Varmints in the House

I'd rather write about the Christmas season in Boquete, but since it isn't over yet and there are bound to be even more stories, I'll fulfill my promise to fill you in on the army ants and the snake-in-the-house episodes. For better or worse, Larry wasn't present for either, as most of his waking hours are spent on the golf course. The more I think about it, I believe it was for the better as there was quite enough wrong thinking with just me in charge.

I've known about army ants for a long time. They called them driver ants when we were in Africa, and, although we never encountered them, the stories were legion. The passage of time doubtless has rendered my imperfect memory even more imperfect, but my recollection is that we were led to believe they were merciless devourers of any flesh in their path: sort of land piranhas (not to be confused with land sharks). Fortunately, that myth was dispelled by Doc and Charly, who told us early on that army ants forage primarily for insects and spiders. (It could be that African driver ants are more voracious, which is partly borne out by my research.) They, Doc and Charly, recounted coming upon army ants when they rented a house in Jaramillo. When the ants made it inside, they related, they simply cleared out and returned later to find everything clean as a whistle.

Army ants have been in the back garden several times, and even made it onto the back terrace once when we had lots of workers about. I was startled at the columns of ants up to two-feet wide, but was told by all present that they weren't a danger, just to leave them alone and get out of their way. So I had become somewhat used to them and didn't give any consideration to what I would do if they made their way inside. I should have realized that since we leave the patio doors open when we're home so the dogs can go in an out, it was a distinct possibility that they would pay a inside visit at some point.

Several Fridays ago, when Dalys was here cleaning the house, I ran a few errands downtown and returned to find the entire great room covered by a mass of scurrying ants. They had abandoned their neat columns and spread out everywhere. It's a large room, and the floor was positively boiling and seething with ants. Dalys was cleaning in the master bath and had no knowledge of their intrusion, and I didn't cry out for fear of alerting the dogs, who presumably were asleep in the bedroom. Common sense completely abandoned me, and the first thing I did was close the bedroom door, grab a can of bug spray, and spray the threshold of the open door leading to terrace in an effort to prevent any more from coming inside. This effectively trapped them inside, of course, so I was obliged to try to spray all of them, a nearly impossible task even before the spray can ran dry. I was afraid to open the front door because Juanita was napping on the front porch. Dalys finally emerged from the back and told me, too late, to just leave them alone, they wouldn't bite, and they would be gone within twenty minutes. But now there were dying ants and panic-stricken ants everywhere, with no place to run to, so the two of us set about trying to sweep the dead, the dying, and the panic-stricken into dust pans and out the door. This involved about an hour of frantic labor and, despite Dalys' assurances, a number of bites on my feet when a few became trapped beneath the straps of my sandals. Eventually the house was cleared of ants and order was restored.

Belatedly, I did a little Internet research and learned that they pose little threat to large animals, which generally can get out of the way in any case. But they do bite. And their bites inject a tissue dissolving substance which allows them reduce their prey to jelly so as to be able to consume it easily. That would account for the agonizing itching I suffered on my bitten foot for over a week, even in the absence of discernible bite marks. I further learned that they have no nest but, instead, at times of rest attach to each and form an enormous ant ball, with the queen protected in the center. Interestingly, none made their way up in walls or onto furniture; they confined themselves strictly to the floor. But they are said to climb trees and invade birds nests. I wish I had had my wits about me, had vacated the premises with the dogs and let them have their way with the spiders and other insects lurking throughout the house. Next time I'll be better prepared.

The snake is another story of delayed common sense. I came upon it when I again returned from a trip to town, opened the door, and spotted an intruder curled up in a corner by the front double doors. It's a fairly dark corner, so I'm surprised that I saw it at all and even more surprised that the dogs and Juanita, who were jumping around me in greeting, had not. I don't have a morbid fear of snakes and didn't run screaming through the house, but I'm aware that there are some extremely poisonous snakes in the tropics and that animals seldom ask questions beforehand. So my attention was focused on keeping the animals away from it while I tried to identify it. It was small, only about six to eight inches long, and marked with the ubiquitous brown and black of so many snakes, poisonous and non-poisonous. I was trying to get a look at its head, but the corner was in shadow and I couldn't get too close without alerting the critters to the fact that it was there. I finally called Edwin, who was working out back not far from the house, with the view of his taking charge of the dogs while I threw Juanita out front and then got a close-up look. Edwin strode insidewith his clippers still in his hand and, upon learning what the situation was, casually walked over to the snake, bent down, and decapitated it before I realized what he was doing. If I had been thinking straight, I would have predicted this inasmuch as Panamanians declare virtually every snake to be a fer-de-lance and, regardless of what they are, kill them without hesitation. (Alan Tenant tells a great story about being on a hike with some Panamanians and discovering a rare rat snake. In his excitement over the find, he pointed it out to his companions and was about to explain its importance when one of them chopped it into pieces with his machete before Alan could get a word out.) We hauled the dead snake outside in the sunlight, where I found no evidence of the triangular head common to vipers. I'm not sure what it was even after consulting three reptile books, but I'm pretty sure it was non-poisonous.

A couple of days later Jane was visiting with Christmas cookies and I told her about the incident. She advised that, although fer-de-lances are common in Chiriqui and even in some parts of the Boquete area, we are at an altitude which is out of their range. That sent me back to the Internet, where I discovered several different calculations, but the highest elevation reported for the fer-de-lance was 4265 feet. Jane and Barry's place is at about 4200 feet, and ours at about 4400. So that's one less thing I have to worry about, it seems. We do have eyelash vipers at this altitude, but they mostly hang out in the coffee bushes and other shrubbery and are rarer than the fer-de-lance, which can produce 50 or more young in a brood (or whatever you call a clutch of snakes). I also haven't seen any tarantulas or scorpions here, although Jane reports scorpions at their elevation. Now other spiders--large and small--are quite another matter. They're everywhere.

The varmint pictured above is Juanita Bonita, of whom we both are totally enamored. More on her later.

The Christmas Tree

To begin with, you men can just skip this one unless you have a decidedly nonmasculine interest in the erection and decoration of Christmas trees. Or unless you have a sadistic inclination to find joy in the misfortune of others.

Those of you who have known my Christmas trees of the past know that I have roughly 1,000 ornaments and that, in the best of times, putting my tree together for the holidays involves between 8 and 10 hours of hard work. This year was not the best of times.

Edwin's daughter, Denise, and Dalys's two children, Daisy and Roberto, had communicated an interest in helping with the tree trimming this year, so we set Tuesday, December 8th, for the date. That gave me three days from the culmination of my Spanish classes to get the tree up and string the lights, allowing time for a birthday dinner out on Friday night, the Florida/Alabama game on Saturday afternoon, and a leisurely pace getting ready. It's Larry job to put the tree together and retrieve all the boxes from storage, but he had a golf outing on Saturday morning and was too consumed with the game that afternoon to do more than unload the tree from the box. He put it together Sunday morning, however, and left me to unfurl and fluff out the branches while he alternately watched football on t.v. and punished the lawn practicing his golf swing. After a couple of hours unfurling and fluffing, I set about unwinding the lights and then winding them around the tree. I grew tired after a while and put off the completion of the task until Monday. For once I had allowed myself plenty of time, and my back was aching from all the reaching up and bending down. The golf course is closed on Monday, so I could count on Larry's help with the highest spots.

Monday dawned bright and clear and, after making some preliminary moves toward the preparation of lunch for myself, Larry, and Edwin, I tackled the lights with renewed enthusiasm. Just as I got past the midpoint, however, I realized that I wasn't going to have enough of the little buggers. There were plenty last year, but I had done some branch winding (as all the professional tree trimmers advise) and had overshot my supply of twelve strings. So I dashed downtown with an hour to spare before having to get serious about lunch only to discover that there were no clear, non-blinking lights to be had in the town of Boquete. Distressed, I returned home, completed and ate lunch, and announced that a trip to David that afternoon was unavoidable. Larry deemed such a trip to be foolhardy, so he called Doc/Charly/Ramon to find out if they had any clear, unblinking Christmas tree lights to spare. They offered three strings, only one of which worked. And one of my remaining three strings didn't work.

So it was off for a whirlwind trip to David, which, I found when I arrived, was approximately 110 degrees. Arrocha, the big housewares store where we had purchased lights last year, had the entire back wall filled with shelves of Christmas tree lights, but not one strand of clear lights. I hadn't anticipated this possibility; Panamanians' love of color tends toward the garish, so I figured clear lights would be the last to go. A trip to three other stores in the same shopping complex was similarly fruitless: plenty of colored lights, musical lights, icicle lights, but no small, clear lights. Sweating from every pore in my body, I drove across town, through David's hellish traffic, to a big grocery/hardware/everything store which at first appeared to have NO Christmas items. As I was leaving, however, I stumbled across an aisle with Christmas paraphernalia. (Marketing, like customer service, is not the Panamanian businessman's strong suit. This particular store chain, which carries most everything but in a very hodgepodge way, is owned by the current President of Panama, which gives me pause.) After a lengthy shuffling through of items in complete disarray, I came away with six boxes of clear, unblinking lights. I made my way home on the pot-holed two-laned highway filled with activities of all sorts, showered, and set about finishing up the stringing of the lights before the arrival of the kids the next morning.

There were some moments of anxiety when two-thirds of the tree went dark shortly after completion. Larry came to the rescue, eventually located a bad connection, and set everything right. The morning with the kids is a whole nother story (Daisy dropped and broke the first two ornaments she touched and then got bored; Denise did a fine job except for hiding the best ornaments behind other ornaments or tree limbs; and Roberto, who was attracted to the very small ornaments, placed every one of them within an inch of each other on about one one-hundredth of the tree.) In any event, we were moving right along until, about an hour into the chore, most of the lights went out again. I did my best to find the source of the problem but, with three children underfoot and lots of ornaments already on the tree, it was a hopeless task. The children would have been crushed if I had called the whole thing off, so we continued to decorate; all the while I had the sinking feeling that I probably was going to have to take the whole thing apart, sort out the light problem, and redecorate. I fed them lunch early and took them home as quickly as I could. Time elapsed: roughly 10 hours, not counting the trip to David.

Upon returning, I did, in fact, have to undecorate large parts of the tree, but I eventually found a very hot connection, unplugged it, and replugged a string into another outlet. Most of the lights were restored, but an area of about eight inches around the bottom of the tree was dark. Thus, another 45-minute drive to David, back to the store where I had finally found the clear lights, only to find that there were no more clear lights. Eventually, i.e., after about 30 minutes of shuffling through all the shelves, I found some other clear lights of the LED variety, considerably smaller than the ones already on the tree. Having no other option, however, I bought them and drove the 25 miles or so back to Boquete amid dense pre-holiday traffic, construction vehicles, livestock trucks, dogs and chickens in the road, etc., etc. The lights looked fine, and a complete nervous breakdown on my part narrowly avoided. I rehung ornaments and redistributed those hung by the kids. And the tree is finally up. I figure a total of 18 or more hours were devoted to the endeavor.

I'll write soon about a recent invasion of the house by army ants, as well as about the snake that greeted me inside the front door as I returned from shopping day before yesterday. I know you'll be relieved to hear about some real tropical adventure. But I assure you that neither the ants nor the snake, as alarming as they were, were as stressful as the Christmas tree.

Holiday time

The holidays have begun in earnest. We're in the midst of an onslaught of holidays, there having been four in November already and another tomorrow. Two of the five holidays in November celebrate independence from Spain and from Colombia; one of those is tomorrow, but I can't remember which. In any case, it's a biggie. The fairgrounds as well as property across the street from the fairgrounds have suddenly sprouted huge erector-set-looking structures to support lights and amps, and stages have been under construction throughout town all week. President Martinelli is scheduled to put in an appearance in Boquete tomorrow, I just read, so we can anticipate a full complement of militia to accompany him. Schools let out in early December, to accommodate the coffee-picking season, and then Christmas doings get in full swing. No serious business will be transacted until Carnivale is over in February.

Then we had our own holiday yesterday. I sent Edwin home for the day and set about roasting a turkey, making dressing, putting together a sweet potato casserole from sweet potatoes miraculously found being sold at market from a gringo farm in Santa Marta, and making a blueberry pie from scratch (except the blueberries, which were from a can since they aren't grown here for whatever reason). We shared the bounty with Doc, Charly, and Ramon. Charly brought some green beans cooked with ginger and garlic, and Ramon baked and delivered four loaves of bread. We hadn't seen much of them lately because Doc has been sick with a respiratory infection for eight weeks, so it was a great visit.

Spanish class is winding down, though we've had extra classes (and extra homework) to make up for the days lost to holidays. While I've been studying like crazy, Larry has been playing golf at Cielo Paraiso. Raideep, who loves playing with Larry because their handicaps are close, made him an unbelievable deal on a membership with the understanding that he would be available to play whenever Raideep wants to play which, thus far, has been five or six days a week. (This has to be one of the oddest friendships ever: the wealthy, worldly Canadian businessman of Indian descent who vacations in Hong Kong and the south of France, and good ole redneck Larry.) Between rounds of golf, he (Larry) has had six root canals and gum surgery in preparation for getting some new plates in his mouth. He goes straight from dental surgery to the golf course. This says a lot about the skill of Panamanian dentists and the power of golf. This fulltime golf has improved his temperament immeasurably, as it has mine. Not only does it get him out from underfoot all day; it also has served to silence the relentless sound of t.v. sports.

As I write, Juanita Bonita is tangled in computer cords and is within an inch of strangling herself to death. It's my understanding that some folks have aloof cats. Not my luck.

I read in the Democrat today about the opening of an Old Navy store and am proud to report that a major department store, Conways, whose main store is in Panama City, is within days of opening in David. I know because George and I went to David early this morning to deliver a sofa (which I unwisely had upholstered in white two years ago when we first moved into the house) to be reupholstered in a color more suitable for our lifestyle. After dropping off the sofa and chatting with Juan, the upholsterer, I was eager to get back to Boquete to prepare lunch for myself, Edwin, and Dalys prior to class. But George is not one for traveling as the crow flies or for quickly and efficiently accomplishing one thing when so many other things await his attention reasonably close to the original route. So we dropped by the shop of a t.v. repairman to see about a job for another of George's clients. When the repairman proved not to be there, it necessitated a trip out to Pricesmart, where the repairman also works. Alas, Pricesmart doesn't open until 10:00, but George spent several minutes unsuccessfully trying to gain entrance from a security guard. (Virtually all businesses have a totally unnecessary security guard who spends the day milling around and getting in the way of customers.) We then ventured on to the building department to obtain a plat or plans of some sort for another of George's patrons, encountering the usual bureaucracy and attendent loss of time. Thereafter, we were headed in the general direction of Boquete when I casually mentioned that my Spanish teacher had said Conways was to open today, which precipitated a detour to ascertain the truth or falsity of the assertion. We navigated a parking lot filled with cars and construction vehicles and parked right up front, whereupon George interrogated a number of people before being satisfied that the actual scheduled opening is for December 3rd. Ultimately, we began the trip back, but not without George taking a number of side trips to point out various things he thought would be of interest to me. Upon arriving home, we encountered Steve and Garreth installing a driftwood bench which had been languishing in the garage for months during which time Steve made infrequent trips to see if it was dry, to varnish it, to drill holes in it, to check on it, etc. It is now firmly cemented into the ground, although I was left with the job of painting the mounting apparatus. And that made two more mouths to feed at lunch. Another day in Panama.

The picture is of Larry, Edwin, and Dalys on the day of Edwin's birthday lunch.

Why Panamanians Love Larry

One of the nice things about being retired is that one has the leisure, now and then, to ruminate on troublesome questions. I've been ruminating on one thing since we arrived here: Why do all Panamanians, without exception thus far, adore Larry?

Now, I don't think I'm unpopular. In fact, I've made a fair number of Panamanian friends--even good friends. But my popularity in no way compares to Larry's. The faces of the townspeople light up when they see him, whether here at the house, downtown, or on the road. Horns toot, hands flutter, and there're shouts of "Lahreee, Lahreee." He just may be the most popular gringo hereabouts. They connect to him somehow.

Not surprisingly, Edwin provided the first clue when he observed, one day during lunch, "Larry's not like other gringos." It's been my observation that "other gringos," even in their retirement, are pretty goal-driven. They set about a task purposefully and take pride in executing it properly and punctually. In addition to setting up their own households and struggling with cultural differences, expats in Boquete have organized food drives, created a cultural center, started reading programs for children, developed and staffed an association for the handicapped, put on plays, held fundraisers for the local orphanage, spayed or neutered every animal they can get their hands on, improved school facilities, outfitted local sports teams, and on and on. While it wouldn't be fair to say that these efforts are not appreciated, the locals pretty clearly don't understand what all the fuss is about.

For the most part, Panamanians tend to live day to day, with little forethought. This goes a long way toward explaining many of the society's ills, but it also makes for a population of generally happy-go-lucky people. They're helpful to others, but they have neither the temperament nor the resources for much organized effort. So there's a disconnect between the gringo mindset and the Panamanian mindset. And this, in turn, makes relationships somewhat uneasy. While Panamanians are unfailingly affable and gracious towards us extranjeros, they clearly don't understand us and find us to be in many ways foolish. They envy our money and worldliness, but believe us too meticulous for our own good. Foreigners, although they rarely will admit it, see Panamanians as innocents, in need of help and direction so as to improve their lot in life.

Larry is simply more Panamanian by temperament than he is gringo. He takes retirement seriously and curently has relatively little ambition other than improving his golf game. He lives pretty much day-to-day, and likes people for what they are rather than for he would have them be. When his Panamanian friend Michelle was fired from her job by the jealous wife of the business owner, Larry took her out to lunch to commiserate. When he's on the way home from the supermarket and sees Chollo, our garbageman, out in front of his house, Larry stops to chat and offer him a cold beer. He made a friend for life of Gabriel, one of our more well-to-do neighborhood residents, when he noticed a Gator tag on the front of his vehicle and simply dropped in to inquire about it. (Gabriel and his son both attended the University of Florida, it turns out.) And when Yessika, who delivers our propane tanks, confided that she was planning a vacation to Mexico, Larry slipped her a twenty to help with expenses.

And confide they do. Larry can't speak a word of Spanish, but he manages lengthy conversations with everyone, and they tell him things they'd never tell me or any other gringo. When Eduardo, a member of the local police force, lamented to Larry that his wife was in town for the day and didn't know anyone, Larry brought her and their baby home to spend the day with us. George, our electrician/plumber/facilitator, just drops in from time to time to chat with Larry and seek his advice about business matters. Members of the construction crew on our house run him down in the street to pass the time of day. Larry's just one of 'em.

Edwin's comment about Larry not being like other gringos arose out of an incident which had been related to Edwin by a Panamanian witness to the event. Larry had been at the Accel service station buying a phone card when one of the younger employees, Fernando, surreptitiously moved outside and took a six pack of beer from the car, making sure Larry saw him as he stepped around the corner to hide. There ensued a chase two or three times around the station and a mock battle over the beer, right on the main road through Boquete. One doesn't play jokes on gringos, Edwin explained, and gringos don't playfully chase Panamanians around. But, as Edwin says, Larry's not like any other gringo, and the Panamanians love him for it.

(Cats love him, too, as evidenced by the attached picture. Caught cat-napping.)

Back to School

I'm now two weeks into my Spanish classes and busy as the proverbial beaver. There're only three of us in the class, so it's pretty intense. Three days a week, two hours a day--three hours this week to make up for the national day of mourning last week in honor of a former Presidente who died. And lots of homework. Our teacher is a young Panamanian (19 is my guess), Gustavo Quintero, who is competent, well-prepared, and a real delight. He's the only Panamanian I've encountered who has freckles. His dedication and good humor makes exercising my aging brain for up to four hours a day a little easier. I'm not sure what level the school assigned me to, based on both a written and an oral test, but it seems to be perfect: review of lots of stuff I knew but either had forgotten or wasn't using, and lots of new stuff. I'm a bit ahead of my two classmates, but not much. It's just enough to make me study with fervor to stay ahead.

Our friend Doc has been sick for two weeks with a cold that made its way into his chest. Because he seemed to getting worse rather than better, he finally gave in to our imprecations to see a doctor, and his visits to the Boquete clinic have given rise to some enviable blogs. Since I have little to report other than the intricacies of Spanish reflexive verbs, I offer Doc's most recent blog in my stead. It's entitled "Clandestine Clinic."

Fine, thanks. Still coughing up amphibians, but other than that, feeling better.

Doctora Ana Lopez is a sweet young thing, albeit formal and matter-of-fact. After stethoscoping me here and there while telling me to breathe deeply so I could show off the roiling and rumbling ruckus in my lower lungs, she sentenced me to a three day affair with her nurse starting that very day. Off we scampered to our own private room where, after I had rolled up my sleeves in the classic let's get to work gesture, Nurse I-Don't-Know-Her-Name smiled and indicated that bare arms won't do. What she wanted, she told me in Spanish, was that I should drop trou and climb up on the examining table so that she could do her thing. Alrighty then, I thought, but being both shy and coy, I suggested in English that she go first. To clarify, I said, "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours." She stood there grinning but not moving, so I took the initiative and climbed up on the white paper covered hard as rock cot-like table and scooched my jeans down about half moon. The needle she then stuck in my left cheek bore some chemical that could accurately be called liquid fire. Yikes, I thought, what lousy foreplay! These medical types are a bunch of freaks. But before I could voice my complaints, Nurse Now-Smiling-Hugely said "Listo," and I could tell that even though it had been a little painful for me, it had been good for her. A satisfied woman is a joy to behold.

We made plans to get together and do it all over the next day. By the third day though (today), the magic was gone. The shine, the glow, the very luster of our naughty affair had dulled to a matter of ordinary routine. When I pulled up my jeans at the end of the session, I turned to my smiling, needle-wielding intimate and told her we just couldn't go on. It was hasta la vista and ciao baby for me and her. I had to get down the road. I'll say this for her. She took it well. Her smile never wavered. It still lit up the room like a power surge even though behind the shine I could see the hurt settling in. She'll be all right, I thought. She's a tough one. She'll survive. Someday another pale pink rounded rump will find its way to her table and she'll happily plunge her needle to the hilt in the cheek of her choice. When she does, I thought, I hope for just moment, she'll think of me.

Actually, Doc made it out of the house last night to join a few of us for a dinner here celebrating Larry's and Charly's birthdays. Knowing that I was occupied with my scholarly pursuits, Maryellen made the lasagna and salad. I picked up the bread and birthday cake from a relatively new French bakery across town. We convened at 5:00, and I was showing everyone out the door at 8:00. We blamed Doc's health, but, truth be told, we were all ready for bed (except for Larry, who was deep into the Florida/LSU game). Retirement is exhausting, I tell you.

Banking in Panama

I should have known better than to mention, in my last blog, that we had lived for a short while free of the Panamanian bureaucracy and were enjoying a tranquil existence as a result. Vengeance began last week with an enigmatic e-mail, in Spanish, from a functionary in the David branch of our bank asking me to report to the Boquete branch to complete some unfinished paperwork relating to our home mortgage. But let me go back a bit.

Our original construction loan, taken out before we left the States, was with Banistmo, which since has been bought out by HSBC. There was some mix-up in the filing of the final paperwork--maybe Banistmo's fault, maybe our lawyer's--who knows?--the correction of which would have resulted in our losing our 20-year tax exemption. So, after a year of trying to work things out, the only alternative appeared to be to refinance with another bank. The decision was made at Fatima's office in David, so, after a telephone call, she sent me to the Global Bank branch in David. This was early October 2008. I filled out some paperwork and was approved on the spot. Nine months later, i.e., in June 2009, the final papers were signed. Everything was shuffled back and forth between Global in David, Global in Panama City, Banistmo in Boquete, and Banistmo in Panama City, and then all over again when Banistmo was merged with HSBC. It was excruciating. Delays, lost paperwork, dozens of trips back and forth to David, hundreds of e-mails, hundreds of phone calls. I could write a book on what we went through. The closing itself, in June, with the aid of a translator/interpreter (who was the only competent person encountered in the long, sorry ordeal) took three hours and approximately five pounds of paperwork. But at last it was done. So I thought.

After a brief respite I undertook the chores of adding Larry to the Global account (since he wasn't with me when I opened it in David) and adding Derek in the event that anything happened to us as one never, ever wants to go through probate in Panama. (Everyone forms a corporation to purchase property because there is no tenancy by the entireties in Panama law, so all owners and heirs are written into the corporation documents to avoid probate.) When I approached the Boquete branch about adding Derek to the account, they said it would have to be done in David because that's where the account was. Exactly same bank, mind you, just a different branch. Not wanting to have to journey to David for every little banking matter, I asked if the account could be transferred to Boquete. At first I was told yes, then, during a subsequent visit, no. But we could open a new account in Boquete and close the one in David. Alrighty then, as Doc says, let's do it. Not unexpectedly, there were foul-ups in executing what should be a simple matter, and a number of weeks passed before this was accomplished. When I showed up to add Derek to the account, I was told that it would be easier to simply make him the beneficiary, so I signed a document to that effect. Then Larry was added in mid-July, after three trips by the two us to submit paperwork that they hadn't told us about on the previous trip(s). That's the history, in a nutshell.

So, in response to last week's e-mail about mortgage-related paperwork, I dutifully (there's that word again) reported to Ana at Global Bank in Boquete to see what it was all about. I first was told that there were three forms that had been completed but had not been signed by me--just an oversight. The three forms--a mortgage application, a personal profile, and a designation of beneficiary--were offered in blank form for my signature. I advised that I was confident I had signed all forms proffered and, furthermore, was not in the habit of signing blank forms. This provoked a telephone call to the e-mail originator in David, from whom it was learned that the three forms in question were, in fact, wholly missing from the file. I suggested that, given all the shuffling between David and Panama City, the missing forms probably resided at Global in the capital city. We couldn't connect with the appropriate person there, so I left it with Ana to try to run them down. After all, the mortgage was a done deal; Banistmo/HSBC had been paid off and my property tax exemption saved.

After I got home, however, I started worrying about the beneficiary form and, given the months of agony suffered at the hands of Panama banks, became sorely aggravated. I therefore e-mailed Carmen at the bank, an official in the Boquete branch with a private office, with whom I had met before on some other issue and whom I judged to be somewhat competent, and expressed my misgivings about the whole affair. She wrote back the next day:

"I do need you to please stop over at the Boquete Branch if possible today and if you could bring your passport and if your husband could come in with you I would really appreciated.
I cant find the forms or the copies of the passports and I do apologize for it. If you could please stop over and see me at my office so we can make copies and sign the required paperwork to add your husband into the accounts."

Now, in case you missed it, this is an issue separate and distinct from missing mortgage documents. It became apparent to me that, in the bank's search for the mortgage records, they had discovered that other records were missing, too. I flew down to the bank and marched into the office of the Manager, an imposing looking woman named Sra. Casta Castillo. After a very perfunctory "Buena dia," I thrust a copy of the e-mail exchanges at her and started in on having received no answer to the problem of the mortgage paperwork but having learned in the process that other paperwork was missing as well. I was deep into my spiel before realizing that she doesn't speak English. Flustered, she finally managed to get Ana and Carmen into her office and, after protracted discussion with them and a number of telephone calls to Global elsewhere, advised me, via Carmen, that Boquete had lost the paperwork on Larry and had lost the Derek-as-beneficiary form. The problem with the mortgage documents, on the other hand, related to the loan being personal while the property is owned by our corporation; no records were missing, but several needed to be altered to accurately reflect that. The beneficiary form needed by the mortgage department was one linking us personally to the corporation in terms of the mortgage. So we got it worked out, requiring two more trips and Larry's presence again, but not without my reminding them repeatedly that one issue came to light only because another had arisen and that their incompetency had threatened my son's eventually having access to our money.

So I've now dealt with three Panama banks, each one as bad as the others. And I've learned at least two things: never underestimate the fecklessness of Panama bank employees, and never put more money than you absolutely have to in a Panama bank. This is the Switzerland of America?????

During all this paper shuffling, I realized that our U.S. passports expire in January. They can be renewed only at the U.S. embassy in Panama City, which, with travel, will require two days, which, because of my impending Spanish classes, will have to be done right away. So we're off Monday the 21st to Panama City for another round of bureaucracy.

Just shoot on up here amongst us . . . .

August in the Valley of the Flowers

We've had a much better August this year than last. So far the rainy season has been as advertised: mostly late afternoon and/or evening showers, beautiful days. No major headaches this month, which means we have steered clear of bureaucracy, by and large. And I've found a new haircutter, Renny, a member of the garden club who has a small and select clientele she administers to in her home. I discovered that she possesses this talent only last Sunday, when she and her husband, Austin, visited us for a few hours, but I'm convinced that I'm going to be looking better. She owned a salon back in Houston, where Austin was a superintendent at the Houston Port Authority. Because she has spoken Spanish for 28 years and also has a degree in Education, the government of Panama has hired her to teach English at the university in David several days a week, and she and Austin both are fine gardeners and great cooks They're keeping busy in retirement, and I'm glad she agreed to work me into her schedule.

On the subject of personal appearance, I continue to have to buy new clothes, as I'm now down to a size 6. I'm healthy, though, so I suppose it's because of better food and eating habits.

And on the subject of language instruction, I'm going back to school later this month. Habla Ya, the local Spanish language school, is offering a 2 for 1 deal for residents of Boquete through December, so Ramon and I have paired up to take advantage of the deal. We begin on September 28, when Doc and Charly return from a trip to NYC to visit their daughters (Ramon is in charge of the fur-faced fiends while they're gone), and will be attending class three days a week, two hours a day, for two months for $250 each. My Spanish is better than pretty good, but I'd really like to become almost fluent.

We're finally getting out of house more as most of the major work is done around here. Larry plays golf twice a week, once with Doc and Charly at Valle Escondido, and once at Cielo Paraiso, the very fancy development south of town. Because we're friends with the developers, Raideep and Colleen Lal, they waived the $25,000 initiation fee (!) and give him a reduced rate of $60 for play on their PGA certified course. He's in a foursome with Raideep, the golf pro Liz, and the chef-to-be (when they get the hotel and restaurant up and running) George, a Greek who owns two restaurants back in their hometown of Toronto. He (Larry) has bought all new golf togs so he'll fit in and has worn out the grass in the backyard practicing. His handicap is improving and he's happy as a you-know-what.

We had dinner at George's house last Friday night, and what a treat! In addition to fabulous appetizers, he served a standing rib roast, the first exceptional beef we've had since coming here. The owner of Super Baru, the finest grocery store in David, is owned by Spiro, also (as you might have guessed) Greek, whom George befriended so as to have access to comestibles (food) not generally available. We hope to benefit, too, by the association. We were joined at the dinner party by Raideep and Colleen, Colleen's uncle "Tio," and the foremost orthopedic surgeon in Panama, Yacko Barrios, and his wife. It was a lively evening as George, Raideep, and Yacko are characters of the first order. I worried a bit about the amount of alcohol consumed by Yacko as he was scheduled to operate on my friend Jane's knee early Monday morning, but both Raideep and George testified to his competence by demonstrating a shoulder and a foot, respectively, set aright recently by Yacko's skills.

The following morning I traveled to Potrerillos to visit Bill Streit and Donna O'Toole, who bought and have restored the house and gardens of Noriega's so-called "summer palace." I received the full tour, including the former helicopter landing pad, guard towers, outdoor party area complete with kitchen and dance floor, and a beneath-the-staircase locked compartment within which was a safe within a safe. They've managed to get through the locked door and the first safe, but have been stymied by the second safe. They confided that they've given up the effort for the time being for fear of what they might find. They've had plenty of other things to do like modernizing the house and rebuilding the large garden area, which is lovely. I forgot to take my camera, but they're hosting the garden club next month so I may get some pictures yet.

On Wednesday I took friends Sandy and Gaby to Volcan and Cerro Punta, primarily to point out the location of the many nurseries over there. It was my second trip in two weeks, as Jane, Steve, and I went to a special heliconia sale at the home of Carla Black, a legendary heliconia grower, a couple of Saturdays back. I came away with some fine specimens.

Juanita Bonita now is fully integrated into the family. She's determined to be the queen of the house and, at less than two pounds, terrorizes the dogs. When she's not playing with her own tail, she's leaping out from behind furniture to attack a wagging dog tail. I bought her some cat toys which we keep in a bowl on a console behind the sofa. When she takes a notion to play with them rather than tails, she jumps on the table and methodically throws each one on the floor. She then zips all over the house, batting and biting them. Her quickness fascinates and confuses Chyna and Trudy. We've all finally become accustomed to catching, out of the corners of our eyes, a flash of white now and then. We give the dogs raw bones every afternoon. She refuses to be ignored or to be placated with something lesser, so she now receives a bone, too, which she guards with her life. She's a joy, but we throw her out into her own cushy bed when we go to bed because she habitually wakes up at odd hours and makes all sorts of mischief.

We've gotten two huge bunches of bananas off our trees, and the strawberry guavas produce at a rate that neither we nor the birds can keep up with. My lemon trees have yet to produce, however, although the herb garden is thriving. Everything else is flowers, flowers, flowers. The photo attached is of an orchid called the Espiritu Santo, the Holy Ghost Orchid, Panama's national flower.

From the land of eternal spring

I hosted the Love to Garden Club monthly meeting at our house Thursday before last, the preparations for which were extensive. Edwin, sensing that his reputation as the finest gardener of the finest garden in Boquete was on the line, kicked into high gear. Also, getting wind of the upcoming occasion, Steve swept in to solidify his reputation as the finest landscape designer. He, along with son Garreth, set up shop in the garage for over a week, constructing three trellises: one to hide the unslightly satellite dishes (we have two: one for Panamanian tv and one for the bootleg Puerto Rican setup which carries US network channels), one to train a vine up and over the entrance to the garage, and one to break up an expanse of front wall that was declared, as though it were a mortal sin, "naked of adornment." While on the premises, of course, his discerning eye spotted various plants that, to Edwin's consternation, needed to be repositioned. One was a bird of paradise that I had purchased at Lulu's Tropical Gardens in David which had been placed in a front bed to complement an already existing one. Steve wisely pointed out that what I had bought was indeed a bird of paradise, i.e., a strelitzia, but was a stretlitzia nicolai, whereas the more common bird of paradise that previously had been planted is a stretlitzia reginae. While this suggests a negligible difference, the latter grows to a maximum of three feet, but the former can reach 30 feet. So repositioned it was, although it took all three of us quite a bit of time to find space to accommodate so large a plant. Following the erection of the trellises, Steve and I were off to the viveros (plant nurseries) to select just the right climbing plant for each, a chore that consumed half a day. After a lot of haggling among me, Steve, Garreth, and the various nurserymen, we settled on a red passiaflora (passion flower) for the garage, a sweet-smelling star jasmine vine for the front of the house next to the bedroom window, and an antignon with a tiny pink flower for the satellite camouflaging structure. The latter two choices were particularly vexing because we wanted to preserve a view of trellises themselves, which sport very artistic designs courtesy of Steve.

For those of you not rendered comatose from botanical terminology, I move on to the neutering of Juanita last Sunday. It took place at what is called a mini spay and neuter clinic, i.e., an interim one at which only a few animals are spayed or neutered and a few veterinarians employed, as opposed to the maxi clinics, held four times a year, involving a team of vets to render nonprocreative a hundred or more dogs and cats. In an effort to effect some sort of organization on what is generally all out chaos, Ruby McKenzie, the president of Amigos de Animales de Boquete and organizer of the clinics, elected to assign appointment times. Juanita's designated time was 10:00 a.m., so we dutifully showed up at 9:30 to complete the registration process. (I've noticed, and I'm sure you have to, that I use the word "dutifully" a lot in the these blogs. I'm equally sure that you've noticed that my being dutiful was to of no avail in any instance. There was to be no exception here.) I observed a lot of animals about: in kennels, tied to trees, tied up in bags, straining at leashes--all barking or caterwauling. After filling out the requisite forms and contributing $20 towards a $5 charge, I was assigned number 25. This puzzled me a bit since we were early on the schedule, so I asked what number currently was under the knife. "Number 3," I was told. There was only one vet that day, a Costa Rican who had driven over and arrived late, and the first patient had been a pregnant rottweiler who first had to be aborted and then had presented complications in the subsequent spaying. Clearly, too, the appointment process had broken down somehow as 25 animals could not possibly have been envisioned to have been operated on in an hour and a half. "It'll be a while," the registrars needlessly advised. After a long, hot, noisy time--without food, drink, or a book to read--Juanita and I returned home at 2:30, both of us pretty cranky.

This reminds me whenever there are two or more expats together, talk inevitably turns to some trial or tribulation of Panama living, large or small. The mention of a troublesome issue just as inevitably leads to analysis of what should be done or should have been done. Inevitably, too, someone leads off a sentence with, "Now, logically . . . ," whereupon the other or others hold up their hands to remind the speaker that logic plays no role whatsoever in Panamanian thinking. It is as futile to be logical as it is to be dutiful. On Friday, for example, Larry and I were in David to try to purchase a few needed items (notice the use of "try"). At our first stop, when I opened my wallet at the cash register, I noticed that my cedula (Panama national identification card) was missing. As it is widely known that replacing a cedula is a bureaucratic nightmare to end all Panamanian bureaucratic nightmares, I was shaken. I said nothing to Larry for fear of his falling completely to pieces (he copes less well than most with bureaucratic nightmares), but I was occupied throughout the shopping spree and the trip home with mental machinations of where my cedula might be. Because it holds a very secure place in my wallet, I was fairly certain that it hadn't dropped out anywhere, so I concentrated on when I had last removed it for some official purpose. I eventually came to the conclusion that it had last left my hands at the bank Tuesday when we had visited to add Larry to a recently opened account. There had been lots of paper shuffling and rubber stamping and information gathering, and my cedula had been needed. So I called the bank Friday afternoon, and, sure enough, it was there tucked away in a drawer awaiting my realization that it was there and my retrieval. I was relating the story to Charly last night and pointed out that among the information the bank had gathered on Tuesday was our e-mail address and phone number, so I couldn't understand why they hadn't contacted me, knowing how vital one's cedula is. "Logically," I began. Charly threw up her hands.

Finally, more monkey business. Steve moved on to erect a fence for Doc/Charly/Ramon to contain the chicken killers after prettying up our place for the Garden Club meeting. He set up shop in our garage, however, because they don't have one and he needed a level and dry location. On his arriving one morning this past week, one leg and one hand were heavily bandaged. He explained, in very colorful language, that Pookie, one of their two tamarin monkeys, had escaped from its cage, come across the lawn, come into the house, and attacked him while he was at the top of a ladder installing dry wall. Pookie, an accomplished escape artist, he elaborated, hates all men and him in particular. She previously had gotten out and attacked both Garreth and Steve's father, the latter of whom, a very distinguished little man, had been enjoying morning coffee and a newspaper on the front porch. But the attack on Steve had been paticularly vicious, the bite on his hand having gone all the way to the bone. He hypothesized that a man or men had abused Pookie somewhere in her past and that she was set on vengeance. Although they can be docile, tamarins are feared by other monkeys, he said he has read, because of their bad temperament when riled and because of their shark-like teeth. I recalled having held and cuddled with the tamarins at Paradise Gardens. I guess they had had a good day.

New members of the family

We've been regrouping since Demaris' and Juvenal's departure. With the rainy season now in full swing, it was no time to lose a gardener, so we did some budget work and decided to put Edwin on fulltime (five days a week) and seek a housekeeper for only one day rather than two. Edwin had been lobbying for the job for some time. He complained bitterly about Juvenal's work, for one thing. He considers this his garden, for another, and kept saying that he just didn't have the time to keep it up as he wanted it kept up. He objected to going all over town and up and down mountains to various clients, and simply didn't like several of his employers. Most importantly, fulltime employment also would make him eligible for "seguro social," which, in Panama, entitles one not only to retirement benefits but also to national health insurance, sick days, bonus payments every four months, and various legal remedies related to employment. When we told him he had the job, at an increase in pay from $16 to $18 a day, he was quite possibly the happiest man in Boquete. In the two weeks he's been on the job, he's whipped the garden into shape and taken charge of the running of the household--ordering fertilizer and chemicals, cleaning out the garage, reminding us about garbage days, washing the car, sprigging grass between plants in the upper garden, and reminding us repeatedly that we need to do this or that. He now has his eye on the orchid casita, which needs some cleaning and rearranging, and has requisitioned a pressure washer. Who knows where this will lead, but so far he's got us organized to within an inch of our lives, beginning at 7:00 a.m., when he pokes his head in the window of the computer room and tells me his plans for the day and suggests what mine should be. He often inquires about the lunch menu at this time, too.

I hired a facilitator to help with the seguro social enrollment (the cost of which is not inconsiderable). I had lots of written material and local lore, but it all was contradictory. The one thing everyone agrees on is that it's the most byzantine of Panama's many byzantine government programs. The consensus is that the staff members are obstructionist about enrolling workers because the government doesn't want to have to pay for their health needs. On the other hand, if an employer is caught with an employee who should be on seguro social but who is not, the penalties are swift and financially severe. Once overcoming the enrollment hurdle, there are further difficulties because certain things can only be done on certain days of the month, the paperwork required monthly is beyond burdensome, and no one in the office speaks of word of English. Moreover, the rules change regularly--so regularly that my facilitator, Stephanie, advised that we had best pay a visit first to determine exactly what the rules were in effect on that day of the week. With her aid, we had everything accomplished in just two visits--a record, according to everyone I've spoken to. Stephanie's also going to handle the voluminous paperwork. I have confidence in her because she is a native Panamanian who spent most of her life in the U.S., from kindergarten until age 18, and therefore has a stateside education and a stateside sense of responsibility. She came highly recommended by my friend and neighbor Penny Ripple, who is quite a taskmaster.

We began the search for a housekeeper and ended up with someone we already know and like: Doc, Charly, and Ramon's neighbor and gardener Dalys (pronounced DAH-leese). She lives right up the road with her husband and several of her six children, and we've come to know them and like them. She's worked two Fridays now and is a delight. She even speaks some English. Her children range in age from twenty-two to six, the older ones having attended or attending college and holding down good jobs in Panama City or David. Her husband Tony works with a local coffee enterprise. The icing on the cake is that Dalys is a fine plantswoman who knows and is a friend of Edwin's. In his new job as property manager, Edwin was quick to advise that he thoroughly approves of her working here, that she is "buena gente" (good people). Of course, he said, she is of the Serracin family, a locally large and very prominent one, as is Edwin's wife, Maria.

For several months now I have intermittently been expressing my desire for a cat. Larry counseled that I should just bide my time as one was sure to show up sooner or later. I've noticed, however, that there aren't many households with pet cats as cats don't seem to be highly valued by Panamanians. Also, the predation rate for both kittens and cats is high. Most dogs run free, and there're many large birds and wild animals that prey on cats as well. The majority of cats that do exist here are feral, and, as a rule, feral cats are difficult if not impossible to tame. So it was quite a surprise when a skinny kitty of about three or four months began prowling around the back terrace and doors. We fed her once when the dogs were asleep in the bedroom, so, of course, she came back. This time the dogs weren't sleeping and strenuously objected to her presence on the property. In fact, there was quite a fracas between Chyna and the kitty up in the orchid casita, and we figured she was either dead or long gone. Instead, she moved to the front, where she's been ever since. Though a little skittish at first, she obviously had "belonged" to someone as she was approachable with a little work and exhibited a bald spot around her neck where she had been tethered by a rope. She settled right in, began following us around the yard, and has fattened up beautifully. I bought her a bed on a trip to David last week, and she stays curled up in it on the front porch when she's not exploring the garden chasing lizards, butterflies, or hummingbirds. The dogs no longer make a fuss about her, so I'm confident that she'll work her way inside in due time. She bangs against the front door when I get up in the morning and comes into the kitchen while I'm preparing her breakfast. The dogs, behind the closed bedroom door, don't even bother to get to out of bed, although they have to know that kitty is inside because she sets up quite a caterwauling while awaiting her food. I have named her Juanita, but Larry and Edwin continue to call her Kitty Kitty. At any rate, I now have a cat.

Continuing on the subject of pets, Doc and Charly are in a bit of hot water because of theirs. Doc called today to say that he had been stopped on the road by an indio (a man of the local indigenous Indian tribe, the Ngobe Bugle, members of which live throughout the community in primitive enclaves and work mostly as coffee pickers) who pointed out Matty nearby with a dead chicken in her mouth. The indio indicated that the chicken was (had been) his and that it was not the first to have been done in by one or more of Doc's dogs. Immediate recompense was sought, and they settled on $10 as just compensation for four or five slaughtered chickens. Doc has been following the Panamanian tradition of allowing the fur-faced fiends to pretty much go where they please, and Larry and I had warned of the potential consequences. Virtually all chickens range freely, and it is common for chicken-poaching dogs to be poisoned, but Doc and Charly have been friendly to this group of indios, giving their children candy when they pass by, so perhaps the dogs were spared for this reason. In any event, they now are faced with fencing at least that portion of their yard closest to the house. And they're afraid that there will be other demands from other neighbors whose chickens may or may not have been victims.

Larry has promised to take me out to breakfast tomorrow morning. It'll be a real treat as I continue to spend the better part of my days cooking and cleaning the kitchen.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

Allegedly, it's "winter" here in Boquete, but it seemed a lot cooler a few months ago. We awoke this morning to approximately 65 degrees; I'm sitting here in a nice, warm robe typing away and reading in the Democrat about 103 degrees and higher in Florida. Except when it's cloudy, most days have been in the upper seventies lately, dropping to the high sixties as the sun goes down.

THE GOOD: Derek has come and gone. On the Friday after his arrival late Wednesday, we motored down to Chorcha to visit Steve and Michelle and their plants and animals at their Alouatta Lodge. ("Alouatta" has something to do with howler monkeys.) We were greeted by Steve's father, visiting from Australia, who sat on the front porch with a monkey in his lap. We joined him and promptly had monkeys in our laps, too--two adult howlers (Yahoo and Maisie), a toddler howler (Lisa), and a very young squirrel monkey (Mikey). We visited the cage containing two two-toed sloths (Oreo and Stinky), hiked a trail through the jungle, visited their camping site complete with three enclosed hammocks for guests, and enjoyed a delicious lunch prepared by Michelle. Steve gave me several beautiful plants to bring home to the garden, including an outstanding but thorny bamboo. All in all, a fun day.

Another highlight of Derek's visit was a hike in Bajo Mono with Dan and Kay Wade. Only about ten minutes into the trek, we spotted a male Resplendent Quetzal! He obligingly sat high on a limb at a medium distance with the sun at his back. It's difficult to describe what breathtakingly beautiful birds they are and easy to understand why they are considered the most beautiful bird in the world. It is said by the Panamanians to be good luck to spot a quetzal, so we're eagerly awaiting a major change of fortune.

Derek enjoyed a day of golf with the gang, we had dinner out with friends, and we did a good bit of lounging around the house. Next time, I hope he can stay longer.

THE BAD: I had my first brush with the Panamanian health system this past week. Weekend before last I suffered from abdominal pain and general malaise for about three days. It disappeared, only to return on Thursday. I decided it would be wise to seek medical advice, so I called my friend Lulu (proprietor of Lulu's Tropical Gardens in David), whose husband is a physician, to seek a referral. I reached her at home during the lunch hour and, as her husband was there too, she turned the phone over to him. (Steve had told me that he is a neurosurgeon at Hospital Chiriqui, but he advised that, in fact, he's an internist and general surgeon at Hospital Mae Lewis.) He said he would be happy to see me and told me to report to his office at the hospital at 9:00 the following morning. After examining me and taking a medical history, he sent me for a battery of lab tests and a CT scan just down the hall. I had the tests and the results by 1:00, reported back to him at 2:30, and left with a handful of medications, punctures all over my arms (they couldn't find a vein for the extremely large needle necessary to inject the chemicals for the CT scan--painful, painful experience), and a diagnosis of diverticulitis. I was exhausted from the all day affair, spent a very uncomfortable weekend, but seem to be pretty much over it today. Now I'm trying to figure out what brought it on. Internet research indicates that diverticulitis is diet-related, particularly to the consumption of processed foods and to the lack of dietary fiber. We eat virtually no processed food, and we consume lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as beans by the potful. So go figure.

THE UGLY: We had the unpleasant experience this morning of firing Demaris and Juvenal, who have been with us from the beginning. Juvenal had lost his main job as caretaker of the house and property of a couple in the Santa Lucia neighborhood where we rented while building, so, in an effort to help him, we recommended him for a similar job with friends Sandy and Bill Dillon for a period of two months that they will be in Mexico completing some business there. Juvenal accepted the position, but then, the day before they were to leave (this past Saturday), demanded a higher salary, more time off, additional transportation funds, access to laundry facilities, etc., and ultimately backed out of the deal altogether, leaving Bill and Sandy with no caretaker for the property while they're gone. Juvenal is guileless and has never exhibited this type of behavior, so we assumed him to be operating on the advice of Demaris and/or her family, which was born out in Sandy's reporting that he was on his cell phone constantly during their Saturday discussions. I was sick, so Larry was obliged to run interference, which took most of the day and ended with his driving all the way up to Sandy and Bill's to take Juvenal home. After it was over, we were embarrassed, hurt, and very angry. When Demaris and Juvenal reported to work this morning, I explained our position and told them that we no longer had confidence in them. They left willingly, but I doubt that that will be the end of the matter. So I've cleaned house and am now left to clean the house.

So where's that Quetzal good luck?

May report

It's been an outstanding month, weatherwise. Mostly sunny with late afternoon and/or evening showers to settle in the newly planted flora and germinate the seeds. The only downside has been that weed seeds, too, have been germinating at a pace that Edwin, Juvenal, and I can't keep up with. Many orchids are blooming in the orchid casita and on various trees throughout the property. We have three nests of baby birds in various stages of growth; a couple apparently fledged overnight. The pond has cleared up, and the goldfish are growing and have multiplied. They're a joy to watch. Larry is absolutely enamored of them, particularly when they rush to the surface and toward him at feeding time.

The tranquility was disturbed big time yesterday afternoon when Doc, Charly, and Ramon dropped by with the four-legged fiends in tow. After visiting for a while, Charly and I ascended into the upper garden to admire all the new growth, at some point during which Larry turned on the pump to start the waterfall. This served as a reminder to the fiends that there was a swimming hole nearby, so, trampling through all the plants that surround the pond, they made straight for it. They didn't confine themselves to the upper pond this time, however; Finnegan assumed the lead, ran down the waterfall, and did a belly flop into the main pond, overturning my precious waterlilies in his thrashing around. Charly and I were screaming from the deck overlooking the pond, being too far away to do anything else. Larry collapsed in laughter, while Doc ambled over and finally managed to yank Finny out by his collar. While Doc was wrestling with Finny and Charly and I were rushing down from above, Raffy jumped in the pond and Matty began playing in the waterfall. Doc released Finny to grab Raffy, whereupon Finny, followed by Matty, bolted into the house dripping wet. Raffy followed them as soon as Doc released him. It was sheer pandemonium. All the guys were amused, while Charly and I were furious. My waterlilies were wrecked, my fish doubtless traumatized. Later, after everyone had gone home and we had mopped the house, Larry stripped and went into the pond to retrieve the waterlilies from the bottom and set them back on their pedestals. They don't seem to have suffered irreparable harm, I'm happy to report. We didn't see the fish for several hours, their apparently having taking refuge in the grasses, but they eventually reappeared begging for food. Today everything is back to normal except that I'm not speaking to Doc. And the pups are canini non grata.

I traveled to David last week to have the car serviced and, on the return trip, dropped by The Book Mark, a used book store in Dolega owned and managed by the curmudgeonly Hal de Mun. He is strategically located because I nearly always have something to gripe about after spending time in David, and Hal's just the man to enjoy a good bitch fest. A native of New Orleans, Hal holds a Ph.D. in English Lit from the University of Illinois. "I was a DeFoe man," he confides. He's approximately 99 years old and sports an old-fashioned hearing aid, the kind with wires draped all over his body. Nonetheless, he can barely hear a thing, so we shout out our discontents while ambling through all the dusty shelves and mildewed books. He has an extensive inventory, and books can be brought to him for credit toward the purchase of other books--a real boon in a place where books in the English language are a rarity. He loves to see me because I, in his words, "bring in good books." He's very disdainful of most reading material and can hardly wait to demonstrate to me the latest evidence of the abhorrent taste of most of the reading public. Given the fact that one can hardly move about for all the books, as well as the fact that he constantly complains about how slow business is, it's interesting that he nearly always admonishes me to be sure to return the volumes that I buy.

Derek arrives day after tomorrow for a too-short visit of just one week. (He sits on a French student's doctoral committee and has to go to France in mid-June for the student's dissertation defense. Dirty work, but somebody's gotta do it, I guess.) I've planned for us to make a trip to Steve and Michelle's place in Chorcha on Friday, and Larry's lined up golfing at Cielo Paraiso on Saturday or Sunday. We'll try to work in a hike or two and, perhaps, a trip to Volcan and Cerro Punta as well. I'm really looking forward to his visit--particularly for the chance to get out of the house and roam around a bit.

Meeting Mr. Gruber

I believe I mentioned in my last post having acquired a bottle of Gruber's Jungle Oil, the panacea concocted from Panamanian herbs by Franklin Gruber, an FSU alumnus. It's turned out to be quite a lifesaver. When I remember to apply it, it repels the tiny no see-ums, locally called chitres, that dwell in and around vegetative areas. They don't bother us in the house or on the terrace, but the closer we get to the back of the property toward the river or to the coffee fields next door and across the street, the worse they get. And when I forget to apply the jungle oil beforehand, it does a superb job of putting a stop to the itching that ensues.

The label on the bottle reads as follows:

GRUBER'S JUNGLE OIL

Made from Panama's finest medicinal plants and soybean oil. It rapidly neutralizes poisons and allergic reactions to sand flies, chiggers, mosquitoes, tics, wasps, bees, spiders and scorpions, etc. Once on the skin disinfects bites to avoid tropical disease and also REPELS those critters for up to 4 hours per application when walking. While sleeping and thus sweating less works all night. Use this oil also to heal severe sun burns and also as an optimum sun screen. Mr. Gruber, an FSU Science Graduate, used it once to heal a mole that changed color and bleed [sic]. Applied on feet before going on muddy nature trails prevents and treats "jungle rot" fungal and bacterial infections. Use also to heal ACNE, minor and mayor [sic] cuts and bruises, prevent, cure gangrenous skin ulcers. As a massage alleviates tense muscles, lupus and arthritis pain, varicose vain [sic] inflammations. Apply 2 to 4 times daily or more. [Mr. Gruber is not a tribute to the FSU English Department.]

I badly burned my little finger on and above the cuticle last week when I removed some brown sugar from the microwave and had some of the resulting syrup dripped from a hole in the bag. After soaking the finger in cold water for a while, I applied jungle oil and, voila, a large blister formed, but I have been pain free for a week. (The blister burst yesterday and, admittedly, it's a little tender now. But I'm still applying the jungle oil, which has kept it supple and infection free.)

So it was with great anticipation that I set out for the meeting of the Love To Garden Club yesterday morning at which Franklin Gruber Himself was the scheduled speaker. After retrieving my friend Sandy from high up in Alto Jaramillo, driving back down the mountain, and then about ten miles out of town on the road to David, we finally arrived at the home of the member hosting the meeting, where other club members were huddled together on the small front terrace in folding chairs. Having no folding chairs, Sandy and I huddled together on the hard stone steps where we watched as Mr. Gruber unloaded bag after bag of plant material on a small round table and prepared to lecture. He appeared much less peculiar than I had envisioned, but not entirely without peculiarities, not the least of which was that, among the plant material, was a jar of fireants and a freely stalking scorpion. He assured us that the scorpion would be fine on the table, for us not to worry. I, for one, didn't take my eye off him for a minute, being the person most closely situated to the table.

The talk proceeded with a discourse on the extraordinary number of medicinal plants in Panama, how he had become familiar with them, and how they had served to cure innumerable people of even more innumerable ills. The stories were fascinating, the ills running the gamut from flatulence to cancer. While he couldn't be described as a dynamic speaker, Mr. Gruber was interesting and kept everyone's undivided attention until such time as a neighbor's gardener took up weedeating and a wind chime overhead began clanging in the breeze. Everyone was alternately leaning forward trying to hear and keeping a wary eye on the scorpion, which was scampering about the table trying to find a way to descend and make mischief. Finally, after about an hour and a half into his two hour allotted time period, Mr. Gruber grabbed the jar of fire ants and thrust his hand in amongst them. Amid the squeals and twitters of the audience, he left it there until what he considered to be a sufficient number of ants had bitten him, after which he removed his hand and liberally applied some jungle oil. He then demonstrated the resulting bites and reported, bit by bit, his reactions to the diminishing pain as the welts gradually, over a period of about five minutes, disappeared. This was followed by more talking about medicinal plants and their uses--still amid the whirring of the weedeater and the jangling of the wind chimes plus the stomping of the fireants that had been slung from Gruber's hand before application of the magic oil --until such time as he located the scorpion on the underside of the table and coaxed him onto a small limb for demonstration purposes. After briefly advising us of the various types of scorpions and the severity of their stings, he aggravated the scorpion into stinging him, whereupon he swallowed a small vial of jungle oil mixed with rum and spread an equal amount of the oil itself on the site of the sting. He confessed to being a little light-headed, at least partly as a result of having eaten nothing that day, he said, and even apologized for needing to sit for a bit. But in due time, ten minutes or so, evidence of the sting had disappeared and he announced that all was well.

Afterwards, I introduced myself, and we reminisced about Tallahassee. We were interrupted, however, by various participants extolling the virtues of jungle oil and narrating their own experiences of having used it. Mr. Gruber briefly took the floor once more to announce that two people present had bottles of jungle oil to sell, as well as his newly concocted salve (more a pomade, actually) for sun spots, age spots, and wrinkles. The latter sold out immediately. I have one at my elbow as I write.

The fur-faced four-legged fiends

Doc looks like walking death, pallid and perpetually stooped over. Because he acquired their three pups absent consultation with his housemates, he rightfully has been assigned their care and upbringing (and has been forbidden from ever entering Melos, the store in David where they were purchased, again). Now and then Ramon and Charly will, out of pity, step in for an hour or two to relieve him, but on the whole Raphael, Matilda, and Finnegan are his charge. He reports that they awake at various hours in the morning, sometimes as early as 12:30 a.m. and usually one at a time, and demand to go out. While he lets the demander out, he continues, the other two generally see it as a sign that they are free to relieve themselves in the house as soon as the first one disappears. So in the wee hours of morning, when he's not unlocking doors and herding dogs outdoors, he's cleaning up the floor. He claims that they sleep approximately one minute for every two hours that they are awake and troublesome, and his sleeping patterns have been adjusted accordingly.

Their yard looks like the city dump. Anything that isn't nailed down, behind closed doors, or placed on a very high shelf is fair game for pilfering and strewing about. When Doc telephones to warn us that he will be visiting on one of his dog walks, Larry and I first secure everything indoors and then rush out to the gate to witness him struggling up the road entangled in three dog leashes. Once inside our house and faced with the prospect of playing with Chyna and Trudy, the pups go into high gear, whereupon we all become entangled in dogs and leashes in an effort to free them. It's an exhausting exercise, and afterwards we usually collapse on the terrace with a drink and watch them ravage the garden. They climb up the waterfall and splash about in the shallow upper pond, they dig around in the plants in search of heaven knows what, and they chew on everything in sight. Doc and canine company usually stay for about an hour, after which Chyna and Trudy take to our bed, utterly spent, and Larry and I, dazedly and confusedly, put things back in order.

Doc called this morning to report that Matty had brought a baby rodent of some sort into the house. Like their predecessor, Gus, the two cockers have an affinity for avocados. They scour the environs and return throughout the day with dozens of them, which they savor on the porch, leaving only the pits to be stepped on later by Doc, Charly, or Ramon. Charly says they've chewed through a number of electrical cords and have shredded every dish towel in the house, as well as a number of towels. Anything can occur, she maintains, if you turn your back for even one minute. It's little wonder that Doc looks so careworn and sleep deprived.

Doc is great lover of dogs and always has referred to them affectionately as "fur faces," but these he calls the "four-legged fiends." Ever the comforter, I remind him that he can look forward to their maturing at about two years of age.

Above is a picture of the little darlings in a rare, rare moment of repose.

March in Boquete

We're neighborless again, since shortly after my last post. I'd like to be able to report tranquility at last, but I think Dan and Cindy jinxed us with their problem-laden visit. On the Sunday before their Wednesday departure, Boquete had another spay and neuter clinic which Dan participated in as a visiting vet. Dan, Cindy, and I rode in together at 7:00 a.m. to prepare for the first patients at 8:00. There weren't as many volunteers as usual, and over a hundred animals spread throughout a long, long day. I was put in charge of the recovery unit which, among many other duties, involves taking the animals' temperature and recording it every fifteen minutes. I am now thoroughly acquainted with all varieties of dog and cat butts. After being anesthetized, shaved, and spayed or neutered, each animal receives a series of injections and then is moved on to recovery, which takes place on blankets spread on the gymnasium floor, where about 15 to 20 at a time are massaged back to consciousness and carefully monitored for contraindications. That's a lot of ups and downs for a 64-year-old body. By 4:00, things were winding down in the operating area, but still lively in recovery, when Dan came over and told Cindy and me that he didn't feel well and needed to get home. He confessed on the way that he had been nauseated and in pain all day but figured it had been something he ate the day before. By 7:00 he was in the Hospital Chiriqui emergency room having a kidney stone dissolved. He was back home at 10:00. The next morning at 8:00 a.m. Dan was again seeing patients at his makeshift clinic in the garage next door, pronouncing to everyone who would listen that his medical care had been excellent, as opposed to a trip to the emergency room back in New Smryna Beach with his daughter which involved a multi-hour wait. They left on Wednesday morning, but not without one more bit of misfortune. Dan called from the Panama City airport early in the afternoon to report that he had left a wallet filled with credit cards, licenses, etc. under the mattress next door. I retrieved the wallet, Fed-Exed it to them in Florida, and silently bid them a fond farewell.

Demaris finally returned to work last Monday from her January surgery. It was a long recuperation because of the tumor on her fallopian tubes as well as the appendectomy. We were beginning to think that things were back to normal when Juvenal called early Tuesday morning, to report that his brother, who has been hospitalized off and on for months with a mysterious all-body infection, was back in the hospital. Sadly, he died the following day. Juvenal and his entire family were inconsolable, calling several times throughout the day and needing various kinds of help. We were at home, however, awaiting news of my brother, Richard, who that very day was undergoing a triple bypass in Texas. (All appears to be going well.) So, all in all, an anxiety-ridden week.

Everybody's groaning and moaning about the dry season, as dry as it has been wet for months on end. It's dry up here in Palo Alto, but not nearly so dry as most of the province. We live on what is called the "wet side" of Boquete, so we've at least had a good bit of bajareque, the fine mist that comes down from the mountains. Nevertheless, Edwin and I have been busy watering most days. It's been windy, but not nearly so bad as last year. The weather has been lovely for almost a week now, so we're getting lots of chores down in the garden. Today Larry and I spent a couple of hours in the orchid house, tidying up and mounting new orchids. My "orchid man," Jose Miranda, showed up this morning with some new species he had collected from the Volcan area, so we were inspired to pay the orchids some attention. (To allay any twittering about Larry's newfound interest in orchids, let the record reflect that his assistance was obtained under duress.)

We now have fish in the pond--nine, to be exact--but we're struggling to get everything balanced. We're being aided by a gringo named Thomas, who also supplies us with organic fertilizer and a few organic vegetables such as mustard greens, onions, and sweet potatoes. He's using a microbiotic liquid called EM in the pond which, judging by internet reports, is good for just about everything. Thomas uses it as a compost booster, household cleanser, water clarifier, septic tank cleaner, etc. I have also acquired, based on recommendations from naturally-suspicious and credible sources, some "Gruber's Jungle Oil," an herbal concoction that neutralizes a variety of poisons, most notably scorpions and insects, and also serves as a natural insect repellant. It was developed by one Franklin Gruber, the son of a Panamanian mother and American father, who is an expert in native medicinal plants, having roamed around in the jungles and studied plants and their uses by the natives for many years. Coincidentally, he holds a degree in International Affairs from Florida State. (Cue: snake oil jokes and commentary.) I haven't met Mr. Gruber yet but hope to inasmuch as he recently relocated from El Valle to nearby Caldera.

I'm finally coming to terms with available foods. Most American products are available, either here or in David, but they come with at a price. Locally grown stuff, on the other hand, is inexpensive but often isn't the same as what we're used to. The chicken is excellent, and pork okay once you figure out what to buy. Beef, on the other hand, tends to be very tough as cattle are pasture-fed rather than grain-fed and tend to move about a lot more than do the largely sedentary North American cows. But it's possible to buy a filete entero, a whole beef loin, which, when allowed to age a week or so in the refrigerator, can be cut into servicable steaks. Nearby Potrerillos is the home of a large egg-producing operation, but eggs from free-range chickens(and the chickens do range freely here--right into my garden on occasion) are easy to come by and are out-of-this-world good. Although Chiriqui is known as the bread basket of Panama, the best vegetables from the big farms are shipped to Panama City. There's a good mercado (market) in the center of town, however, where local farmers sell their produce; and there're more and more pick-your-own operations, organic farmers who sell to a limited clientele, and hydroponically grown vegetables available. Excellent fish and jumbo shrimp from the Pacific are available from fish mongers who bring them to Boquete, but are pricey, We've also bought really, really, good tuna from our fish guy, Miguel, that can be cut into tuna steaks which rival the best of beef steaks. And, of course, there are hundreds of fruits. I'm only just beginning to learn the names of them and how to use them. What we know as limes are called lemons (limons) here, and there's a fruit that looks like an orange that is, in fact, a somewhat sweet lemon. Then there are the tomatillos, the many types of avocados, the papayas, the plantains, the nances, the guayabas, fruits I've never seen or heard of. It's a bit bewildering.

I haven't written much about Edwin. He's a very unusual gardener. First of all, he's well-educated, having been schooled in accounting. He says he couldn't take office work, however, and worked for several years at Mi Jardin es Su Jardin, a world famous garden here in Boquete located on the private estate of a wealthy Panamanian family who live most of the time in Miami. Eventually, he went out on his own and, over time, has whittled his clientele down to four, of whom, he says, I am "numero uno." He has proclaimed our garden to be the best in Boquete, consistently making suggestions and engaging in long-term plans for bettering it. Edwin carefully watches out for our interests and is loyal almost to a fault. He dislikes the orchid guy, for example, and has run him off more than once when I wasn't looking. Now he, the orchid guy, only comes on weekends when he can be assured that Edwin isn't on the premises. He is also suspicious of George and Juvenal, whom he fears are taking advantage of us. Lunchtime can be a real chore as Edwin, who is intellectually curious about everything, engages me in protracted discussions (in Spanish, of course) on a wide range of topics, eliciting my beliefs and opinions on everything and offering his own carefully considered views. We discuss politics, religion, education, cultural mores, and more three times a week. Every work day he comes to the table with a a new set of questions designed to tax my intellectual and language skills, as though he lay awake the night before pondering what theme he would bring to the next day's discussion. He is more conscientious and thoughtful than the average Panamanian, as is his wife, Maria, who speaks English and works in a local bank. They dote on their only child, Denise, and Edwin regularly seeks my counsel on how best to raise her to face life's challenges. No happy-go-lucky Panamanian our Edwin.

I'm attaching a picture of the newly-created bog garden, an area by the stone wall that inexplicably stays wet. We finally gave up trying to change the soil and just put in plants that love lots of water--papyrus, horsetail reed, cannas, and calla lillies. It's coming along but still has a ways to go, as they say.