Rear Window....OK, Front Window

Our View, and the Things We See

Well no possible murders yet, even if the neighbor kids do fight and wrestle now and then. We have a fantastic view from our kitchen/living room. Our place faces East, so every morning we get to see the sun rise from behind the mountains and Volcan Baru (the Baru Volcano). This is a truly awe inspiring view. The mountain we see reminds us all the time of the scriptures that talk about Jehovah coming down to the mountain in a cloud, or his throne and kingdom being like a mountain. The view of the mountain is always changing, some days it is totally clear, others there are a few clouds sitting on it and other days there are so many clouds around it that we can not even see the mountains at all. This is probably our favorite thing about our place in Volcan.

We see a lot of people walking down the street or taking taxis and a lot of people ride bikes in the area. One thing that kind of surprised us was how many people ride horses here. Volcan is in an agricultural area of the country so there are a lot of farms and ranches in the area. In fact most of the food grown in Panama comes from here or close by. One interesting thing we have found out is that they do not name their horses here. Apparently you do not name farm equipment. They take wonderful care of their horses but they are a tool and not a pet here. Side note: the animals here are in pathetic shape, the cats and dogs just break your heart. We have a corner market right across the street from us and people ride up there all the time on their horses. And it is not rare it happens 15 - 20 times a day.

So one day we were watching this guy riding around on a motorcycle from house to house. It took me a while to figure out what he was doing. Finally, I noticed that he kept stopping next to the electric meters at each house and was putting information in a hand held device. It ends up that he is with the electric company and he goes around and gets the readings so they know how much to charge you each month. My guess is that there are a lot of homes and meters that must be hard to get to and so you need the ability to go off-road at times and what better way than a motorcycle.

Hopefully everyone gets the reference at the beginning. If not don't worry it is just as safe here as it is anywhere else in these last days.

Ah, Mamon Chino (aka Rambutan)

On the bus from Panama City to David we stopped at one point and some kids boarded the bus selling fruit, vegetables, and ice cream cones. The people across the isle from Michelle bought a strange looking fruit that they peeled and started eating. When they pulled them out of the bag we were like, what in the world is that and why would you want to eat it!

We have since found out that it is called Mamon Chino here in Panama. Apparently it is an Asian fruit called Rambutan in southeast Asia. Rambutan literally means hairy fruit, because of the hairy spikes on the fruit. They are not hard spikes so they don't poke you or anything but it still makes you pause before buying them.

Everyone said that they were really good so we decided to buy them at one of the little fresh fruit stands in town. The place we bought them sold them in bunches still attached to the sticks, I have found out since then this is the best way to buy them because it preserves them and the flavor better than if they are picked off the branches.

You peel off the outside and then you find a very pale almost white fleshy fruit on the inside. They peel like a mandarin orange, really easily and very cleanly from the fruit on the inside. The fruit almost tastes like a peeled white grape and is very soft. Inside the fruit is a large seed that looks almost exactly like an almond. The seed has a very bitter taste, Michelle didn't want to eat any but I sometimes eat the seeds after finishing the fruit. Don't eat the fruit and seed at the same time as this makes the fruit bitter since it has a very light taste on its own.

Rumor has it that the US has approved Mamon Chinos (Rambutan) for import and sell in the near future. We really enjoy them even if they do look strange at first.

The (Morning) the Lights Went Out in (Panama)

So, if you can't tell things in Panama are a little different from the States. There is a saying in Panama; you either get 20 things done in a day or you get nothing done in a day. 

So on Tuesday the 29th of June, we had just gotten to our house on the 26th, we woke up and tried to turn on the lights...nothing. So we went in and tried to turn on the water...nothing. So, I went in and grabbed the cell phone and called Ralph (a brother in our hall). When he answered I asked him, "how do I know if no power and water is from an outage or the bills not being paid?" He said that since most of the town was without power it is probably that and not a payment issue. 

Well it ends up that our house has a water storage tank so that if the water goes out we still have a supply of water. The only issue with this system is that it uses an electric water pump to supply the water to the house. So, when we lose electric at our place we also lose water. We do have a spigot outside that is in-line before the pump so it still has water (as long as the water supply is working) if we lose electricity. The only problem is that you have to carry buckets of water into the house for things like doing the dishes (yep no dishwashers) or flushing the toilet.

Well it ends up that here in Panama we lose electricity basically every day. The appliances saying zero when you get home shows that the power went out while you were gone. Usually, when the power is out it is only a few minutes at a time but this day it was out for hours. From about 2 in the morning to noon.

That night at the meeting we lost power twice, one time was during my part on the meeting. The brother on stage would just have to step over to where they could read by the emergency battery lights and continue until the electricity was restored.

I have not forgotten

I just want everyone to know I will try to get some more postings up in the next day or so. It has been a very busy week here in Panama. The English group we are thinking of joining was having a visit from the Circuit Overseer this week so we have been doing long days down in David with the group there.

In addition we were originally scheduled to go to Changuinola this week but there was a new law passed in Panama about the Unions and because of a lot of misinformation and lies people started protesting and blocking off roads and things. There was also some violence between the protesters and the police with a few people being killed. This was all on the other side of the country, it has been fine and peaceful here where we are at. But it caused us to have to change plans this week.

So I will give some more information on each of these events and others soon.

Death From Above

If you have not read my previous post about our house please read that first, Thank You.

I have training in computers along with years working on them in homes, offices and all kinds of other locations. I have certifications in electronics design and repair from circuits to old CRT televisions. I have done a lot of home improvement with lighting and fans and other electrical devices. I have been shocked and even slightly electrocuted a few times over the years, I know explains a lot right. Anyway my point is I have a lot of respect, training and experience with electricity. I also know that there is one thing that you never ever mix with electricity. Can you guess what that is?

That's right water. Water and electricity don't mix, almost all hand held electric devices even have a tag on the plug that shows not to mix the two. 

So anyway I was looking around the house on the first day and went into the bathroom and looked at the shower. I had read about these before we got here but I still just couldn't believe my eyes. This is what greeted us.

Yep, that is an electric shower head. The houses here do not have hot water heaters. So if you want hot water you boil the water. So to get hot water in the shower they have an electric heater element in the shower head. The way you control the heat is to turn on the shower head heater and the slower you turn on the water the hotter it is and to cool it down you turn the water flow to higher speed. What is really fun is after you are done with the shower and you are half wet you get to reach up and turn the heater off. Michelle has designated me to do this so she takes the first shower then I take the second and turn it off on my way out. 

So if I don't make it, it was probably the shower head. Just kidding, I am fairly sure the grounding wire is properly hooked up.    

Home Sweet Casa - Volcan Panama

26 June 2010

Our Home in Panama

So we finally managed to get to the house in Volcan. The brother who picked us up offered to take us out to dinner or the store, but we were so tired we just wanted to unpack and rest for a while. It was about 4:30 and we had been traveling since 7:30 that morning so we just needed a break. He pointed out that we were also right across the street from a little corner market if we wanted to go there.

As he was leaving another car pulled up, it was another brother and his family, his wife and three children. They also offered to take us to the store if we needed it. He helped me get my cell phone set to English and gave me his number so we could call later if we needed it. About 20 minutes later one of the Elders called us on our cell phone and said that he just heard we were in town and if we needed anything to let him know and now we had his number. We have not even been in town an hour and already we are starting to feel at home.

We are staying in one half of a duplex, the brother just finished having the side we are staying in remodeled. The other side is being remodeled currently so we don't have anyone living next to us right now. The exterior is an orange color, we have found that people do unique things to their homes because there are no addresses here so you need to be different for people to know where you live.

We have a nice fence all around the house with a large orange gate that a car can drive through or a smaller door size one inside it that a person can enter through. We also have steel bars on our windows and door, these are painted red. We will talk more about it later but all security features are out there for everyone to see. In the States we kind of hide all of the security measures but here they want everyone to see how secure things are so they don't even try. (Example: There is a security guard up near the checkout lines of the supper market, he just stands there watching you walk around and shop. Very weird the first time you see that.) So it kind of looks like a bad neighborhood at first but even the best areas are like that here.

Michelle and I walk around town all the time and feel totally safe. There has only been once that we felt kind of nervous but we were out later than we probably should have been. The scariest person I have encountered so far was an American, he just looked bad and mean.

Anyway our house is really nice, it was fully furnished and we even have one of the rarest things in Panama...a clothes dryer. Almost no one has a dryer here, the few that you see are all gas dryers. We have a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom place.

Enjoy the pictures of our new place.

Adventures in Busing - David to Volcan

26 June 2010

David to Volcan Autobus

We just missed one of the buses to Cerro Punta that goes through Volcan. So we had to wait for the next bus. We were probably there for about 15 min when the next bus pulled up. I noticed this one said Cerro Punta but also below that in smaller letters it said Volcan so I knew this was the correct bus.

The autobus looks like a very large mini van with seating for around 35 people. On the front window of the bus it says what the town it goes to on its route. They all go from David to another town, some larger towns have a local bus that just stays around there all day. You can wait at the stops or you can flag the bus down like a taxi and let them know where you are going and if it is on their route they will take you there.

Because we got on at the station we were some of the first people on the bus. A guy helped us get all of our bags on the bus. They ended up taking up several seats on the bus, the helper didn't look very happy with us about that. I don't know why he didn't put them in the back or on top of the bus where there is a large luggage rack. All along the way the bus kept picking up people and dropping them off. Eventually all of the seats were filled, so we figured they would just be stopping to drop people off. That was not the case, they just kept picking up more and more people who just had to stand in the isle of the bus. Keep in mind that these buses are not very tall so the men had to bend or lean over while trying to keep their balance. I felt really bad because we were kind of boxed in so I couldn't get up to give my seat to someone else, and there were all of our bags taking up seats.

The brother we were going to meet in Volcan told me to call him when we were on the bus. I was able to get a hold of him and let him know we were on the bus. He was trying to tell me where to have the bus drop us off but my call dropped. I didn't know how to find out how many minutes we had left so I decided to wait and call again if we needed to. 

We noticed that we passed the location the brother told us to stop at, but in our embarrassment and lack of confidence with the language we just stayed on the bus. Once we got the courage up to tell the helper we missed our stop we were almost out of the town of Volcan. So they had to turn the bus around to take us back. We called the brother and let him know they were taking us back, so he went to go back there. Then they dropped us off only half way back to where we needed to go and I heard the word taxi. So we had to call the brother again and try to describe where we were at. All the while it is raining on us and all of our luggage.

The brother found us and picked us up in his truck, we put our bags in the bed and he took us to the house we will be staying in. We were so glad to see a friendly face and be able to communicate with someone again.