Bairnhess Panama Adventures: Happy Easter Everyone!

Pedasi, Semana tres

Another great week here in Pedasi, Panama. We are settling into our life here and have gotten into a routine of sorts. This week we decided to volunteer some time at the Spanish school teaching the neighborhood kids English. They hold free classes twice a week on Tue and Thu. A new ex-pat like ourselves named Karen has just started teaching and could use our help. We met with her on Monday morning to come up with a lesson plan for Tuesday's class. Unfortunately on Monday night Karen was up watching the eclipsed blood red moon and her chair collapsed on her fingers and she went into the clinic in town at 2:00 A.M.. They charged her $5 to stitch her up. Anyway, she let us know that she was going to miss class and rest her hand so we are on our own. We spent the day finding videos to Old McDonald Had a Farm, Head, Shoulders, Knees and toes in addition to looking up words so that we would be prepared. Peg went into Super-Teacher mode and had the kids learning and laughing. We had a great time, but it was the longest hour of our lives. We have decided not to continue on a regular basis since it was so time consuming and we really want to concentrate on our lessons. The kids class meeting on Tuesdays and Thursdays meant that we had an obligation to be at the school 5 days a week which does not leave us much time for our personal errands.

Karen on her porch, we are a little jealous of this porch!

Our landlord has a man named Einar, a neighbor of ours who comes to water every Sunday. He is a great guy and Peg has been chatting with him every week trying to practice her Spanish. In the course of conversation he tells us he has chickens that he sells and Peg says she is interested in buying one. He comes over the next night to get her and takes her back to his house where he points at a couple different gallinas (chickens) running around saying "Este o este" this one or that one? She picks one and he proceeds to pick it up, tie its feet, weigh it, ring its neck and slit its throat right in front of her! All in a matter of 60 seconds. Aaaaaahhhhhh! He then says he will bring it over in 30 minutos preparado - pollo entero. She is worried it is going to come with feathers, but he just keeps saying preparado. He brings it over as promised and charges us $24! No feathers! Eghad. We checked with Dania the next day and she tells us that this is the going rate for a "porch chicken". That is definitely a lesson learned. We didn't think it tasted any better than the Chino chickens that are $8.00 per chicken, in fact this one was tougher than any chicken so far.

Hey where did my sister go?

Last weekend we drove around the peninsula to visit Los Islotes. This is where we have purchased lot 68 in a planned development to build our house. We bought our lot three years ago when the area was still rain forest and the roads and lot lines were imaginary. At that time we stood on what we thought was our lot and breathed in the breeze and beautiful ocean view. Now three years later things are starting to happen. The roads have been cut and the lots surveyed. Ground has been broken on the first building, what is being called the Founder's Lodge. This is a combination home for the developer and four guest suites. We chose to visit because there was a group of potential buyers touring the property. It is so beautiful and we are so excited to get started building. The timing of our visit is perfect because there was an American builder present. He has lived in Panama for six years and lives in the closest town called Torio. We get to talking and he seems perfect for our job. We love the fact that he is American, fluent in Spanish, and building right now in our neck of the woods. The building standards are so different here it is comforting to be working with someone who understands what we are used to. We are working with him now on design ideas and once we get some concrete plans we will meet with an architect and get going. We think it will be at least a year before our home is complete.

Yep that's a road and our view

Not too shabby!

This is the view from the very bottom of our lot - still not too shabby

I am going to finish up with some random observations. From our living room window we have seen; a man hand feeding his roosters, kids playing in the street until the street lights come on, a man trimming his chest hairs with a machete, men selling handmade shoes, sausages and freshly picked melons, baby chicks frolicking and roosters crowing loudly 24/7. Urban myth.... roosters only crow at sunrise. Oh and Peg finally got her bike fixed. It turns out if you want the wheels to spin freely you have to put on a whole new brake set.