Burning Effigies

As we approach New Year’s Eve the streets and highways are festooned with fake people, effigies of politicians, or a client who did them wrong or a boss who was mean or an uncle who forgot them in his will. You get the idea. These effigies are every where and some of the gatherings are quite large. It is a little disconcerting to look out at a bus stop and see a crowd only to realize that only 2 of the crowd are real people, the rest are effigies. Some of these effigies are incredibly realistic.

But come midnight, these effigies are toast. They are either set on fire or filled with gunpowder and exploded or maybe even included as part of a fireworks display. it gives a whole new meaning to the expression “out with the old”.

So the bad energy is dispelled leaving space for new positive energy to enter.

A very visual display of letting go of all our pent up bad feelings to make room for new good ones.

Try it you might like it.

Happy New Year!

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Getting around Panama, all around

In a mostly rural country where only one in four households owns an automobile, Panamanian buses deliver an essential and inexpensive—not to mention enriching—means of getting around the isthmus. I have been walking up hillsides where I can see only 1 or 2 homes and a small van, marked “BUS”, will pass on its way to pick up a passenger who needs a lift

For only a quarter (Panama uses the U.S. dollar) you can enjoy a truly Panamanian institution: the charmingly yet ludicrously painted diablo rojo—Panama’s workhorse of intra-town and intra-city public transit. Despite being dubbed red devils, the buses are psychedelically decorated from the entire color wheel. In all of Panama, only the quetzal—a beautiful bird found in the country’s Western mountains—can outdo the red devil’s intense burst of color.

These urban quetzals, prowling the streets with the roar of 20-year-old diesel engines, are actually refurbished American school buses. The Panamanian government has made a decision to phase out these mobile folk art pieces, and it will not be the same Panama without them.

The Toyota Coaster—something between a puffy van and a squashed bus—connects just about every other destination with Panama City. Running at regular intervals to and from Panama City’s Albrook Bus terminal, and costing roughly $1 to $1.50 per hour of travel, the Coasters pack passengers into extra seats folding out from seemingly everywhere inside the bus. If luggage cannot be bungeed to the roof, the doorman deputizes baggage handling to whomever has a free lap.

For the 440-kilometer trip from Panama City to David, a few air-conditioned, coach-style buses have been introduced. Some boast televisions and DVD-players to temper the 6-hour, $15 express journey.

If you take one Panamanian bus ride, forsake the flight from Pacific-side David to Atlantic-side Bocas del Toro and instead join the locals for an hourly $6 David-Almirante Coaster (after arriving at the Caribbean port town of Almirante, a $3 water taxi will finish the trip to Bocas). The well-paved but curvy journey over the rugged continental divide and back down to sea level again takes you from balmy to chilly to balmy in just three hours, not counting the 20-minute break at Rambala where you can join the bus driver at a roadside restaurant for a bowl of sancocho, the national dish of chicken soup spiced with cilantro. The stunning views down the Pacific- and Atlantic-facing slopes, within minutes of each other, will ward off napping.

A little Spanish practice and a dash of geography homework will be rewarded with both savings and a high-wattage window into Panamanian society. In the words of Eric Jackson, editor of The Panama News, “If you haven’t grooved to cumbias and tamboritos on an air-conditioned Coaster, you have been deprived of one of the joys of Panamanian popular culture.”

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El Valle de Anton Recycles

I was absolutely thrilled to hear that El Valle as a community has taken on recycling. They have also taken on making sure there are more garbage cans around the streets and to teach people not to throw garbage wherever they want. “Community beautification” is what they are calling it.

It seems strange to me that anyone would throw garbage in the streets and worse into streams, or along rivers, but then I look back to my youth. we dd the same thing. We tossed cans out of windows of cars and dropped candy wrappers wherever we were. It is all about education.

Panama City in particular has a wonderful garbage pick-up program so that even in a very crowded city it is not really dirty. But the attitude that we just toss our garbage anywhere and expect someone else to pick it up is a terrible one, and one that takes considerable education to change. But that attitude results in polluted streams as people do not think of where they are when they toss their garbage. It is time for education.

Once a community moves to beautify and really clean up their streets and ensure the beauty of the locale shines through, everything changes. They have done the same thing on Taboga island and it is wonderfully clean.

I am thrilled El Valle has become a clean community. How can we get this idea to spread?

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The Arts Beat

The Arts Beat

Here’s your chance to own a piece of original Panama art done by some of Panama’s many talented artists,

and Contribute to a Great Cause

Pinta Panama is holding their very first of what’s intended to be an annual art auction and fundraising event This is designed to meet the demand for educational development for artists in Panama, in tandem with the country’s recent economic growth.

Pinta Panama has invited a select group of artists to set up for one day, in the open air in Casco Viejo, to create paintings of this world famous UNESCO World Heritage site. Come and watch these talented folks at work and enjoy some of the Jazz Festival that’s happening in Casco Viejo at the same time. Then, that same afternoon, at 4:00 PM all the art will be sold at an exciting silent public auction in Casco Viejo. The artist keeps 50% of the price.

A portion of the auction proceeds will be donated to The Danilo Perez Foundation, a non- profit organization devoted to offering world class music education, and career opportunities, to talented Panamanians with limited financial resources. Over the last few years, the Foundation has not only offered countless classes and workshops to students in Panama, but has been instrumental in providing several full scholarships to music schools such as the Berkley College of Music in Boston, the New England Conservatory in Boston, and The Conservatorio de Puerto Rico en San Juan.

This event will coincide with the 6^th Annual Panama Jazz Festival, a musical convention that brings the best jazz musicians of the world to Panama, and is also one of the most important jazz music education programs in Latin America.

The Pinta Panama event and auction will be held in Casco Viejo on Saturday, January 17, 2009

This will be an all day event so come — and make a day of it.

Proudly Sponsored by the following Corporate Sponsors:

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Breast Cancer

During the months of October, November and even continuing into December there is a great deal of attention given to the subject of breast cancer in Panama.  There are many formal events raising money for breast cancer research and to help women with breast cancer.  There are parades and floats and events in Parks all over the city.

A large formal day long event was held in Casco Viejo hosted by the President’s wife, Vivian Torrijos. This was held in the square around the President’s palace. There were many important people giving speeches and there were many people engaged in entertaining this prestigious throng.   All through the city at various times you would see pink balloons and another event would be kicked off, some big and some small.

Paitilla Hospital is one of the hospitals with the most complete oncology department and some of the finest doctors in the world.  For Panamanians, many of them have not come to grips with the need to pay attention to their own diet and to take steps to prevent cancer.  The idea of eating carefully and exercising are important messages that the Cancer agency is trying to impress on the people of Panama, as means or preventing tis devastating diease.

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Las Nubes

Las Nubes in Spanish means “The Clouds” and this particular development in El Valle de Anton is defintiely in the clouds.  But what a view!  Remember that song, “On a Clear Day you cn see forever…”  Well here it is true.  There are certain lots in Las Nubes where you can see both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans.  That is pretty much forever…!

This is a relatively new development in El Valle and it must have been some challenge getting all the infrastructure in for this development as it is way , way up at the top of the old volcano wall.  But now all the utilities are in and all the wires are underground, the roads are paved, and house construction is starting.  There are two homes already completed, the show home and a private residence.  They are jaw droppingly spectacular, especially the private residence which is all glass front looking out over a beautiful valley that drops off below the house.

We arrived on one of those sunny clear days.  You could see El Valle far below, you  could see the farms all around the valley, you could see off to the oceans n both directions, you could see…  It was breathtaking!  No wonder people are buying lots and building these amazing architectural wonders. Your dream home away from the maddening crowds and yet only 12 minutes, maybe less, to the heart of El Valle on great roads.

I suspect dehumidifiers are going to be necessary as the days it is in  the clouds it is going to be humid but on those clear days, on those clear days.  Well you’ll just have to come and see for yourself.

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Walking in a Panama Rain Forest

It is December 26th and a few of us think we will go for a walk to help wear off Christmas dinner.  We are in El Valle de Anton which is in the interior of Panama, about 90 minutes drive from Panama.  We drive through town , up past the zip line and the water falls and find Cerro Gaital.

Becky often comes here with Marco, the young Smithsonian scientist i who has been overseeing a project to try and restore the frogs of Panama after they were nearly all destroyed by a fungus.  Our path leads from the roadside up into the hills or crater sides.  As El Valle is the floor of a long extinct volcano, what we call the hills are really the sides of the crater.  Anyway off we go on the trail but we are really interested in enjoying the flora and fauna.

We stop to examine the banana trees that are growing all alongside this creek.  Tree is really a misnomer as the banana “tree” stock is really a tightly woven circle of leaves.  As we can see from observing those that have broken is they are full of water and they actually feel like a cardboard carton impregnated with water.  Did you know that pods of bananas grow up, with a long red tail.  It s the tail that the natives use to determine when the bananas are ready to pick and then they just carry off the entire pod, to allow it to ripen on their deck protected from insects.

As we walk, our presence is graced by various brightly colored butterflies, orange, black and yellow and everyone’s favorite, the huge electric blue morphs.  They are the size of dinner plates and that iridescent coloring is exquisite.

The birds start kicking up a big fuss so we know there must be babies somewhere but trying to find these little birds in the jungle is incredibly difficult.

We stop to examine the ferns.  You can get a patch of five differnet ferns all starting life from the same 6 inches of ground and each leaf is totaly dstinctive.  I wonder how many different ferns we saw that day in total.  Then we found some nurse trees covered with their orchid children.  The orchids are succulents which means they rely on other organic matter for support and live or dead trees are often their favorite “nurse”.  The teeny tiny orchids hiding under their own leaves were the smallest orchids we saw and none of the real showy orchids were in bloom.

We continue to enjoy our butterfly show and realize that all around us are citrus trees.  Oranges, limons, mandarins, no wonder the birds like it here, what a natural feast.  They are unfortuntaely all out of our reach.  Continuing our walk we find some of the ground cover that closes up when touched.  It is always fun to watch it shrink to your touch.  What a spectacular day, the sky is blue and even beneath the canopy of the rain forest it is hot.  We can see a small stream meandering through the woods from time to time and Becky tells us that when she comes here with Marco they walk the creek bed, or very near, lookng for frogs.

Finally we encounter a gate and sign that says the environmental agency has closed this area for protection of some work they are doing.  So it is time to turn around and head for home.  Still the forest is so full of new sights.  We have missed so much on the way up.  There are long tendrils that look like angel hair spagetti hanging from some tree branches and other white tendrils that are so tightly twisted they look like dread locks.  We find a green leaf which is like a netting that has covered a couple of trees entirely so every inch of branch or trunk is covered with rows of tiny green leaves.  It is endlessly fascinating to see Mother nature at work.

We even find a wild coffee tree that is just covered with green pods and has a few red ones showing it is starting to ripen.  No doubt the original seed came from some nearby coffee plantation but it was nature that planted this tree and is nurturing it to ripeness.

At last we return to the truck and it is time to return to reality but what a wonderfully peaceful interlude.  The forest is really alive and you can feel it when you are there.  It is a shame to leave, like leaving an old friend.

Next time you get a chance, get away into nature somewhere and slow down, look way down on the ground and just open your eyes.  You will be amazed at all the plants and little creatures that you will see busily scurrying about living their daily lives.  Enjoy!

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Christmas Day in Panama

Some people may love their winter wonderland, but I love Christmas Day in Panama

I wake up early to fresh brewed coffee and fresh fruit, my husband and I chat awhile and then go to the beach.  We stroll the white sands and dip our toes in the water.  We watch the pelicans fly by on their mission for “fish”, and the beautiful frigate birds soar and glide in the wind far above our heads.  The sky is blue, the breeze is soft and the ocean is absolutely lapping, no waves today.  As we walk down the beach we share Feliz Navdad  greetings with the one or two others on the beach.

Returning to our Beach Club we jump into the beautiful blue waters of our pool to cool off and than head back home for more breakfast.  The smell of fresh cinnamon buns assails our nostrils as we enter the house.

We turn on the computer to await calls from our kids in other parts of the world.  Have a quick shower and it is time for breakfast.  A little eggnog for the season, cinnamon buns, eggs and bacon and of course fresh coffee.  Lovin’ it!

One of our sons phones, he and his now, fiancee are traveling in Nicaragua, so we eat and chat.  I love Skype.  You can have coffee with anyone anywhere in the world.  Finally we say good bye.

I need to go and do something with the food dishes I am bringing to our Christmas dinner pot luck.  Chores done, we open our gifts and just relax while the sweet potatoes cook.  We cal our son in Vancouver and chat with him for awhile, then the grand kids from Toronto call and we chat with them but they are too excited with all the video games they need to play to spend too much time with Grandma and Grandpa.  I try my Aunt in Calgary but no contact and now it is time to get ready for our Christmas dinner

We are driving about 1 hour from the beach up into El Valle de Anton, where some dear friends have a bed and breakfast.  They have invited us to spend the night and we have happily said “yes”.

We arrive to a Christmas story land.  Becky, our hostess, loves Christmas and has her big home  looking just like a picture book Christmas.  We greet old friends and meet a couple of new ones.  Soon it is time for dinner.  Turkey , ham and all the trimmings.  Oh my, what a feast.  I try desperately to eat sparingly knowing i really want room for dessert.  It is fun with about 30 or us who have really gotten to know one another over our time in Panama.  Being an expat has its benefits.

Finally when the last crumb of pecan pie has disappeared, and no one has any more room, it is time for Christmas presents.  Everyone brings an unmarked gift, value $10.  They all go on the gift table.  Then everyone gets a number.  When your number is called you can choose from the gft table or you can “steal” one of the gifts that has already been given.  Tonights “hot” gifts, that means they are stolen often is a cooler bag and a bottle of Chivas.  Lots of laughter and chatter accompanies this fun sport, as people try to hide the gifts they really want to keep.  Finally every one has a gift and it is time to think about cleaning up.

Thank heavens for Becky’s staff of four.  They make short work of the clean up and while some people leave, others stay and the chatter begins.  Gradually the party thins out until it is only a couple of us left who have known one another now for about 4 years.  We always try to stay and chat and catch up but finally it is time to say “Good Night”

I love Christmas in Panama

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Slightly off the wall Real Estate

One way to make money in real estate is to find desirable real estate in an area where people are not currently aware of it,  but would want it if they were aware.

In Panama, in an area east of Panama City, there is a huge beautiful fresh water lake called Lake Bayano. The land around here is a pristine wilderness and the native Kuna use the lake to fish and to travel from Kuna Yala, their dedicated homelands on the Caribbean coast towards the Darien where other tribe members dwell.  The land all around it has not been touched much by man  but the government is planning on extending the road.  A fresh water lake full of fish is always a pretty attractive proposition.

But t is not so easy here as much of this land is crown land, owned by the government of Panama, and the process for changing it from government land to privately titled property is time consuming.  But if there is money to be made you can find the right resources, and put the right forces into play.  For maybe $200 a hectare, this land can be titled and made available.  The entire process can take less than a year.

Many lawyers will tell you to be wary.  And t is true only a Panamanian can take title to this land.  But once titled it can immediately be transferred.  Some lawyers are more knowledgeable and can help you in the process

In fact Panama is more than willing to see some eco-resorts and/or fishing lodges develop in this area.

So don’t be shy.  Panama has lots of opportunities for those willing to walk on the wild side.  You might be surprised how tame that wild side is.

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I Choose Panama Christmas

One of the best things about living in Panama is that you get pictures and emails from your friends back in the frozen north.

The look like this: Here is my yard completely covered with 3 feet of snow.  Here are the electrical wires covered with ice, sure hope they don’t snap,  Here are the trees covered with a heavy blanket of snow, hope the branches survive, They can sing about “Dreaming of a White Christmas” but this is going too far, I can’t even get out of my driveway until they come and plow the road

This is a mere smattering of the emails that I have been getting recently.  Weather is becoming stranger all over the planet and according to some scientists, that is the effct of global warming.  I know that not everyone believes in global warming but when the in;land ice in places lke Greenland has shrunk by tons and tons and tons in just this year alone, I am convinced something strange is happening.

Both in Canada’s far north and in Greenland they can now grow potatoes.  Hitorically there has not been a long enough growing season for that to occur.

My girl friend was down in Panama for a month and we survived lots and lots of rain and our trip to Bocas had to be canceled due to the devastation caused by the rains.  The locals described the rains as the type they maybe see once every 30 years.  But then the sun came back and things were good again.  There are areas still struggling.  Panama is not a perfect country

However when Christina, my friend, got back to Vancouver she was greeted by a straight out ice storm.  The plane circled for half an hour while they tried to get the runway free of ice, the roads on her taxi ride home were a sheet of ice and icicles were being  driven straight sdeways into the windshield of her taxi cab.

My only question to her was “Why didn’t you catch the next plane back to Panama?”

The Christmas winds have arrived, cooling the air and making it pleasant.  Sitting on our patio last night in my wet bathing suit I said to my husband that it was cold.  He only smiled.

Temperatures hover in the mid-high 80′’s F daily and it cools down to the low 80’s at night.

I figure I have choice in where I live and I choose Panama

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