Adventures in Busing - Panam to David

26 June 2010

Panama - David Express

So we are in the last two rows of the bus in the isle seats. You would think sitting next to the bathroom on the bus that I would be the one to smell urine the entire ride. I never did notice a urine smell from my seat, but apparently Michelle did. She asked me later if that was bothering me during the trip because it was very strong where she was sitting. The only thing I notice was that it seemed like a lot of heat was coming from the guy next to me and I felt nauseous the entire trip. I later found out I was getting hit with exhaust from the motor and smelling diesel fumes the entire time.

So one major tip for riding the Bus from Panama City to David. DON'T sit in the back of the bus!

The guy I was next to was sleeping almost the entire trip, so he kept the window curtains closed. I had a difficult time seeing out the window on my side so I kept looking out the opposite side of the bus. I think this one lady thought I was staring at her because she kept looking at me funny. What I was able to see absolutely blew me away, it was so beautiful. 

The guy next to Michelle kept their windows open almost the entire time so she had a much better view. We were on the right side of the bus, and when you are going from Panama City to David you want to be on that side. Most of the really amazing views are on that side of the bus, such as waterfall off of a cliff in the middle of nowhere.

After about 2 - 3 hours we stopped and everyone started to get off of the bus. We were really confused because we expected a longer trip. We also didn't know what to do because we had never paid for a ticket. So as we were exiting the bus the driver told us how much we owed, $13 per person from Panama City to David. We didn't know where we were and this didn't look like the 3rd largest City in Panama. I noticed that most of the people were not getting their luggage off of the Bus, then the bus helper held up ten fingers twice and pointed back to the bus. Apparently this is a stop for food and a bathroom break that last about 20 minutes.

Not for the squeamish: The bathrooms there are not what I would call clean. In the men's several were taped up with apparently out of order signs. I noticed none of the stalls had toilet paper in them and then I noticed a sign for toilet paper $.15. So it is not provided for free to the men, Michelle said the womens did have toilet paper but you might have to buy refills. Oh, the best part is when you go to wash your hands. There is no soap! It wasn't out of soap, you didn't have to buy soap...there was no location for soap! All you have is tap water, and no towels or dryers to get your hands dry. So everyone comes out of the bathroom drying their hands on their clothes. So you kind of just realize everyone has dirty hands. 

We used hand sanitizer. :)

So back on the bus everyone just sits back in the seats they had before and we continued on to David. Another hour or so we came to the boarder between the Veraguas province and the Chiriqui province (where David and Volcan are located). Here is a large checkpoint where the National Police stop everyone and check your legal documents. Show me your papers! (That one is for you dad). The officer just goes from the back of the bus to the front and everyone shows their identification, Panamanian or Passport/Visa.

When we got to the bus station in David,we got off the bus not knowing where to go for the bus to Volcan. But there was a guy with a dolly that was trying to talk with Michelle and at first we just ignored him. I did hear him say "Boquete?" So I turned around and said no Volcan. At that he jumped into action, getting our bags from under the bus and loading them on his dolly. He then quickly took us over to where the bus going to Volcan was located. We tipped him all of the small bills and change that we had (about $3.50) and he seemed fine with that. I was actually very glad for his help because it was on the other side of the terminal and the actual bus we needed was labeled Cerro Punta and not Volcan.

A Toe in the Shallows, then a plunge into the Deep End

The Shallow End

We knew we were going to have to; meet up with a brother we didn't know, in a town we had never been to, in a country where we don't speak the language. Our misadventure with the pay phone had shown us we needed a better way to call people if need be. So we asked if we could go to town with a brother to get a pre-paid cell phone. They arranged for us to go to town with a couple of brothers because one was needing to go to the doctor for a minute to get some medicine. We found out the brother driving was also the one that would take us to the bus stop the next day. We also discovered that he doesn't speak English, even less than our Spanish.

Somehow we got across what we wanted and Michelle was able to express about how much we wanted to spend. Once the brother was done at the doctor we went to a store to get the cell phone. The brother who was the driver (the one to take us to the bus later) got out with us and went inside. This was the 1st Panamanian store we had been to since arriving in Panama. It reminded me of a hardware/electronics/pawn shop store. There were lots of old used cell phones and electronics, tools, bike parts and almost anything else you can think of to sell. The brother took us to the spot where the pre-paid cells were at (all new phones) and once we pointed out what we wanted he set it all up for us.

I will also say that I have never had my credit card, driver's license, and signature more closely examined than I did at this store. But now we had a cell phone, all in Spanish!

The Deep End

The next day we packed up all 4 of our suitcases (5 if you count my laptop backpack). We had managed to cram all of our possessions in 4 bags since we no longer had to worry about weight limits, even getting the 5th bag into a larger suitcase.

The Brother met us at 7:30 so we could get to the bus stop for the 8:00 bus. Once we were at the stop we went in to pay for the tickets for the Express Bus from Panama City to David. But, we heard whistling and looked over to see a man standing next to the Express Bus waving for us to come over. Seeing that we were just standing there he came over grabbed one of our bags and headed for the bus. So we snagged the rest of our luggage and chased after him. He was putting tags on our luggage and handing me a copy as he threw them into the compartment in the bottom of the bus.

We tried to ask in our poor Spanish where to get tickets but he just kept motioning for us to get on the bus. We just kind of stood there for a minute looking at the brother. He asked the helper (each bus has a driver and a helper) a question and then pointed to the bus. So we said our goodbye to the brother and boarded the bus. There were no seats together on the bus so we had to sit next to other people. Michelle sat in front of me and I sat in the last row right in front of the bathroom in the back of the bus.

So now we are alone, heading deeper into the country. We haven't paid for the bus, we don't know when to pay for the bus or what is going on. About the only thing that we knew for sure was that it was going to David and would be there in about 5-6 hours.

Panama Bethel Branch - Part 3

24 June - 26 June 2010

Open Air Assembly Hall

Within the Panamanian Branch facilities sits the main assembly hall for the country of Panama. The entire English congregations and groups come here for the District Convention. Everyone who speaks English, even Missionaries and Need Greaters in the Spanish Congregations go to the English District Convention. Everyone says there is nothing else like that District Convention.

The entire Assembly Hall is open air, there are some vents or flaps that move and help direct air into the Hall. You can see them at the top of the first picture. This in conjunction with the open sides keeps a nearly constant breeze blowing through the seating area. This helps to keep everyone cool during the sessions. 

The Assembly Hall has seating capacity for somewhere around 2000 people. The seats are stadium style seats. And for the sisters, there appeared to be lots of restrooms available. When we were inside of the seating area it was very comfortable, with the breeze it was actually more comfortable than a lot of the stadiums used in the US. The last District Convention we were at in the States was sweltering.

To the sides were the Offices, book rooms, and changing area for the baptism candidates. The baptism pool was located in this area. The entire complex was so clean and just amazing to be in. We are hoping that after our scouting trip ends in August, everything will have gone well and we will be back in time for the English Convention in September. 

Panama Bethel Branch - Part 2

24 June - 26 June 2010

Our Room - Casa 400 Room 402

Our Room was in one of the houses that was actually just outside of the original Branch property. But the back side of the houses share a fence with the Branch so they bought them for extra rooms for guests. We still entered and left from the main gate into Bethel. Each house had 3 rooms number 1-3. The number 1 room had its own bathroom the rooms 2 and 3 shared a common bathroom and all 3 rooms shared the kitchen. On the 24th and 25th no one was in room 3 so we didn't have anyone sharing the bathroom with us. That was great for us because we had enough trouble getting ready in time for morning worship and breakfast with just the two of us needing the bathroom.

In the rooms on the bed were towels for us to use during our stay. Our personal towels were made into little animals. There were also three towels with labels set on them that said "I am for" drying the sink, the shower, to keep the floor dry. It was very impressive all the instructions you receive for how to care for your room, the bathroom and the kitchen. You clean everything immediately after you are done with it, and in the entire time I never saw one bug inside the buildings there.

The kitchen was simple but very cute and had everything that you needed. It was also nice because the branch has its own water treatment plant so there was no need to be cautious about the water there. Unlike the rest of the country where a lot of the water is treated but you still have to be careful.

There were two brothers sharing room 1 (the largest room in the house) who both work in the translation departments. One brother works with the Panamanian Sign Language translation team and the other works with the Ngobe translation team. On our last night in the house we had a new roommate. A Special Pioneer sister who was very fluent in English (most of the people at the branch had limited or no English) because she had been assigned to the English field in the past. There had been such a need in Spanish thou, so she was reassigned to Spanish. So she was so glad to see so many Need Greaters coming to Panama to help take care of the English field.

The Sister on the right is the Special Pioneer. The Brother in the middle is her spiritual son, he works at the branch in the kitchen as a server. He has just been accepted to Ministerial Training School and is learning English. The Brother on the left is one of our roommates, the one translating Ngobe. He didn't speak English. We all had a lot of fun sharing stories and experiences, with the sister doing a lot of translating back and forth for us all.

The Branch Buildings

On our tour we were able to look in at the different departments, go to the different buildings and really get a feel for what it was like there. Unfortunately, it was so enthralling that we didn't get very many pictures of the offices or departments but we have several of the buildings and exterior of the Branch.

Here are a couple of pictures of the Residence Building. If you click on them to see the bigger pictures, in one you will be able to see a brother up on the ledge cleaning the windows. The other picture shows the basketball court with some of the mountains in the background.

And these are just a couple of pictures showing some of the landscaping and other parts of the branch. In our next post we will show you the open air assembly hall at the branch and share some more information. Then we will start the posts about the interior of the country.

Panama Bethel Branch - Part 1

24 June 2010 - 26 June 2010

The Taxi Ride

The Panama Branch arranged for a Brother who is a Taxi driver to pick us up at the Hotel and take us to the Branch. As we were checking out he came up to us and introduced himself, in Spanish. He didn't speak English and of course as you know we don't speak Spanish. But it was still wonderful to meet one of our brothers and we really started to relax. That was until he pulled up his taxi. It was one of the smallest 4 door cars I had ever seen. Only one of our 5 suit cases fit into the trunk, 2 of the bags had to sit in the passenger front seat, and 2 bags had to sit in the back seat between Michelle and I.  I didn't realize until half way to the Branch that the bags in the front were preventing him from shifting into 5th gear, I just felt horrible that he had to deal with that the entire 45 minute drive.

Arrive at the Branch

Driving through Panama City (everyone just calls it Panama) you really see the contrast between the people who have and those that don't. At one point we saw a gated community with a really tall wall around it and just on the other side of the wall was basically a shanty town. But the Branch was like entering another world. Everything was so clean and well maintained it was just breath taking.

We arrived around 1:00 pm after lunch at the branch was over. We had not eaten since 9:30 pm the night before, just before our last flight. The receptionist was getting things ready for us, our room arrangements and tour. When she found out we hadn't had lunch yet, she contacted the kitchen so they could get us something to eat even though lunch was already over. It was a wonderful meal. After that she had a brother take us over to the house we would be staying in. During our entire time at the branch she was very helpful with everything we needed or had questions about.

While we were waiting to take our tour we took a couple of photos of ourselves standing next to some of the reproductions of the original paintings used in the publications.

Yes we are Gringos

So we walk out of the airport terminal looking for a way to contact the Hotel we are staying at to request the shuttle pick us up. The taxi drivers instantly start asking us where we are going. I am not sure what we were trying to do, but we avoided eye contact and didn't say anything. I think we wanted to make it look like we knew exactly what we were doing and we were not naive, susceptible Americans who didn't speak the language.  We tried to use the pay phone on the wall only we couldn't understand any of the instructions, so of course, since were not touristy Americans we just went ahead and... put a quarter in make a call, but nothing would happen, except it kept our quarter, so we did it again with the same results all the while trying to look cool.  I am fairly certain the taxi drivers were laughing at us. We were standing there at 2 in the morning in a foreign country with absolutely no idea what to do when... the shuttle for the Hotel showed up :) 

At the Hotel we checked in at the front desk and got the key to our room. An actual key, not a card but a metal key. So as we are being guided to our room we are looking around and this hotel looks really really old, like other than paint it has not been updated since the 40's. We got to our room looked around and said to each other "what are we doing?"

We got ready for bed after making sure every possible lock in the room was locked, including the patio doors. Spirit Airlines gives you pretzels but you have to buy the drinks so it had been hours since we had anything to drink. So I grabbed a glass and took a drink from the tap while Michelle was using the tap water to brush her teeth. The next day out of paranoia we called the front desk to ask if the water was safe for American's to drink. I talked to a man at the front desk and he said no it is not. Almost instantly we felt bad and could just feel the parasites growing and making us sick. I went down to the front and bought 2 bottles of water for us and we downed a double dose of my mom's almost undrinkable probiotic formula. Finally after freaking out and realizing we can't make coffee without using up our water Michelle called the front desk to double check on the water from the tap. She talked to a girl who when we asked if we can drink the water was like 'of course, where do you think you are.' We made coffee and never got sick so she must have been right.

After calming down and looking around we realized the hotel was very pretty. Especially the pool and outdoor areas were amazing. We were running late so we only had time to take one really poor photo of the hotel pool area.

The trip that almost wasn't

June 23, 2010

Getting Ready for the Flight

Months of planning and packing and buying supplies came down to 20 minutes of trying to get 4 checked bags all under 50 lbs. If our bags would have weighed 1 pound over then we would have had to pay $50 per flight for an over-sized bag. No matter how much we tried and maneuvered and tossed items out we couldn't get the 4 bags to all come in under weight. Finally after deciding we could live without some of our supplies we were there! All 4 bags were under the requirements. Taking one final look around we realized we had forgotten our shoes! We gave up and decided to take a 5th small bag as a carry on that would contain our shoes.

Kansas City International Airport

Despite my worries we managed to get to the airport with plenty of time for the security and parking and having our bags checked. Yet, I decided to cut the goodbye with my parents short so that Michelle and I could get through the last security check before boarding the flight. 

Even with a delay at the security check we still had plenty of time before our flight. We sat down and waited for boarding to begin. Soon they started calling for our flight to board. First the priority passengers, then the ones with small children, first class and so on. We were in Group 6 for boarding, they called Groups 1-5 then there were no more announcements. We figured they were having issues with something and were delayed calling group 6. Next thing we hear them call a name and then Evans. We started walking toward the gate but Michelle thought they were not talking about us. But they were, they had just taken us off the flight list because we had not boarded! They quickly got us new boarding passes and had us run down to catch the plane. We were the very last people to board the plane.

Dallas/Ft Lauderdale/Panama City

The rest of the flights and customs were very uneventful. Leaving the US in Ft Lauderdale took like 20 minutes.  Apparently they don't care much when you are leaving the country. In Panama the process was very quick and easy, apparently they changed the law so now we can stay as tourist for 6 months at a time instead of 3.

24 June 2010 (Panama way to do dates) 2:00 am we are in Panama