The Panama Adventure

Things have been really good here! Friday we went to Boquete for band practice which went great. Then we had dinner at Mike’s Global where Adam’s Reach band was playing. We’ve always known Adam is a hugely talented and capable musician, and he was with a great bass player, and a guy on drums I’d seen at the birthday party of my painting teacher in David. (small world!)  It was nice to have someone else cook for us, and be able to enjoy some really good music.

Saturday I went out on my bike to check out the progress at the new mall site. Its a huge project but it’s been steadily coming along.

I also stopped by the art school, and my teacher was there. We hadn’t seen each other in ages so it was great to reconnect. I’m going back to classes this coming week because I have missing painting, and with classes there won’t be that I’ll do it tomorrow which never actually happens.

These trees are flowing now, making a carpet of purple petals below. Later the fruit, which is called mariñon corizon here, will fall. Cooked it’s a lot like apples.

some horses wandering the neighborhood

I’ve been watching this tree for ages, and it still looks about the same, covered with seeds.

Oh, and I almost forgot the car. We love our little Atos but with me playing in the band, even with the drummer carrying some of our equipment, it was almost impossible to manage it all. So, now we have a much bigger vehicle, bought from our neighbor who wanted something smaller now that she is retiring. Her husband changed tires on his big vehicle, and sold us his barely used others for good price so we all went to the tire shop. They removed the worn front tires, put the back tires on the front, and put the new sturdy tires on the back, all by hand, $10!

Joel stands with Lucho, our neighbor

We have lived here over 5 years and we have seen Volcan Baru all the time, but it never gets old for me. We live in David and drive to Boquete for band gigs but every time we get to enjoy the beautiful scenery between here and there. Yesterday was SO beautiful! The hills and mountains are all green, blue sky, and fluffy clouds on the tops of the mountains.

This was taken on the 9th when we drove up on a rainy day.

this was yesterday, on a clear and sunny day

Summer arrived Saturday. It was like the weather just changed overnight, from afternoon clouds and rain some days, to sunny, windy, and clear, typical summer weather. It’s nice for a while but as weeks go by with no rain, everything getting crispy and brown, I long for the rain to come back. Right now though it’s really beautiful.

We played at the Boquete Brewing Company last night and had a fantastic evening. Now that I have been playing out for three months, things are really coming together and we are so happy with our new equipment. The crowd grew throughout the evening and we got so many nice comments, saw some old friends, and made some new ones. We started at 5PM so it was still light, and as we started one song I looked up to see this!!

It was actually brighter than this, such vivid colors it was breathtaking but I had to wait until the end of the song to grab my phone and snap a photo. It did cause me to miss quite a few notes on the bass! But, it was right in front of me and I couldn’t help ooohing and ahhing.

Life in Panama! We are so very fortunate. I’ve told many people how glad I am that we were too poor to retire in the US. If that wasn’t the case we would have missed all this.

We probably all understand the delight of giving gifts to kids and playing Santa. But, for us adults, is it necessary? I’ve seen so many people stressed trying to do everything on their agenda for the holidays, and spending money that they couldn’t afford, all to buy other adults things they may or may not need or enjoy.

Years ago, so long I don’t remember exactly when, I decided to quit with pretty much all things Christmas, including gifts. Some thought it was a bit odd at first, but no one has ever been upset or stopped talking to me. Yes, this also means I would prefer that you don’t buy me gifts either. I have everything I could possibly need and want.

But, there are many in the world who struggle just to survive. Would Christmas giving be better directed at some of these people? One of my favorites is Heiffer International. They give animals, chickens, bees, etc to families along with training on how to care for them. Raising them gives the family a way to feed themselves, have products to sell, and donate to another family.

Another idea I really love is micro loans for women like Womentum. Women are tasked with raising children and keeping the family going, so they are more likely to use their resources for the family rather than personal pleasures. This interesting article talks about this, and also mentions some other excellent organizations.

I also ran across this article about an organization that evaluated charities and picked 9 favorites who may give you the most benefit for your money. They mainly focus on tropical diseases like malaria and worm treatment for children. These may not be the first things that come to mind when thinking about charity, but sometimes what we could consider not much money can go a long way to relieve the suffering and death of many others.

So here’s just a few ideas, but these are certainly not the only worthwhile charities. Do your homework though, and be sure a significant portion of your money actually goes to the people who need help.

Back to kids and Santa, I LOVE this article and this idea! What a beautiful way to explain the real meaning of Santa.

In my opinion, this is what holidays are all about, any holiday, all holidays. It’s time to appreciate the people in your life and spend time with them if possible. I’m not going to buy you a gift because the calendar says so, though if I see something that you might like you might get it on any random ordinary day. But, I will appreciate that the calendar reminds us to cherish people. I am good with that.

I have remained good friends with Yaira, my Spanish teacher, and I thank her every day for my ability to communicate in my adopted country. “English is widely spoken in Panama”? No, outside of areas known for expats, this isn’t true. You could get by, but I find it frustrating and hard to get things done when I can’t understand and communicate. Even more important to me is the chance to have relationships and friendships with Panamanians. This makes my life here interesting and happy on a daily basis.

I know it’s hard and takes time. It took me forever to learn enough for basic communication, and when I arrived I still couldn’t understand a lot of what was said to me. Over time though it has gotten better and I can carry on conversations on most topics. And, all that learning is supposed to be good for the brain.

Yaira has been going to university and teaching privately over Skype, while tending to her family and little boy. Now that she is finished with university (except a thesis and special projects), she has a bit more time to teach. She told me she could manage one or two new students so I’m putting the word out that there’s an opportunity at the moment. If you know someone who would like this as a Christmas present, or it’s one of your New Years Resolutions, here you go.

Her website is http://yairatutoria.com/

She really is an excellent teachers with years of experience, and she has so much kindness and patience for even the most frustrated student (speaking from personal experience 😁! ) I found it really helpful to have a teacher expecting my homework the next day so I wouldn’t procrastinate, and I made much better progress with Yaira than in any other class or learning method I tried.

Gracias Yaira todo los días por enseñarme español. Cambiaste mi vida aquí.

If you don’t understand that, contact her. No fair using Google translate!

Last night we had our first band gig since coming back from the US, and the first gig with our new speakers and amplifier. It was fantastic!! The amplifier has plenty of power and the speakers can handle it. And my new bass speaker, just wow!

At first I was using the former bass player’s 15” speaker while he was out if town. It was good. Then he came back, I went full time, and he moved to Colombia with his speaker. Joel made me a cabinet with two 10” speakers that weren’t really made for bass but it’s what we had. I had to be very careful to use clean settings, no distortion, and not turn up the volume too much or they distorted terribly. Joel supplemented by running a fair amount of bass through the PA, but I don’t hear that on stage so my bass always felt weak. Then, we bought a 15” speaker locally for $50 and it was wonderful to have good sound again. It lasted two gigs and went silent. It couldn’t handle the job. Ok,  back to the cabinet with two 10’s.

Then we came back from the US with my new Faital 15” $200 speaker, worth every single penny. It’s clear and strong over the entire range of the bass, and with any effects setting I want to use. I no longer have to be afraid to turn up the volume. It’s built for more than I will ever demand. At one point I had my preamp/effects pedal at about 65%, and my amplifier at about 75%, using a pick. The rest of the band complained I was killing them with volume and the audience had a somewhat dazed look. And, to think I had room to turn it up a lot more?! I had mercy and turned it down but it was sure fun for one song 😁

The PA also sounds fantastic, clear, strong, and big. Who would think upgrading equipment would be so good! We are very glad that our audience enjoys what we do, but we also play for ourselves and to have everything sounding so good, it makes us really happy.

So last night,  we went to Boquete, to Mike’s Global Grill, saw a lot of friends, caused a lot of dancing, loved how we are sounding, and came home with really yummy Asian food…. what’s not to love!

I’m sure that’s way more than you all ever wanted to know about band equipment and bass speakers, but since this has become such a big part of my life, that what I felt like writing about today.

If any of you want to see and hear for yourselves, next Sunday, in a week, we are at the Boquete Brewing Company, 5pm. They love a big sound and are always asking for more bass (it’s where I destroyed my last 15”). It’s outside on the patio so you can listen from a block away if you want to 😉 Then, in two weeks we are back at Mike’s. We do more hard rocking music at the Brewery for the younger Panamanian crowd, and more dance favorites at Mike’s for the gringo people.

We have a Facebook page if you want to keep up with our schedule. https://www.facebook.com/pg/monkeynerveband/events/

If someone had told me I’d be 65, retired, living in Panama, and playing bass in a rock band I never would have believed a word of it!

My daughter lives in Santa Rosa CA. I’ve written in the past about the fires that swept through there and destroyed thousands of homes and buildings. There have been many pictures in the media but they can’t have the same impact as seeing the damage in person. It goes on for blocks and blocks, miles and miles. There is one area where the fire jumped a four lane highway with frontage roads in either side. The winds were that strong. I was quite aware also that the places I saw, not everyone made it out.

Thankfully my daughter’s house and the house of her in laws are fine, but everyone in town knows so many people who lost everything. The hotels are full, and places to rent or buy are very hard to find and expensive. My daughter works for the county and is part of the group working with the displaced people.  They are arranging for FEMA trailers, looking for any other available housing options, and coordinating efforts to help with the multiple needs of so many people. It’s such a huge task though.

But, there are positive things happening too. There has been a huge outpouring of support from friends, the community, and others near and far. Police, firefighters, and others came by the thousands to fight the fires and help people. Now, a month later, there are multiple crews working 24/7 on cleanup in preparation for rebuilding. We even saw them working on Thanksgiving Day. Many of the affected people are working class families though, and the city hopes they don’t lose too many of these people who are vital to the community. Even my daughter said if they came back from evacuation to nothing, they would keep on driving and relocate elsewhere.

Here are a few pictures I took, in no particular order.

Cleanup in progress

This was a mobile home park. The hospital behind on the left was evacuated.

The only thing left of the homes are the fireplaces

More cleanup in process

More cleanup

This scene goes on for miles

This was a restaurant

This was a really nice hotel

I think this was another restaurant

A home in a very upscale neighborhood. Notice how the hills in the background are entirely burned.

So many houses gone

This is only one of many disasters – hurricanes in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands, fires in other areas, and as we speak fires are raging in Southern California destroying more homes and buildings. We won’t even get into the man made disasters.

I’m so thankful to be here for so many reasons. We have brush fires in the dry summer but I’ve never seen a burned house. Maybe the fires happen enough that there isn’t much to burn, and a block house with a metal roof isn’t easy to burn. (But the CA fire burned a fire proof fire station to the ground so nothing is guaranteed, apparently). But in my experience here things burn themselves out fairly quickly. People keep their yards free of burnable material and protect the perimeter with a garden hose if necessary. If/when the firemen come they put water tanks on their backs with squirt nozzles and wet the perimeter.

An old photo from a fire in our area, a fireman at work

I know there is always someone else who’ll has it worse, and there is so much worse suffering in the world. These people will get through this and rebuild their lives. Still though, it sucks to lose your home and everything it contains, maybe your job if your place of business burned, and then find yourself living in a FEMA trailer for months and months, maybe years.

We are back in the US. I have things in mind to write about, but with the whole family here including three young grandchildren, there is minimal quiet time. You can credit this writing with being on the west coast with the tree hour time change, and today I am up before the rest of the family. (For 10 minutes as it turned out, so excuse any disjointedness in the rest of the post)

The trip here is always long but usually uneventful. We started with the long bus ride on Monday. The buses are big and comfortable though, and stop in Santiago so you can stretch your legs and get something to eat. There are usually movies on the bus, usually action adventures movies, but this ride was quiet which is fine too.

We stayed at the Costa Inn in Panama City, our usual place. It’s an older hotel with occasional unusual features, like the room with two bathrooms, but it’s always clean and the people are nice. There is also a very good 24 hour restaurant on site. At $38, with breakfast and an airport shuttle it’s a great deal. But, we had to catch the 5am shuttle to make our flight so it was a short night and too early for breakfast.

We flew Delta and I had downloaded their app on my tablet. Technology does some cool things these days. I checked in with the app and tracked the status of the flight. It even sent me a message when my luggage was loaded on the plane, and unloaded at baggage claim. How cool is that.

I have flown on Delta the last few times because they had a good price, good travel times, and I really like the free movies and electric outlets for your devices. With a 4 1/2 and 5 1/2 flight to San Francisco, the movies really help pass the time more pleasantly.

An aside, we qualify for the jubilado (retired people) 25% discount on airline tickets which is a significant savings. You have to go to the airline’s office though, or use a travel agent. Our agent, Andrea Cook, makes the whole ticket buying process super easy. Viajevacations@gmail.com

So, we made it to SFO without incident, hopped on the Airport Express to Santa Rosa where my daughter and grandson picked us up. Now my other daughter has arrived with her husband and little girl, so the whole family is together. Thanksgiving was yesterday at the in-laws. What a beautiful time with the whole family here! It is enough to totally melt a Grandma.

Now though, people are getting dressed and ready for this morning’s adventure, an adventure outing to the children’s museum. It’s going to be fun. Hasta lluego.

That sounds scary! These water heaters are actually very common in this part of the world, and if you can get past the idea of electric wires in (actually above) the shower they work quite well.

Hot water isn’t standard in Panama. There are many people who never had a warm shower in their lives. I’ve seen neighbors bathing the children outside with the garden hose. Of course this is the tropics and cold water isn’t especially cold. To me it feels like a swim on a hot day, maybe a second to get used to it and then it’s refreshing and really nice.

We have an on demand gas water heater on an outside wall with lines to the shower and kitchen. When I moved in a neighbor pointed it out as something really special. It’s temperamental though. You need to turn on the hot water and when it’s hot, then turn on the cold and hope you get something pleasantly warm for a minute before it turns totally cold. Repeat the process as needed. I quickly decided this was more trouble than it’s worth and just took cold showers.

The water heater stopped working. It’s been so long I don’t even remember when. New batteries didn’t help, and we didn’t care enough to try anything else.

Now though it’s the height of rainy season, and we’ve had a few very chilly days with little to no sun, and temperatures down to 70 at night. Ok, I can hear most of you laughing and rolling your eyes, but we are acclimated to heat and happy in the 80’s. This is why we don’t live in the mountains. We like it warm.

A long time ago we bought a suicide shower to help a friend. She ended up fixing the one she had so she didn’t need it. They are inexpensive enough that it wasn’t worth taking back to the store, so it’s been in storage. Then it dawned on us. If we don’t want cold showers on chilly days, we could get it out and install it!

These heaters draw quite a bit of power so always use a heavy duty wire. You can see the circles on the unit, black for hot, white for cold, and half and half for warm. Black tends to pop the circuit breaker, but warm with a slower water flow (less to heat) produces a very nice, comfortably warm shower. I don’t mind a cold shower at all but even I will admit it’s very pleasant to have warm water sometimes.

So, if you find one of these in a shower, don’t freak out. It won’t electrocute you. It will just give you some nice warm water.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve been here on the blog. There just hasn’t been much to talk about. I’m finally recovering from that dang cold that hung on forever. The band has been keeping me busy between gigs, practice, and learning new songs. There is just way too much interesting music out there, and we always find more songs than we can possibly learn!

Life in Panama is going on as usual. After five years everything is just normal life, and it’s easy to forget that to others it’s all new and interesting. We woke up today to no power and very little water. The power came back shortly, but now it’s out again. The power is usually quite reliable so this is unusual. Oh! It’s on again, just a short outage, never mind.

The water is less reliable. It may be inconvenient but it’s not that big a deal. We have stored water on hand, and it’s usually out for a few hours or maybe half a day. It’s been out longer only a couple times but they sent a water truck around to fill any container you gave them. Today was a short outage, and if you want more water there is plenty pouring off the roof at the moment.

We are in the rainiest of the rainy season right now. The rain should taper off over the next month until it stops entirely in mid/late December. I know it’s a hassle for people out and about, but I love the rain. Morning are usually clear and beautiful, a good time to be out if there are things to do. Then, come home in the afternoon, enjoy the rain when it comes, and enjoy the cool air. I love sitting on the terrace and looking at the yard when everything is so lush and green.

Oh yes, earthquake! We were driving home from a gig last night and didn’t feel it, but many others did. It was a 6.5 in central Costa Rica. We have felt quite a few others though. It’s a very odd feeling to have the ground under you shaking and moving, and a good reminder that we are only small beings on this massive and powerful earth.

Otherwise… we still have birds, bugs, lizards, and other wildlife, often in the house. There was a very interesting bug in the shower the other day, like a large, long legged spider with a beetle body, but only six legs so not a spider. I should have taken a picture but I was busy trying to trap him while Joel stood on the drain where he had seen the bug escape before. I managed to get it outside where it scurried off PDQ.

The rain seems to be tapering off, but the thunder is still strong enough to set off a car alarm nearby. I have a good size metal baking pan that I use as a birdbath. It was empty when the rain started and now it’s overflowing, and I’ve seen it rain way more than this at other times. But, this is the tropics where the air is warm, and the water that falls from the sky is also warm so life goes on through it all.

Life in Panama… it’s a pretty chill life if you want it to be. Nobody cares if you haven’t mowed your yard in a month, or if your dog barks, or if you are having band practice in your house for four hours, or if your laundry has been hanging in the carport for days. Enjoy life. Don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s all small stuff. Life is good.