Further adventures: getting a haircut in Boquete

I was bragging only last week about not having been sick since arriving in Panama a year and a half ago. That brought on, upon awakening Saturday morning, the mother of all colds. My chest is congested, my head is congested, the area between my nose and upper lip is raw, the house sounds like a tuberculosis ward; you get the picture. So this morning, instead of greeting the day with my usual good humor and high expectations, I have been ruminating, in my debilitated state, on things that have gone wrong. I've mentioned many of them, I know, the petty frustrations in particular, but I haven't related a particular ongoing one: getting a haircut.

When we arrived, it was windy season, and my long, offswept bangs were more offswept than desirable. I turned first to my good friends Charly and Jane, who enthusiastically recommended Roxanne, conveniently located on the main street downtown. I went to see her (no appointment necessary, I was told) and found her engaged in a protracted coloring job. Having nothing in particular to do, I waited in a room filled with magazines in Spanish and eventually received a haircut. It was nothing to write home about, but it was serviceable, and Roxanne, though harried and not particularly amiable, seemed okay. So, I returned three or four weeks later to find her too engaged to fit me in. Returning the next day, she was similarly occupied and, without so much as a hello, pushed me off on a male haircutter in her shop. He scalped me. Larry teased me all week, as did various friends.

I heard from someone that there was an excellent haircutter at the more upscale salon in the new Los Establos Plaza. I dropped in and was told, although everyone was sitting around twiddling their thumbs, that an appointment would be necessary. I made an appointment and returned the next day to see Ronnie, a Scot married to a Panamanian woman. He was very chatty, but I understood less of what he said than I generally understand the locals. Neverthless, the haircut was pretty good, so I returned. A couple of times he didn't show up at my appointment time, allegedly having had to do some work on their farm (this information was relayed without apology), and on other occasions his cell phone didn't work, making appointments a chore in itself. But I stuck with him until he abruptly decided to return to Scotland for a year (to make some money).

Adrift again, I consulted my neighbor, Penny Ripple, who always looks like she dropped into Boquete off Fifth Avenue, and she recommended an American, John Marks. (She mentioned that he charges $15 as opposed to Panamanian $4, but she assured me that he was worth it, noting that she had been pleased with Ronnie for a while but that her style had "fallen off" after a while.) I called John and found him to be in Bocas housesitting for a friend. At the time he was to return, he decided instead to return to the U.S. to call on his ailing mother.

Keep in mind that I never started searching for a stylist before my hair was so far gone as to be embarrassing, so all the delays were giving me a positively feral look.

So I went back to Los Establos, where I made an appointment with Miriam, who was doing absolutely nothing at the time but insisted on gazing at her appointment book, largely blank, and "fitting me in" three days hence. The first cutting was fine--hell, anything was an improvement at that point--so I stopped by again in several weeks to make a second appointment, their telephone being consistently busy. When I arrived at the appointed time of 9:00 a.m., the shop wasn't open. I sat outside over a cup of coffee for twenty minutes or so until another of the stylists arrived, unapologetically, and went to open the door. Alas, she had left her keys at home. A second stylist arrived shortly thereafter, also without keys. One of them left for home and keys, apparently a long trip inasmuch as it took 45 minutes. Eventually, I received a haircut.

The third time I visited Miriam, she announced that they were closing the shop because the rent was too high in Los Establos. She didn't know where they would be relocating, but she took my phone number and said she would call with the information. When no call was forthcoming, I once again turned to Penny Ripple, who enthusiastically recommended Flory, on the second floor of the Don Andres building.

I dropped by the next day and, after some searching and questioning, finally came upon Flory's unmarked shop. She was very friendly and gave me a decent (not to say good) haircut, so I had the foresight to make another appointment in three weeks. When I arrived, she wasn't there, but her assistant, who was busy sweeping the floor, called her on her cell phone and she arrived within half an hour. I was not so lucky on my third visit, however. This time she was nowhere to be found, and the assistant explained, without apology, that she was attending a funeral. I waited a while, but Panamanian funerals involve a long church service and then a procession through town to the cemetery (tying up traffic for an eternity), so it was in vain. I decided that I had been pushed around enough and wasn't going to take it anymore.

A few days later Steve's wife Michelle showed up with a stunningly flattering haircut. Upon questioning, she said she had dropped into a barber shop up from Melo's, the feed and fertilizer store, and had seen the younger of the two men there. Filled with new hope, I ventured there myself days later, was swept into a chair, and, without any fuss or conversation, was given a haircut no better or worse than others I had received. Charge: $2.50. I've been going there ever since without incident. I'm just waiting for him, whatever his name is, to fall victim to the plague or be run over by a taxi. (Larry's first barber, Jaime, to whom he was inexplicably attached, dropped dead within a few months of Larry's first visit.)

My computer's hard drive crashed last week and I lost all my pictures. I feel too bad to go outdoors to take some, so this missive will be photograph free.

Bonnie