The Panama Adventure

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.

It’s summer in Panama which means hot, dry weather. Rain is very unusual and the sun is intense. Everything turns brown and crispy and fires are common. No one seems to know for sure how the fires start (there isn’t lightning or electrical problems that I can see) but there have been rumors that fire is a good way to clean a field or other area. Since this isn’t legal, people set a fire (and run) on a windy day so it will keep burning, but of course it’s easy for it to get out of hand and burn larger areas than intended.

The woods across the street burned (like they seem to do every year). My neighbors have learned to keep a large enough clean area to prevent the fire from coming through their yards, but it’s still scary to see fire approaching and the smoke is very unpleasant. Thankfully, the houses are cement block with metal roofs so they are not in danger of burning. And, fires happen enough that the vegetation can’t get thick enough to fuel a crazy inferno.

The fire make for very pretty photo ops

The fire/pickup truck parked at the neighbor’s house

You can’t see the fire truck in the dark very well

The next day the fire restarted

The neighbors seemed fine with having the wooded area “cleaned” even though they got a lot of smoke from it

In the past, firemen have come with water tanks on their backs and nozzles to squirt water on the perimeter of the fire to keep it from spreading. This year they came in a pickup with a water tank in the back, and a motor to run a fairly large water hose which they used to wet down the perimeter. This worked temporarily but in the dry and very windy conditions, the fire soon flared up again. Later they sent an actual fire truck to put more water on the fire, which seemed to take care of the progression. The next morning however, when the winds picked up again, smoldering areas were able to break into flames again.

We were afraid the fire would come into our yard. We have it cleaned up fairly well,  but the heat from burning vegetation outside the fence is probably enough to cause our fruit trees to drop their leaves and then the fruit. This happened once in the past and it was two years brfore we had fruit again. Thankfully though this didn’t happen this time and we can continue to enjoy our oranges and limons.

Summer is not my favorite time. It starts in mid December which is fine, and January is OK. By February though I am tired of high winds and no rain, and I’d be happy for rainy season to return. This doesn’t happen until mid April though. People worry about the rainy season and sometimes have the idea that it rains all the time, which is not the case. Mornings are clear and beautiful, clouds gather in the afternoon and then it rains, sometimes a little, sometimes in buckets, but it usually settles down by dark and the evenings are cool and beautiful. Of course there are some days with no rain, and some days with rain from early afternoon into the night (or even 24 hours if there is an unusual weather system), but in general the rain is fairly predictable and it keeps everything lush, green, and beautiful.

I still have quite a few photos from our trip to Cuba. That was quite an experience! Living like a Cuban and hunting for daily food and necessities was quite an eye opener, and a huge lesson in appreciation in what we have available to us every day. For a reminder, read. Friday, Food Shopping in Cuba

Joel did some research on the food situation and learned the soil isn’t as fertile as one would hope, and all the sugar cane growing by the US and Russia hasn’t helped it either. Cuba is able to grow little of its own food and the vast majority is imported. There are the beginnings of sustainable farming efforts and measures to heal the soil but it’s not at all widespread and there is so much more to be learned and done before things can even begin to turn around.

So anyway….

Monday, we went walking in another direction, (down Simon Bolivar, if my map and memory serve) for some shopping we were told about. On the way we passed this beautiful church, Iglesia Del Sagrado Corazón de Jesus Then, we found PlazaPlaza Carlos III, one of the largest shopping complexes in Cuba. There was a variety of stores but we only visited the supermarket which had a better selection, but still hardly anything like we are accustomed to in our lives. There was only instant coffee, plenty of oil, rum, and fruit juice, and even some small frozen chickens (which we didn’t try)

Later on after we got back, we were hanging out on the balcony watching the world go by, including some furniture moving across the street. The stairs are steep and narrow but the guys were experts at hauling things up to the balcony with ropes.

The neighbor was putting lacquer on these chairs

The. Eighbor lady watches the street below

Transporting beer by bicycle

Cookies, anyone?

The last of the photos, in no particular order….

The bread line

The lady selling bags to people in the bread line

Bread line again

We have no idea what this commotion was all about

Whew! I’m sure there is a whole lot more to be said about Cuba but this is it for me, and I’m turning my attention to more recent things now. Chao Cuba

That’s me, MIA (missing in action). There’s been too much going on and the blog got pushed to the back burner where it has been sitting for weeks. But, that’s the thing with retirement and blogs that aren’t meant to produce income. You can leave things on the back burner and not worry about it.

Our band drummer came back! We have had a good time with our substitutes Mike 1 (from the Still Kickin country band) and Mike 2 (from the Hashtag band and others) and Mike 3 (the drum machine) but it’s great to have Chris back. We know each other and play together so well after all this time. You can imagine. But it’s been a lot of organization and practice and extra time to keep all the gigs and drummers going.

My daughter and her friend came for a visit which was fantastic. More on that later. Besides seeing them and being able to show them our Panamanian life, we got to play tourist which we usually don’t do in our daily lives. We had so much fun!

And, we both got colds *sigh*. It’s not a huge deal but it doesn’t leave a lot of extra energy. Thankfully, except for some leftover coughing and congestion, we are doing fine now.

So, that’s the short version of most of February. We are in Seattle now with my younger daughter and family, and since it’s a school/work day I have some down time. It’s too cold to go out so I’m happy doing things in the house. Later in the week we’ll head to California for some more family time with my other daughter, and then back home to Panama.

I’ll leave you with an interesting fly (I have been very deficient in bug pictures 😀 ). I was sitting on the terrace in Panama one morning when I heard this fly repeatedly buzzing towards my shelves and a folded towel. It looked like a fly and sounded like a fly,  but I’d never seen a fly do this. It was carrying either small leaves or flower petals to make some sort of nest in the towel!

I folded back the top layer of towel and found this

Deeper in the towel was the main nest area.

Flying in, flower petal in hand (or foot)

Flying in another petal

Disappearing into the towel with the latest petal

I have quite a few more pictures stored away ready to include in blog posts, so more things will be coming along. I also have emails and correspondence to catch up on, so stand by….

I’m catching up with posting things I wrote on our recent trip to Havana, Cuba. Internet there is minimal so it was easier to just wait until we got home.

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Today, our third full day, we decided to take the hop on, hop off bus around town. The pictures should be self explanatory. It was a nice day with rain predicted in the afternoon but thankfully we only got some sprinkles, and we got to see a lot of the city while giving our feet a bit of a break. 

Hi everyone

On the bus, getting ready to leave from Central Park

a pretty, sunny day

We head down the Malecon

There are historic old buildings on this side and the other of the water

The US Embassy

happy tourists

the Russian embassy

Many streets were almost empty

The large Colon Cemetery

Plaza de la Revolucion

plaza de la revolucion, the other side

We stopped for a break on the other side of Central park where I saw this cool tree

I love the red flowers on this tree (photo by Joel)

Of course there were more cool cars around Central Park

We saw two cruise ships at the dock. This MSC Armonia leaves from Miami and cruises around the Caribbean

We could see a bit of the other cruise ship as we headed home at the end of the day. It looks like an Azamara ship from Miami

We were dropped at the Plaza Artesanal for a hour. Two buses were broken down so we had to wait quite a while for one to take us back

Another great photo by Joel

a beautiful plaza

back to Central Park and more cool cars

Little did we know this night would be rather eventful. We walked home, stopping to wait in the bread line on the way, and spent the evening relaxing and snacking. The guys had gone to the bedrooms, and Haydeé and I were watching TV. It had started to storm outside and we could hear it getting more intense, and then the TV signal went out. I was just wondering about the power when the lights went out. With nothing else to do, we all went to bed. 

I spent a restless night listening to the din of tin roofs rattling like pieces of fabric as the storm raged outside. I knew it was better later in the night when the storm settled down and you could hear voices in the street again. We didn’t realize what happened though until the next morning when Diana came down and reported a tornado, the likes of which hadn’t been seen since 1940. 3 people were killed and hundreds injured. 

Rare tornado strikes in Havana, killing at least 3 and injuring more than 100

The power came back on in the mid morning along with the TV signal so then we were able to see the news reports of buildings destroyed, cars and even large trucks tossed around like toys, and injured people being interviewed in hospitals. The destruction was quite impressive! The news reported that every effort was being made to support the people affected and clean up the affected areas. 

I was hoping the news didn’t get outside the country and worry family, especially since the internet was knocked out and we couldn’t connect. Thankfully on Tuesday we were able to get connected and reassure everyone who had indeed heard the news and were very concerned. We were fine but really felt for the people who had suffered the worst of the storm.

This is the third post about our recent trip to Havana, Cuba. Now that we are home with regular internet, I’m catching up with photos and stories.

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We woke up this morning to another line of people waiting for chicken, plastic bags in hand. Since the sidewalk on the shop side of the street (below us) is so narrow most of them wait on the other side. 

waiting around for chicken

one must have one’s plastic bag in hand

waiting around, as seen from the street level

they have lots of onions

women selling bags outside of the supermarket where we bought rice

Today we decided to set out for the historic and more scenic parts of town. The pictures and their captions should be explanatory. Havana is beautiful, even in our more modest neighborhood, but there haven’t been resources to keep anything in good repair. The more upscale parts of the city have some buildings beautifully restored and others in progress, but there are still many others looking unkempt, and some literally falling down. 

Elegant, but neglected

Haydee in front of a huge door

another elegant building

Moving a fridge

Onions, anyone?

Very cool art on a wall

we stop for a rest with a dog that looks like a sister of our dog. She was still sleeping there when we passed later, totally ignoring all the people passing by

Hotel Gran Manzana will cost you $500+ a night. The theater and museum of fine arts are here on this plaza

Any of these cars would be more than happy to tour you around town!

There is no shortage of beautiful old cars

Hotel Inglaterra, only $125 according to my research

I like these bubble like scooters that will taxi you around town if you wish

Lunch in a very pretty restaurant

I didn’t get the “pickled lids”

A lot of restaurants have fun music

One of my favorite experiences was a guy in the park with an ancient camera (103 years old, from Russia). I enjoyed talking with him about his camera, photography, the people he meets, and Cuba’s relation with other countries. We paid $2 for a photo that didn’t come out as well as he wanted because of the cloudy conditions, but it’s still very cool. 

We went walking down Obispo street in the tourist area and it was so crowded that it was almost hard to get through. Word is there are many tourists from Europe, South America, and Mexico, and more have been coming from the US. Tourist oriented business are visible everywhere here – shops, restaurants, hotels, tour buses, and of course the classic cars. It’s common to see caravans of convertibles honking their horns as they drive groups of tourists around town. 

Just another elegant building

This is a living person. Leave him a tip if you get your picture taken with him. Word is, he is one of quite a few who do this

Just inside the Hotel Florida

A caravan of tourists honking their way around town

yep, that’s us

The bar on the way to the bathrooms where we ate lunch

On the way home we stopped by the 24 hour bread store, and the ham and sausage shop next door.

The line for bread

It’s a 24 hour bread store

Buying ham. People don’t seem to think twice about handling and examining the meat before deciding to buy

The chicken line when we got home

When we got back home there was still a line waiting for chicken. I watched one old woman wait 2 hours. When she finally made it into the shop it took her 10 minutes to come out again. The shop is directly below us so I might not be able to see exactly what is going on but I know for sure there was a lot of waiting time for a pound of chicken. It made me think about the two entire chickens in our freezer, and if we want more we just go to our choice of many supermarkets, without giving it a second thought. 

This is the second of a series of posts I wrote on our recent trip to Havana, Cuba. Now that I’m home with continuous, efficient internet I’ll post them as I get time.

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Friday, our first full day in Havana, a day of learning a lot (and having a lot to write about). First we learned that the noisy rooster lives in the 3rd floor apartment across the street. Diana told us someone from the countryside brought it to her to help her with some stomach problems (huh?) but the rest of the neighborhood thinks it’s crazy and doesn’t like the noise, which struck me as odd. This neighborhood is so noisy what’s one rooster? She treats the bird as a pet, and one day we saw her having a serious conversation with him.

Anyway, Diana brought us a breakfast of eggs, rolls, pineapple, hot dogs, French fries (sweet potato), guaba juice, coffee, and milk. Then, Lucho, Joel and I set off in search of some basic supplies for meals in the coming days. We were told of a few supermarkets we could walk to. We passed a nearby neighborhood market with some produce and pork for sale and figured we could stop by on the way home if need be.

We found one of the supermarkets but there was very little for sale. We did take note that they had water though. Another supermarket looked well stocked until you look closely. There was lots of soda, beer, canned tomatoes, oil, cleaning supplies but no rice, matches, salt, or other items on our list. The meat department had boxes of frozen chicken that people were carrying off, and yogurt behind the counter but we couldn’t make sense of what was going on there so we left. We bought canned tomatoes, salchichas (canned hot dog type product), lentils, oil, pasta… I think that was about it)

juice, soda, beer

Lots of canned tomatoes! Beyond you can see some oil, canned sardines, and on the right, olives and a few other pickled vegetables.

We went back to the first supermarket but they no longer had water. You could buy rice though, and flour, beans, sugar, and oatmeal. The guy behind us wanted oatmeal, 10 pounds but you are only allowed 5 so we agreed to buy another 5 for him. They ran out before we got to the head of the line though so he left. We bought a tote bag and a plastic bag from one of the women at the front of the store, and when it was our turn we presented the plastic bag so the worker could fill it with our 5 pounds of rice for 20 Cuban pesos, about $.80. The fairly large store also had cleaning supplies, hamburgers (odd looking very orange patties), and rum for sale and a lot of empty space.

Lining up for rice

we had to wait in line about a half hour

getting close, almost our time to put the white plastic bag on the scales

By now we had run around and asked around quite a bit (mostly in the rain) so we headed home. On the way we bought bread from a bread shop, and some pork, onions, peppers, and tomatoes (even though the produce didn’t look good, it was the best we had seen) from the little market we passed on our way out. Lucho went out later a returned with 2 gallons of water, I’m not sure from where.

the street is active even in the rain

The guys down there do something with rebar that involves a lot of pounding

There didn’t seem to be an onion shortage

Cart your kid around town 😀

As we were relaxing/recovering at home we heard the noise of a truck and pounding. It turned out they were unloading large boxes of frozen chicken, one guy tossing them to the back of the truck (the pounding) where the other could grab them and carry them into the store. There was a group of people gathering, and we were told if we want to buy chicken we need to talk with Diana. (More on this later).

Chicken arrives (clearly labled Tyson!)

Waiting for chicken

The cart is loaded

The cart is pushed away, we were told to stock another business

Now the van is loaded

The van drives away

Another cart is loaded. People still wait

After resting a bit we decided to go find the Malecon, the street along the waterfront. It was still cold and windy, but thankfully not raining any more. It was very cold and windy by the Malecon with waves pounding up over the sea wall so we didn’t stay long but it was an interesting walk along the way.

Lucho finds his Jaguar

What a door!

Interesting art

Some produce for sale

A street scene as we approach the Malecon

The guys check out another car

We never did learn what is up with the shoes hanging from wires. This is the biggest collection we saw

House for sale, a new development. When we were here 2 years ago people weren’t allowed to sell houses

This is pretty typical, elegant buildings falling apart

cold, windy and wet!

waves crash against the sea wall

Water splashed over the sea wall. We didn’t stay long.

On the way back we passed an elementary school. Haydeé, being a teacher, was interested in visiting and spent quite a bit of time talking with the assistant administrator.

Haydee at school

The school was bright and attractive

The kids were so cute!

The country respects their history and their leaders

Haydee again, in the entrance

We returned home about 5:30 and there were still people waiting for chicken (the truck had unloaded about 12:30-1:00pm). Earlier we had seen quantities of boxes of chicken loaded on carts and in a van to be taken away. We were told the chicken was being distributed to other stores, but they never did give any to individuals that day. Everyone has a ration book of food they get from the government, and this includes a pound of chicken per person per month. This chicken was government chicken for the people with books, which was why we weren’t able to buy any. Our assistant could get some but we didn’t want to take her chicken allotment especially since we had pork, considered too expensive by most of the local people.

But, other than this chicken, there was no chicken for sale. There was also no coffee, eggs, matches (to light the stove) or salt anywhere. We bought some salt and matches from Diana, and will try a couple places she suggested for coffee tomorrow. Meanwhile she will bring us another pot in the morning.

People enjoy a beautiful car

Waiting for chicken

Still waiting for chicken

6:30, after dark, the same people were still waiting for chicken, and not happy that the store still wasn’t giving it out. As far as we could see, no individual got any chicken that day, only the shops who loaded up earlier.

This is the first of a number of posts I wrote while we were in Havana, Cuba. The internet there is very limited so I didn’t even try to post anything on the blog from there. Now that I’m home I will be catching up little by little as I have time. These are mostly “we went here and did that” kind of posts with pictures. It was quite an experience though so when I get my thoughts more together and have some time, I have quite a bit more to say. We had a very “live like a Cuban” week which was eye opening to say the least, and a huge, extremely huge lesson in appreciation for so much that we take for granted every day. 

But, with no more ado, let’s start from the beginning. 

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Thursday Lucho, Haydee, Joel and I headed to the airport for our week in Cuba. We have been good friends for as long as we have been in Panama, and thought we would be good traveling companions so we planned this adventure.

The pope was in Panama City for the World Youth Day event. We heard the city was crazy but everything was normal in the airport. We saw quite a few pilgrims and welcome signs for the event but there were no large crowds or anything else out of the ordinary. We were thankful though that we flew to Panama City rather than land by bus one one side of the city and then have make our way to the airport on the other side.

Flights went as planned until Havana where we had to circle for an hour waiting for a big storm to pass. But, we landed without problems, cleared customs, collected baggage, etc and proceeded outside. Since we were so late apparently our ride had given up on us but no matter, there were plenty of other taxis. 

One big improvement from a couple years ago were the ATM machines where you could change money. We changed dollars for euros at the Panama City airport since the fees for dollars are, I think, 10% to change them in Cuba. Changing euros for CUC’s (more on Cuban money later) was a snap, no lines, feed the machine, wait a minute, collect CUC’s and be on your way. Since we now had local currency we could use it to pay the taxi which isn’t a huge difference, but a bit to our advantage since 1 euro = 1.08 CUC’s. 

After asking a few people for directions our taxi driver let us off at what he thought was our destination. Thank goodness our host’s assistant (Diana) was looking out for us since we were on the wrong end of the block, an hour late, and it was raining. She quickly got us settled in our apartment. (We rented a 2 bedroom apartment for the four of us through Airbnb) Thank goodness we were with a couple Panamanians since her accent is difficult for me, she talks a lot, and very fast! 

After we got settled we set off on foot to find some place for dinner. We finally settled on one, climbed up steep stairs to the second floor and to a cozy, home like room where they served us a nice dinner while the musicians entertained us. It was crazy expensive though – $74 for 4 dinners, 2 bottles of water. 

The Panama City airport, and good thoughts

Again, in English this time

Haydee in front of a welcome sign for the world youth event

We arrive at the apartment in Havana in the rain

The view in the other direction

Lucho talks with the assistant to our host. I was so thankful because I couldn’t understand a lot of what she said.

Dinner

The view from our dinner location

Lucho discovers Cuban bread

Night was a bit nuts. We were in Old Havana neighborhood, and it doesn’t sleep. People are in the street talking, hollering, driving cars, motorcycles, hauling carts, playing music and who knows what all. We were on the second floor but it sounded like we were in the middle of the street! Things finally quieted down around 3, only to start up again around 4:30.