Life in Panama... Cock-A-Doodle , Bow Wow Wow

Time to catch you all up before these first impressions of the past 4+ months become evanescent, or run-of-the-mill. If I have a good quality, it's that I adapt and adopt easily, so initial strangeness turns to normality pretty fast. That said... before I forget, here are my impressions and what our life is like thus far.

Let's talk Noise. I think sound is a thing that most people forget to consider in many situations. But it's something I can't avoid because I'm what's called a highly "auditory" person. I hear everything, I'm a talker, and hearing even my own thoughts voiced facilitates my comprehension. And I'm cursed with the inability to ignore or minimize sounds. So in college, I was like a cazed schitzophrenic (they have high cortical activity and are sensitive to noise) when someone snapped a pencil at the back of the auditoriumn and I'djust about jump out of my nerdy front row seat. And those people who try to slowly open the candy wrapper at the movies? RIP IT OPEN AND GET IT OVER WITH. YOU'RE TORTURING ME! Okay, so you get the picture. Noise is an issue for me.

Cut to Panama, where we live in a high cielinged, slightly cavernous cement and tile home. I can lie in bed at our of the house and I swear,I can hear a spider silently peeing all the way in Wiliam's room. Back in Sarasota, if a dog dared go on a barking spree and break through my ear plugs at, say, t three a.m., i'd be in my car in a flash, driving in quiet fury around the hood like some maniac, just waiting to get my hands on theright house ....for what? I don't know. Maybe a neighborly note in their mailbox the next day..."Gee wiz, Mister Neighbor, can you stop your dog from barking at flippin' 3 a.m. 'cause it is annoying the crap out of me? Signed, affectionately, your neighbor (no address)."

Guess how many dogs live around our house here? Including Cuco, Rocky, Lisi, the Akita tied to the post, the real barker behind Ulda's hosue, and about 8 more up on the main road (one block away), I count maybe 12. Any passerby even nearing our street, and the symphony begins. If the wind blows, if I sneeze in my sleep... it's just Cock-a-Doodle-Doo Bow Wow Wow Wow Wow Wow... ALL night long.

Lucky for me, I actually like the sound of Roosters (no they don't crow at dawn), and the wind that literally howls and whistles through the pine trees going down toward the river. William had trouble with the wind at first, but now he likes it. Sometimes the rain is so loud during the wet season that you have to shout to be heard.

Bajareque is the word for "mist" and living in a cloud forrest, the air fills with mist and often. It is cool and lovely. It doesn't roll in in a thick San Francisco style blanket. Sometimes it looks like smoke. At times it turns to fog and can be nearly blinding, but most mornings are clear and filled with the good noise of many birds, birds so well fed by the natural fruit, that they just turn their noses up at our bird feeders!

Life is simple and our group of foreign friends gather often, even more than once a week, for pot lucks and socializing. Jenni and Steve Bliss are a young couple from Indiana, and here by way of Costa Rica. They host a running Saturday pot luck open house and have four fierce and fabulous kids. It is through Jenni's pot luck that I met everyone else.

"Everyone else" is a representation of different states, countries, religious and political backgrounds, so conversation is never absent or dull. Indeed, conversation around here gets passionately heated.

What we miss (organized sports, art, events for kids), we make up as we go along. Susan Bostrom (with her husband Glenn and daughter Jessica) has a big hand in managing to gather us all up for one thing or another. Those Connecticut girls... always good for hosting parties, right?

Larry has become shockingly social. First of all, he calls people on his cell phone! He coaches basketball at a nearby gym 3 times a week. He pals around town with his buddy Terry Sandhoff, gathering up meat and fireworks for the 4th. He goes online to give out advice to friends who might have a visa question.

Church here is a challenge because either it's in Spahish, or at a private home, which turns out not be really Larry's thing. But our great friends, Bruce &Sharon Brown play the role of our family's spiritual team, and Larry sits in on Bruce's easy lessons. Jenny &Steve also offer a weekly adult discussion, which I attend, and somehow we end up not falling too far off our Christian path.

What do I miss? Of course, family. All our family in Sarasota, Michigan and California. And photos and paintings. But beyond these, it comes down to a few things. Food and theater and activities for William. You can't find a good cookie here to save your life. Sushi? Forget it. The steak and burger meat here have no fat in it. You'd think that is a good thing, but Larry will tell you otherwise. Plus, cheese and nuts cost a fortune. As for kids... there is not movie theater here, no skate park, no local kid theater. Every town in the world should have local kid theater and a skate park. (Teens in small towns with little to do end up drunk and pregnant. So that may be when we hit the road to the States!)

But the trade-off, for now, is good. William and his friends mostly play outside. In the rain. In the mud. In the trees. They invariably come home soaked, and cut, or caked in mud.
So... you hose 'em down. Scrub 'em off. And never leave home without an extra set of clothing stashed in the trunk.