can and should do as much research as possible but nothing can totally prepare you for what will happen in your own specific, individual experience.

Our friends By and Mariah lived in Boquete, and are now living in Medellin, Colombia. By has written an article on their feelings about expat life and the challenges they have gone through in the process.

View at Medium.com

I’m not sure what is going on with the link above, so just in case here’s another….

https://link.medium.com/oQ1BfSovRV

“Be extremely honest with yourself” might be the most important line of the article. If you know you don’t like some of the things he mentioned, or humidity, or barking dogs, or an unreliable supply of your favorite cookies, or water…. when the honeymoon phase is over and the rose colored glasses come off, you might find these things intolerable.

Everyone has their own unique experience. Sometimes I worry that just because I’m happy, others think it will be the same for them. As the article says, it is not the same, or necessarily happy for everyone.

There is a new bike shop in town not far from our neighborhood. It’s called Todo Bike because, as they said, they have everything bike related that one would need.

Their Facebook page, with a map, is here.

https://m.facebook.com/pages/Todo-Bike-Todo-En-Bicicletas-Y-Repuestos/281180432005206 .. It’s on the old Via Boquete maybe two blocks north of Design Plaza and Elmec, on the west side of the street.

I have always gone to Tomy, downtown, a block south of the bus terminal. They have grown and increased their selection of bikes, and have all the necessary parts and accessories at reasonable prices. There is also an excellent mechanic who will do repairs for a very reasonable price. I noticed that this time they have also increased their inventory and have more optional accessories. Maybe competition is a good thing?

I thought it was great to have a bike shop in our area though. It’s kind of a pain to go downtown in the city traffic. But, be advised, the new shop very expensive! I needed a new bike helmet and went there, thinking I would find the usual $15-35 options. But, the cheapest on display was almost $100! When I was about to leave they did find me a $50 helmet tucked away. It’s a very good helmet, sturdy, comfortable, adjustable, etc and I know my head is an important part of my body.

I didn’t get a new seat though. They didn’t have any of the wide, cushy ones I prefer for my wide, cushy backside, and the prices were in the $100-200 range! A few days ago we went to Tomy and found the seat I prefer for $8. That’s more to my liking.

But, if you’re a serious cyclist and you want a selection of the best of the best, Todo Bike is your place.

My son in law is a very serious cyclist, and he has a racing bike that looks like this one below. Yes, that is an almost $4000 price tag! I don’t think he paid that much for his but here, with shipping costs and import fees, things cost more.

It’s interesting to see the growth in this area. There is building everywhere, and more and more upscale shopping opportunities are available. People here are generally doing well.

its great to have bikes and accessories available, but it’s the best to get on the bike to cruise around town, especially during mango season. 😁

What do you do when you have a huge head of bananas?

Slice them, freeze them, and make yummy things. When they thaw they aren’t as firm as fresh bananas but they are still good as snacks, especially if still a bit frozen, and they are perfectly fine for anything you might want to make. Banana bread is fantastic but since I try to control my weight and eat healthy, I was looking for a healthy snack.

These are basically oatmeal, bananas, a little applesauce, and optional fruit or nuts. Mix all this together –

1 cup ripe mashed banana
2 cups oatmeal (the quick cooking kind is best)
1/4 cup milk (any kind you like)
1/3 cup apple sauce (unsweetened)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon (or to taste. I used 2)
1 teaspoon vanilla (or to taste. I used 2)
1/4 (or more) cup of any additions you like eg: dried fruit, nuts. I used almost 1\2 cup of raisins

Put spoonfuls on a greased cookie sheet, flatten gently with a fork, bake at 350 for 16-18 minutes until they feel firm and dry on top.

I got 18 cookies, slightly chewy and very satisfying. I don’t think you can mess them up so adjust any seasonings and additions to your own taste. I store mine in the freezer because when frozen, they take longer to eat and they can’t go bad or get ants (we have more kinds of ants here than you would believe!)

On other subjects, not too much else going on. We are anxiously waiting for rain to break this beastly hot, dry weather. There are serious water problems all over Panama from lack of rain. Our water plant is working at about 25% capacity because the rivers are so low and I am SO thankful for our water tank. The water was off from Friday morning until late Saturday night, and then came in at a trickle but at least our tank is full again this morning. More serious, lack of water affects the capacity of traffic in the Panama Canal, the country’s ability to make hydroelectric power, and the lives of livestock in some areas. There have been electricity restrictions in the past (no A/C in businesses during daytime hours) but I haven’t heard about that this year. Maybe all the windmills are helping.

Mangoes continue to fall from the trees and my stash in the freezer is growing, along with the chunks of frozen lemon juice from our very productive tree. I haven’t been biking as much as I should, but we have a number of new songs in the band coming out tonight or in the next couple weeks. I practice outside sometimes (with headphones) and enjoy the many birds who come to the birdbath. Life is hot and dry but still very good in Panama.

It’s still summer with bright sun, 94 degrees, very windy, and no rain in sight. I’m glad I didn’t plan to go biking today with this wind. Instead I cut up yesterday’s mangoes and did other chores at home, and sorted through some photos from yesterday.

They are building a huge mall nearby so I went over there to see what is going on. I could see quite a bit of progress, the outside walls looking better, coverings over entry doors, and men hard at work. Word is that the most serious work is now going on inside. It’s a huge project which is expected to take many more months to complete.

Here’s a video with a look at what has been going on inside.

A couple pictures from yesterday.

Summer is also a time of flowering trees. The guyacan can be spectacular but you have to catch them before a windy day blows off all the flowers. These other yellow ones are also beautiful and seem less prone to being stripped by the wind. The other tree with the big balls is also interesting. The balls are hollowed out and dried, and used for cups and bowls.

This is one of the mango trees I have been visiting. It looks very old but has been trimmed back quite a bit. This is the first year I have seen it with fruit.

This is another tree nearby that we visited a few days ago. It is really huge and must be very old, and this is also the first year I have seen it fruit. If you stand below these trees in the wind you can hear fruit hitting the ground all around you! The fruit is small, yellow,  but sweet and delicious. Mangoes in the freezer all year? Oh yes, thank you mango trees!

It’s now after lunch and the wind is still blowing like crazy. It’s time to go inside and practice new songs 🎸 😊

Not much 😁

Again, days and days have gone by since I’ve been to the blog. When I first got to Panama everything was new and interesting. Now a trip to the supermarket or to the chino (neighborhood convenience store) is so routine it’s not at all remarkable. It’s easy to forget that routine stuff is interesting to people who aren’t here but unfortunately, I don’t sit down and write about it.

We are settled back in after our travels to the US, the band hasn’t been super busy, and I’ve had a bit more free time than usual. So, other than the usual chores and errands …. which we have managed to minimize…. we have a freezer so we can avoid going shopping for many days and housekeeping…. I need a certain level of order but not enough to obsess about spiders in the corner or spots on the floor. I’ve tried to cut down on time spent on line. I don’t need to read everything, or get engaged in every forum, or write detailed answers for people who haven’t done even basic research (this one I’m still working on.., I tend to be too “nice”). But still, time is always in short supply.

Anyway, free time, it’s mainly been used to learn new songs, go biking, talk with friends and family, cut up fruit or make juice for freezing, or enjoy a bit of yard work. Mangoes are in season and falling from the trees. We had a really large head of bananas ripen, the limón tree is loaded with fruit, and the guanabanas (soursop) are also in season.

It’s still hot summer and we are anxiously waiting for the rains to return. Some days the clouds come by and tease us, or drop rain in only a few areas. Today is overcast, the first day we haven’t been baked in the hot sun. I’m not sure what that means but we are thankful. Boquete, however, has ranged from cool a breezy to cold, wet, and windy. It’s like a different world up there.

Utilities in David tend to be reliable (except for water, but we have a tank now). There was a very strange thing last week though. Half the house went out. I figured there was something very wrong in the breaker box and we needed an electrician, so I called the neighbor for the number of one nearby. It turned out to be an electric company problem. Half the neighbor’s house was also out, and other houses in the neighborhood were half out as well. How strange is that?! It was like that for a while, and then the power went out entirely. They got busy fixing it though and power came back an hour or two later. I’ve never heard of such a thing. Apparently houses are wired differently here.

That’s all that comes to mind at the moment.  Maybe today I’ll finally get to make those healthy oatmeal banana cookies I’ve been meaning to try.

Mamey Sapote….  well it’s new to me and I love this fruit!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pouteria_sapota

I first saw it in Cuba a couple years ago when our hostess served it for breakfast. Then, I saw it again the last time we were there, and then again, recently, at a produce market here in David. Word is that Mamey is only found in March and is used for making “chicha” (the word for pretty much any fruit drink).

In Joel’s hand

If a bit of skin is removed and the fruit is bright orange, the fruit is ready

The fruit here is considerably bigger than what we saw in Cuba, and tends to have fiber below the skin but the flavor and appearance is the same. It reminds me of a cooked sweet potato but very sweet, and I’m happy to just eat it with a spoon.

The recipes for drinks all seem to ask for fruit, ice, milk, and sugar. I made a drink and it was wonderful but you definitely don’t need sugar! I found it to be super sweet.

I didn’t have any luck sprouting the Cuban seeds/pits, but I have a couple more here in damp paper towels, a method I found recommended on line. Maybe with luck I’ll have a tree someday. I was told they are very large trees so if it doesn’t work I’m happy buying the fruit in season and putting some aside in the freezer for later.

It’s summer here in David, Panama, the height of summer. The dry season is mid December to mid April so by now we are tired of hot, dry weather and we are wishing for rain. Usually we have the most intense heat in April right before the rain but this year it seems to be here early, but there is no sign that the rain will also be early. (I know the weather report above predicts rain but I’ll believe it when I see it)

This is our thermometer this morning, about 10:20 AM.

The last couple nights it only went down to the low 80’s. We almost never use AC at night so the unit is in the living room (for those hot afternoons). But, even with AC and fans to blow the cool air down the hall, it was still hot.

Let night, however, we had a band gig in Boquete, only 40 minutes up the mountain. It was probably around 70 degrees, breezy, and wet! It wasn’t raining but the misty bajareque was rolling through leaving a layer of moisture on everything it touched. It often feels like a different world up there! Here we are approaching Boquete, heading into the clouds.

But, with bajareque comes rainbows! This is the view while we unloaded the band equipment.

We think we have the best of all worlds. We like the warmth of David (even if we are whining a bit at the moment) and the convenience of all the city has to offer nearby. But, we go to Boquete a lot. On the way we see gorgeous views of the mountains. We get a bit of cold weather, we get to see friends and play some music, and then we come home to our David  neighborhood and the dog who is always happy to see us.

There is no snow, ice, flooding, blizzards, and we’ve had much hotter weather in many other places we’ve lived in the US. All in all it’s pretty darn good here.

There are many mango trees in Panama, and they thrive here. I have seen huge trees and talked to people who say they can be more than 100 years old. People say that you plant mangoes for your grandchildren because by then, they will be large and very productive.

It’s coming into mango time now. We have been watching the trees flower, then the little fruits develop, and now there are many trees with large clusters of fruit hanging and waiting to ripen.

Last year there were no mangoes. Word was there was a storm with lots of wind that blew the flowers off the trees. No flowers – no fruit. This year I’m happy that this didn’t happen again.

We went biking a couple days ago and checked one of my favorite trees. The fruit is small but ripens earlier than most. A lot of it is close to the ground so it doesn’t bruise when it falls, and it tastes good.

The fruit is low…

The fruit is high….

The fruit is ready to spread on a cookie sheet for freezing….

The fruit is frozen, packed, and ready to store in the freezer… By the end of the season I hope to have a few bags to last until next season.

I love that there is so much growing everywhere here. Just in our yard alone we have bananas. We left them up a little too long so they are sunburned but they will still taste great.

We also have yuca, pineapples, passion fruit (but no fruit because the iguanas keep eating the flowers), plantains, and citrus. We have oranges and now something they call “mandarinas” that are large, dark green, orange inside and so sweet and delicious! We also have tons of limóns, funny green fruit with beige patches, tart orange fruit and tons of juice. We have been freezing lots of juice for later. We have soursop, ginger, culantro (not cilantro, but another herb), and we are waiting on coconuts, huge yellow lemons, avocados, and some other fruits I grew but don’t remember now what they are. The land here provides a lot, and the people here tend to appreciate that and grow a lot of food producing plants and trees in their yards.

I owe many thanks to our neighbor Luis, good friend of our landlords. He planted all these fruit trees that we all enjoy so much. Gracias Luis.

I have just read (in audiobook form) a most compelling book. I was raised in the classical music world so I have heard the music of Dimitri Shostakovich, but I never realized what a story there is about his life and music. He lived through the time of Stalin, and then the invasion of the Germans. He was evacuated from his home in Leningrad where many tens of thousands of people starved and froze to death. His music was a life sustaining force in Russia, giving the people hope, courage, and a voice to their emotions and grief.

My life overlapped with his by more than two decades. I know other musicians who left Russia to live in the US, but I never really thought about what they must have experienced or the case of colleagues, what their parents and families experienced.

As a fairly new musician, I’m beginning to realize the impact music can have on people so for me, it was so interesting to learn how music was life sustaining to the Russian people during these difficult times. I don’t expect to do anything near that level, but I’ll keep on keeping on a hopefully brighten people’s evenings along the way.

Another point that stuck with me – Those who ate their meger rations and curled up in bed to conserve energy usually didn’t make it, but those who went to work had a better chance of surviving. There is no physical/scientific explanation for this. And, working together and taking care of each other was also huge. The power of the human spirit is an awesome thing.

Read the book.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written anything. I think this week is the first one in a while where we haven’t had a lot going on. We went to Cuba. Soon after, our band drummer came back and we had to quickly get back in the grove with him. The day of our first gig together my daughter and her friend arrived for a visit. Then, after a few days in Chiriqui and couple days in Panama City, we all went to the US. Along the way we both had bad colds and a lingering stomach bug. We got back to Panama just in time for another round of practice and gigs, and now here we are almost to the end this week already. Whew!!

What will you DO with yourself when you are retired and no longer working??? Ha! I don’t know how I had time to work. Even before the band I was always busy with one thing or another. Now, add hours of practice, rehearsal, driving to and playing gigs, and I never fit in everything I want or need to do. I’m sure the most listeners have no idea of the many hours of preparation that go into each and every song.

But, we have no travel plans or upcoming commitments besides the band, so maybe little by little I can do some catching up. I owe people emails and visits. I have things I want to write about. There are always chores and errands and in the dry, windy (dusty) season I could clean the house more. Mangoes are ripening, ready to cut up and freeze, and we have oranges and limons for juice to freeze. Thankfully, the dried out yard isn’t growing much but there’s lots of cleanup I could do. And, some reading and relaxing time is always good, and biking! I’ve been out a few times this week and it feels wonderful, but I’m really out of shape (I know, round is a shape 😁).

Yeah… bored…. LOL Never. I’ve had some new experiences, found a new fruit (but no new bugs recently so you all are safe there). Thankfully no Panamanians were watching the cane toad incident or they would have been very entertained.  We had a big old toad in the laundry room, and they are deadly to dogs so it had to go. These two gringos had a heck of a time catching and killing a toad! We are such incompetent killing machines.

Anyway, little by little I’ll catch up on things. And now that we have the band pretty much back on track, there is a list of cool new songs to tackle.