Unretirement and New Adventures

November 1, 2015

Palo Seco, Mariato, Veraguas, Panamá

I am sure some of you have been wondering where we have been over the past months since our last posting.  Well all is well here we just continue to struggle along in internet hell.  We recently increased the speed of our satellite system and seem to be able to communicate a little better, but it is still far from perfect.  So this post will hit some highlights from our life here in beautiful Panamá.

The house building continues at a rapid pace even through the worst part of the rainy season.  Usually by this time of year the rains would be so consistent and heavy that work would have slowed to a crawl, but Panamá is in the middle of a severe drought.  On our side of the peninsula we are getting rain most days, but it starts late in the day so they are able to still get a lot of work done.  It is really fun to watch the progress and we are now able to see the bones of the house and imagine our future in it - if all goes well sometime next June!

View from the living room

Covered terrace and guest room below

While we were happily spending our days continuing to learn and practice our Spanish, playing on the beach, working with the Los Islotes sales team and getting to know our new home country; we couldn't pass up an opportunity to work with Live and Invest Overseas in a bigger capacity.  I have taken on some new bookkeeping responsibilities and Peg has begun some writing.  Welcome to "Un-Retirement".  We are really enjoying our new jobs and the extra money is giving us some breathing room especially while we build the house. Peg is the new face of a weekly e-letter called In Focus Panama http://www.liveandinvestoverseas.com/retirement-living/deciding-where-to-live-in-panama-a-firsthand-account.html It is mainly the retelling of our old stories, but it has been interesting seeing it out there in cyber-world.  We have had several people here say "I just read about you...." So weird.

In trying to get to know our new community we decided to go into the town of Mariato (about ten minutes up the road) for their 14th anniversary fiesta.  We were the only gringas there, but we had a great time with our neighbors.  There was a little parade with "floats" from the neighboring communities all with beautiful women throwing candy to the kids along the way.

These kids performed beautiful dances together 

All of the students were part of the parade

One of the floats 

We had a very fun adventure with our neighbor Iris and her kids hiking through a nearby river to a little waterfall searching for shrimp along the way.  We had been calling her Edie in our horrible English accented Spanish and came to find out that her name is Iris - pronounced basically the same way.  We had the whole family over for a few nights during the Gold Cup soccer tournament cheering on the Panamanian team.  They are very passionate about their soccer.  It has been so fun getting to know them.  We cook together, help them with homework and practice our language skills.

Jonathon age 11 and Irisbel 13

Iris and Abner age 7

Our dear friend Karen who lives on the other side of the peninsula came down with appendicitis and was rushed to the private hospital in Chitre (after stops at the Pedasi clinic and the Las Tablas public hospital) where it burst and she had surgery.  She ended up very sick from the infection and had to be transported to the Johns Hopkins hospital in Panama City where she finally recovered very nicely.  Her experience taught us some valuable lessons  1) Get to Panama City as soon as possible with anything serious 2) The importance of having Panamanian health insurance with our English speaking agent.  Here is a shout to our agent extraordinaire - Ronen Ceasar who helped her get the care she needed and bridge the language barrier when necessary.

We had the fun opportunity to spend a week in the city working in the Los Islotes office and we stayed in the apartment of a friend where we had beautiful views of the bay where the ships come and go from the canal.  In a "Godincidence" it was the very week that my son Andrew was sailing through the canal on his school /work cruise.  I stared out the window and waved hoping that I might see the right ship, but alas he went through at 4 am.

Great view!

When we returned from the city our little Zoe was down with something we attributed to her old age.  A couple of weeks later Calcite came down with the same symptoms!  We took them to a vet in Santiago who turned out to be life saver.  They both had tick fever.  After a couple of shots and a few other medications they are both back to their old selves.  Of course when he looked at Zoe's blood work he basically looked at us and said he doesn't know how she is still alive.  We will just keep loving her for as long as God let's us.

Zoe still loves the beach!

Well I always like to end by saying how much we miss all of you and that we love to hear about what is going on in your lives.  I don't know what I would do without Facebook.  Hopefully the next blog won't be five months down the road, but it is still Panama so you never know.

Love to all!