Just Flowers

Clyde here:

I walked the property and took pictures of all of the flowers.  Hopefully, there are not any repeats.  There are some flowers of the same species but different colors.  All of these come from our property only.



A Houseful Of Smoke.....

This weekend while visiting with friends in our outdoor living area we noticed that someone was at the weekend house next door.  Clyde mentioned that we'd have to go over and introduce ourselves since the people were rarely there.  But before we had the chance fate sort of took over and we had a rather smoke filled meeting of the minds.

Panamanians like to burn their lawns here instead of mowing as they feel when the new grass comes in it's healthier.  Yesterday our neighbor in the brown house next door who we'd never met before decided to burn his foot tall grass, instead of mowing. Suddenly our house was full of smoke and with no glass windows, we had no way to block it out.  Fireman Clyde ran outside to keep a close watch on our hedges that run the fence line, making sure they didn't catch on fire.  He grabbed a hose and started to soak them with water as the other side in the neighbors yard began to burn.

Next I hear him yelling at the neighbor in Spanish that our house if full of smoke and he needs to put the fire out already.  The neighbor answered in English explaining that his yard is full of snakes since the grass is so tall, and that's why he needed to burn the grass.  The man did at least apologize and said he was cleaning up the house since he has sold it to people from Miami.  Clyde jokingly said "oh no, more gringo's," as he continued to water our hedges hoping to prevent them from burning.

A view over our hedges

A close up of the finely "coufierred" lawn
of my fine next door neighbor

 

This unfortunately is one of the downfalls of living with the locals, since they see and do things a bit differently than Americans or Canadians.  Instead of burning the lawn, us gringos buy a riding lawn mower or lawn tractor to tackle the job.  And that's exactly what we did yesterday.  Our Canadian friends had brought a lawn tractor with them from Canada but had no use for it on their property since it's hilly and covered with lush, thick jungle.  Clyde gave it a whirl yesterday and is trying to convince me how much I will enjoy using it to mow the lawn while getting a tan at the same time.

Our other Panamanian neighbors had music blasting that was so loud it was clearly heard over the sound of the mower. They DO love their music here and even the poorest Panamanians will have big speakers to share their music with the neighbors.  They did turn it off after sunset and things got quiet on that side of the street.  But there is a house behind us that seemed to be filled with teenagers that drank the night away talking and laughing loudly into the morning hours.  But since it cooled off a bit we were able to close the bedroom window to block out the noise.

Unlike living in the U.S. where we rarely saw or heard our neighbors, here the locals live outside more than in.  Front doors on Panamanian homes are always open, and kids are outside all the time playing while the adults swing nearby in hammocks. And even through the long rainy season outside living continues since all homes have covered terraces or bohio's to protect them from the torrential rains.

Perhaps that's why expats choose to live in gated communities with other foreigners.  Everyone can stay in their air conditioned homes, with windows shut tight and no need to talk to or see the neighbors.  But then we'd have to ask ourselves why we moved here if we wanted to live just as we did back in the states?  We enjoy the indoor - outdoor living just as much as the locals do and spend much of our day outside.  In fact we have an outdoor kitchen in our gazebo along with an outdoor living room on our terrace.  And I suppose we could even spend the night in our hammocks being rocked to sleep like babies in a cradle, providing a tasty treat for the mosquitoes. 

Things are different here in Panamá, not better or worse just different.  Our neighbor across the street is yelling at her teenager not unlike parents in other countries, while sweeping her front porch.  People are the same but the way they live life is different.  Still trying to figure things out in our new neighborhood, and our new country of Panamá......here along the gringo trail.

A Hot And Sweaty Affair.....

Reunited with an old flame this week and it wasn't a pretty sight as I flaunted my love right in front of my darling husband Clyde.  For the past six weeks while working on the house I just didn't have any time to devote to my boyfriend Gym.  But this week we reunited at the weight machines with Clyde nearby watching and working out himself.  I even hopped on for a ride, straddling the seat of my old spin bike while tunes were pounding in my head.  It felt good to be back in the saddle again as I missed my muscle time and was starting to feel like a helpless female. 

Although it's not like we've been lying around doing nothing as we've painted, scraped, cleaned, and fixed every square inch of the house.  And now that the mangoes are ripe we're picking up hundreds off the ground, and every day many more fall.  Mango salsa, mango cake, mango smoothies, grilled mango, mango margaritas and more. Anyone that stops by the house leaves with a bag or two of the plump, succulent suckers.  And today we even delivered some to friends locally and at the gym.  Unfortunately, since they grow in abundance everywhere.....all of our friends have their own mangoes to deal with so try as we may, we can't seem to give any away.

Newest Batch of Mangoes ready
to be cut up

Mango "Cheeks" cut
away from the seed

Mango Cake!

Mango Salsa!

Bowl of cut up Mangoes
ready for freezer bags

Bags of Mangoes ready

for freezing



Clyde has been flushing his brain out trying to shower it with ideas as to why our showers don't drain properly.  And when the showers don't drain then the toilets seem to leak around the base, and vise versa.  So yesterday he found a plumber online that lives in Gorgona, a nearby beach community.  Within an hour he was at our door ready to take a look at the problem.  This American plumber was an old "zonian" that grew up with a military Dad stationed here in the Canal Zone.  Coincidentally, the plumber even knew a few old friends of Clyde's from Texas that also spent time in the Zone. 

He snaked out  two of the three bathrooms and suggested that since the house was used only as a vacation home, that's why roots have grown in the drains causing them to plug up. Now that we're using them regularly they should stay opened up and flowing. He's coming back on Monday to work on the third bathroom and even invited us to join him at his beach front villa.  His prices were very reasonable and we are thrilled to be able to use our bathrooms without worry. 

The weather seems a bit hotter these days as the rainy season begins.  Temperatures have been sizzling up into the 90's with high humidity.  We make good use of the three showers inside the house as well as the one outside, for a cool mid-day and night time refresher.  Perhaps we'll pop some fresh mango into the blender, and add a touch of rum and lots of ice for a cooling off night cap.  Because living in the tropics is all about chillin', with a cold one......along the gringo trail.

Working Away In Mangoville.......

Keeping fit doing "mango-arobics" yesterday while baking in the 90 degree sunshine, Clyde and I cleaned up the property.  My former personal trainer in Texas would have been proud watching me do the "mango squat" up and down, over and over until I had picked up hundreds of mangos.  With just what I picked up off the ground, I counted over 80 of the sweet, juicy little darlings to add to the pile we already had inside the house.  Not to mention the decayed, half-eaten, rotten ones that I had to pick up and discard.  Clyde spent the morning trimming more hedges and plants.

Nicely trimmed plant

Front-side view of property

Also picked up some cashew fruits carefully twisting off the cashew to save for roasting.  The fruit of the cashew tree or the "marañon" as the locals call it, tastes somewhat like tangy chalk with a stringy consistency.  I peeled and cut up some of the apples and cooked them with sugar and cinnamon like regular apples and it came out ok.  But I really wanted to try roasting the cashew nuts, or shall I say have my dear husband roast them.

Cashew fruit or apples, minus the cashew on top

Roasting raw cashews is quite the ordeal, rather dangerous due to the toxic fumes that are housed inside the shell of the nut.  The toxins can permeate the lungs of the person doing the roasting and also burn their skin, according to what we read on the internet.  The process must be done outdoors while adorned in full protective gear.  Clyde reluctantly suited up and went outside after reading the instructions online.  The first step was to boil the nuts in oil for a few minutes and then remove the shells.  The meat inside the shell just fell apart like mush so we threw out the nuts and gave up on the whole mess for now.

Clyde de-shelling the nuts

I did cut up lots of mangos and added them to onions, tomatoes and jalapenos for some salsa which went great over fish.  Back in Texas we used to buy a small container of ready-made mango salsa for $4.00 in the grocery store.  Clyde cracked open a coconut and shredded some up since he wanted to make a coating for fish.  We dined on the gazebo enjoying the coconut fish with mango salsa accompanied by arepas stuffed with pepper jack cheese.

Coconut fish with mango salsa

Grilled arepas with pepper jack cheese

On Monday we made it back to the gym after about a six week absence.  But with working on the house all day every day, climbing up and down ladders, painting, scraping, cleaning and fixing we had sore muscles constantly.  After the gym workout we spent some time lounging by the pool, something we had missed too.

A slimmed down Venus, who has lots of land to run around on,
although she has taken a liking to all the free fruit

Later that day Clyde ventured into Capira and La Chorrera to close out the accounts for the electric and cable/internet in the rental house.  But unknown to us apparently Monday was the end of a long holiday weekend for the locals.  Traffic was heavy into the city from the beaches, schools were closed and so was the electric company.  And ironically enough the internet was down at the internet and cable company, so they could not close out the account.  Labor Day here is on May 1st and they apparently celebrate on the weekend prior to that date. 

A very cloudy start to this day, but this is the beginning of the rainy season.  Will make an attempt to walk the dog then we're off to the gym.  After that perhaps we'll get a few more things done around the house or we may do nothing at all, because after all this is retirement in Panamá......along the gringo trail.

Being Followed.....By A Panamanian.....

As the road curved around toward the left I could hear a guttural, throaty sound coming from back of a farm.  It sounded like a distressed animal or a human being held against his will locked up in the attic.  Since I noticed tan and black colored large goats munching on grass, the strange sounds must have been another goat just making himself known. 

Up ahead on the right was a fenced in area with tan, brown and black cows who stopped chewing long enough to give us a strange look.  Had they not seen a gringo before, or perhaps they never saw a human walking a dog.  Panamanians don't usually walk their dogs, in fact their dogs tend to just live in the streets and everyone is invited to throw them some food once in a while.

As I admired the majestic mountains in the distance I breathed in the fresh, tropical air. Suddenly it hit me and I had to remind myself where I was.  As my mouth spontaneously curled up into a smile,  a bright wave went thought my brain.  I am an expat living in a foreign country.  With the encouragement of my brave, adventurous husband we really did it.  We paid off the bills, quit our jobs and moved our lives to Panamá.  And during our first year here we bought a house, in a country setting surrounded by a lush, tropical garden.

Making an about face since the road dead-ended, we headed back toward home.  Small private planes perched on grassy areas next to a single runway, filled the landscape along side the road.    During World War II this tiny airport served as an auxiliary facility to Howard Air Force Base in the city. Today small private and charter flights come into this airport which presents such a contrast next to the poor Panamanian neighborhoods that sit nearby.  Every time I hear an engine rev up it brings me back to the day of our skydiving experience. 

As I approached our home I could see Clyde trimming hedges and working on the yard.  I heard someone yell "hey" off in the distance but didn't think anything of it since there  are parrots around that say that word for hours at a time.  .  I kept walking and decided to walk around the block so Venus could see the other neighborhood dogs and they could see the new girl in the hood.  Our friend Daniel was outside his house so I stopped to chat a few minutes.  Two little Panamanian girls yelled "hola" to which I responded the same.  They seemed to tag along joining us on our walk, skipping and looking at Venus.  A man on a bicycle drove by Daniels house and I thought he was with the little girls.

As I made it back around the corner the little girls had taken off but the man on the bike was still riding nearby.  He started saying something in Spanish about the dog and stopped riding to strike up a conversation.  Apparently he had a dog or dogs, and was telling me about them.  He asked me if I spoke Spanish and I said "un poco" which  means "a little."  His smile turned to a frown with that answer as he seemingly wanted to talk.  Asking if I moved here from the U.S. I filled him in with a few tidbits.  Finally I ended the conversation by saying "buen dia.....ciao," good day and bye and headed home. Clyde was happy to hear that I was interacting with the neighbors, although I'm not sure if sure if the man was trying to pick up a gringa or just be neighborly. 

This neighborly encounter made me question "are we really safe here?"  So many foreigners move here and worry constantly about being robbed or taken advantage of by the locals.  Here I am walking alone near a tiny airport early in the morning feeling perfectly safe, enjoying the day and the scenery.  Ok so the fact that I have a 70 pound doberman by my side probably assures my safety, but in general are we safe?  We both feel safe here although we do take precautions like we did in the U.S.  And making some contacts with neighbors we feel also helps.  Our neighbor Victor with his toothless smile, that happily hauled off our old toilets and other junk, is selling the stuff to make money.  Since we helped him out hopefully he'll watch our home when we're away.

A big part of being here and practicing the language is the willingness to feel stupid and say "no comprende."  Clyde adapted well to this quickly since he's the one that talks to store clerks trying to find things. At first I had this fear of what will happen if I don't understand what someone is saying?  Of course the answer is to just admit it to them, ask them to speak slower, and explain that I am trying to learn Spanish.  Funny but many Panamanians have told us that to be successful in this world they need to learn English.  But for us just being able to survive happily in a Spanish speaking country is why we need to speak Spanish. 

Today we'll spend our time wrapping up some loose ends in the house before heading over to the pool in Punta Chame for a relaxing afternoon, as long as it doesn't rain. The birds are chirping and the sun is shining over some puffy greyish clouds hanging low in the sky.  It's a balmy 80 degrees as usual which just means, another day in paradise in Panamá....along the gringo trail.

Being Followed By A Panamanian.......

This Old House.....Our First Night

As the brisk night breeze gently caressed our bodies, it lifted up the ceiling tiles throughout the house.  They flapped in the breeze all night long causing a crashing sound as they lifted and fell.  Finally I had to get up and close the bedroom window, the only glass window that we have in this house right now.  The other windows are just screens with bars in the front.  Apparently our efforts to weigh down the ceiling tiles was not enough, and those in certain areas need further weight to hold them in place.

Living Area

Formal Dining

Fireflies surrounded the palms and fruit trees, filling the night air with a sparkling glow. It almost seemed like the stars fell from the sky like snow, blanketing our property with a magical iridescent light.  The night sky beamed with millions of bright stars that could easily been seen through the vast darkness.  But the front of the house glowed with a few street lights, giving just enough light to see outside.

Kitchen looking into living room

Entry Way

In the morning I was abruptly disturbed by the "Panamá alarm clock," which was a rooster crowing in the distance.  A long morning walk with the dog was peaceful in this country setting where we even spotted a small, black monkey in a tree.  Still having problems with the toilets and showers, Clyde needed to get away from the house so we went shopping.  It was "curtains" for dear Clyde since that's one of the things I was in search of, which was probably not his idea of how to spend a fun day.  Later that night our friend and now neighbor Daniel stopped over for drinks.  We relaxed the night away with some rum drinks which helped Clyde to clear his head of all the tasks that still need to be done.

House Warming Gift from
our friend Daniel

Outdoor Dining

Up with the rooster again today, although not a problem since I tend to be an early riser anyway.  Headed over to the rental house today to tie up loose ends, clean up a bit and collect a few things we left behind.

Our New Hang Out area
with Hamacas ready to go

Venus realizing that with this property

she has a LOT to guard!

It suddenly feels like we're in a movie playing the lead roles of two adventurous souls that moved their lives to a foreign country.  And if that wasn't crazy enough they bought an old house that they fell in love with only to find it needs lots of work, as old houses do.  But in this movie the final scene hasn't been written yet, since it's not a movie but our lives in Chame Panamá.....along the gringo trail.