TheExpatJournals.com

So indeed, dog tired, I arrived back in Casco Viejo Tuesday night missing both the opening day of post-season baseball and the vice-presidential debate. I had arrived in NYC in the middle of the Republican Convention. Those two flights couldn’t have been more poorly timed if I had tried. At least it wasn’t boring when I arrived and thank God the flight didn’t have a lot of people on the return. I think I’ll try to always book flights on Tuesdays in this direction.

I don’t think I will ever get used to the overpowering blast of humidity when you open the door at Tocumen. Even before that, the smell of mildew is present from the time you deplane. It never ceases to surprise me how often stores smell like mildew. As someone who lost about $6,000 in damage or destruction due to mildew in NC, I’m amazed there isn’t more loss here. But I’d never buy a rug or clothing or much here in Panama City without smelling it first. And neighbor informed me that she took her leather bags, leather coats, etc back to Bogota because of the mildew here. Indeed, I got back to find two pairs of leather shoes covered in mildew.

I’ve barely ventured out as I now have much work to do and am still catching up on the rest I didn’t get for my last week in NYC. I did clear out the office I had used and went through all but 10 or so boxes in my storage space which entailed lifting more weight in two days that I might normally lift in a year. I threw away a LOT of dead weight. And then, at 1AM last Saturday night, my son decided to take a lot more from the apartment that he came down to pick up. So `we’ (and I do use that word loosely) started packing dishes, linens, crystal, etc. After napping for about 2.5 hours, it was up to pack the van, drive to Boston, have dinner and drive back to NYC arriving around 5AM, getting 3 hours of sleep and going at it all over again. Somehow, less the arduous physical labor, my life in NYC always seems to come back to this…way too much work on way too little sleep.

The first ten days I was there were fantastic, seeing friends, eating at all my favorite restaurants, etc. And the weather was so perfect! I realized at some point that I needed to really soak up the fall like temperatures because I would need to get on a plane to experience the same from this point forward. I loved seeing my breath at night and waking up cold because I left the window open. Thanks to the remnants of Ivan, one morning we did have a Panama-like thunderstorm with that
bombastic thunder that will awake me from a dead sleep instantly. I had never seen that kind of lightening nor heard that kind of thunder in NYC. And I felt at home.

There was a day I came out of the subway to 6 cops at the top of the stairs in riot gear, less the helmets, all carrying machine guns. I knew my perspective had changed when it didn’t even phase me. I’ve grown accustomed to seeing men with machine guns at this point. It doesn’t seem out of the ordinary nor scary anymore.

So I’m looking out my windows in Casco Viejo and realizing that the flamboyant trees have lost leaves while I was away, as though there were a fall here. The sunset colored blooms are now few, the Mimosa-like leaves less opaque and the ocean is visible where once a lush green was all I could see. The verenera (bougainvillea) is in full bloom. There is an incredible ceiling of color above the Paseo at the arbor. And the plants on my balcony are very different from a month ago. One vine has grown so much it coiled around a bar and still continues. The one small bush with vertical yellow blossoms that loosely resemble inverted pine combs had one bloom closed so tightly I now realize it was a bud. I’m told it’s called camerone, like shrimp. It now has 13 blooms and 5 or 6 have fallen off since I got back. Upon closer inspection, it has long black hairs like one might pull out of a hairbrush. In fact, I thought perhaps the maid has swept hair outside, but after trying to remove a couple, realized it was part of the plant. It is so wonderful to have a balcony so full of bloom…dark purple, red, white, and yellow. And I still have two plants that are yet to bloom!

Some things were different when I got back. I noticed that the vendors weren’t out on the Paseo and thought that perhaps it was indicative of the rainy season. My first day back, it rained like I’m yet to see in Panama City. And for the first time ever, a cab came by just as I stepped outside. 6″-10″ rivers poured downstream on the side of all the roads around here. Now I understand why the sidewalks are built so high from the road! If they weren’t, they’d be underwater when it rains like it did Wednesday. Drains were so saturated, they gurgled back up like fountains on every corner. It was dark all afternoon.

But rainy season was not the reason the vendors were absent. From my balcony, I saw the dancer (the guy who always danced with his broom when tourists weren’t around to see). He told me the new government banned vendors on the Paseo. So no more inexpensive molas for the tourists and no more ethnic jewelry for me! He did tell me that after the government closes at 6, they might come sell in the evening. I asked him if the police would ticket him for doing so and he didn’t know. This eviction began two weeks ago. Bummer…seeing me all the time was how I got the `good’ price! “The price is $10, but for you, I give it to you for $6.” On the other hand, I was looking forward to seeing the outcome of what I began to call the African Mola.

One of the Kuna ladies borrowed two pieces of my Kuba Cloth to trace and was going to make molas from the copied pattern. She is also the same lady who was going to make a mola quilt that I wanted to put on display in a shop in the US so that folks who were interested could order them.

Well, I’ve been home for 5 days now and today, it feels like the rest of me might be arriving. I don’t know if it’s my own personal rite of passage, but this is my third trip to Panama and I get sick each time I arrive. I suspect it has a lot more to do with my last weeks in NYC where I tend to work about 18+ hours a day and sleep when I can. In short, I always arrive completely burned out, but knowing I can rest, relax and recuperate here. I could literally count the times I’ve been sick in the last couple of decades on one hand. And now three times in 5 months! At least this wasn’t the horrible bronchitis of May or July. I was beginning to question being able to survive more days of 104 degree fever.

This time, within two days I had already made a trip to the Arrocha to get a dieuretic. For whatever reason, my fingers and my left ankle swell when I arrive. I adapt, but it can make that first week here uncomfortable, totally unnecessary thanks to modern medicine.

So yesterday, I ended up going with a friend to Machetazo in Caledonia. I walked home from there and shopped along the way and realized, these sights, this experience gave me the same kind of feeling of home, relaxation and security that the NYC skyline once provided. I forgot I had no money when I left, so I ended up getting $200 out of the ATM at Machetazo and at first, felt quite self-conscious carrying that much cash around on me in that part of town. But like the time I’ve had to walk around with thousands on me in NYC, I remember I don’t look the part and relax. And all inevitably is fine. It was comforting to see the lady with the great empanadas de guayaba though she didn’t have any yesterday. I met a lady with a beautiful rusty red verenera. We spoke and she agreed to come back next Saturday with 3 more for me, 2 in white and 2 in that lovely shade I can no longer remember the name of. They are $1.50 each.

Verenera is historically THE plant for balconies in Casco Viejo. The plants are so sparse and vibrant they almost seem dainty and do seem to fit perfectly hanging over the edge and between balcony bars. I bought my fresh OJ from my favorite vendor. I went back to the department store on the Peatonal where I had found real Turkish rugs for $50 each and they were gone. A clerk told me the larger rugs were moved to San Miguelito. I must chase them down and see if they’re still available. I’m kicking myself for forgetting to buy them before I left for NY. Of the 3 rugs I did manage to bring down this time, the red Turkish rug doesn’t really look that great on the red tile. Not enough contrast.

The lady who looks like a voodoo queen surrounded by herbs was not there. The lady I buy my plantains from was. The man who cuts the miniature bananas for me from the stalk was there. He always has 4 guys playing music beside his stand. And they are having such a good time doing it. And they groove.

Speaking of music, there is a craze underground that seems to be truly swelling in the US called reggaeton. And no, it doesn’t sound like reggae, it’s more like Latin Hip-Hop. Reggaeton started in Panama! It grew large in Puerto Rico which, of course, sent it straight to NYC given the large Puerto Rican population there. But how great would that be for Panama to be the origin of a music craze that swept the US?

As always, I’m still amazed at how far the dollar stretches here. The other day, I bought a wooden chopping board, two of the largest box type horizontal planters I’ve seen, a glass juice bottle, a chicken roaster of the typical speckled enamel sort, a stainless colander, mesh drains for the sink, and other odds and ends for around $40. The least expensive, much smaller planters I had seen before were around $20 each. For household stuff, Conways in the Allbrook Mall has become a favorite.

Two new restaurants have opened in Casco Viejo during the month I was away…one on the little street in front of my building that ends in the French Plaza, a Tapas place where Tres Caracoles used to be and one on Cathedral Plaza called Manzana’s. Maybe now there’s somewhere to actually have lunch for under $15 in this neighborhood! I’ve only walked to Cathedral Plaza in the direct line most advantageous where the possibility of getting a cab is and in the two blocks directly behind me, 2 new renovation projects began while I was away and one looks almost completed. I’m always amazed at how rapidly this neighborhood seems to be developing and from what I can tell, it’s rarely Americans, mostly Panamanians or Europeans.

One of the things I did on this trip to NY was decide to give up my apartment at the end of this year. The lease was up for renewal, had to make a choice. I have given myself a year and one half in Panama to decide whether living here truly makes sense. That seems to be the right amount of time for me based on experience in the past. Until then, I come and go on a tourist Visa. Which all means that after my next trip, every 90 days, I will then get to go places like Costa Rica or Cartegna instead of needing to go back to NYC. Each time I come back, either to here or NYC, I feel the kind of empty and alone that exists in that void before you settle into where you are. It’s quicker to adapt to NYC because I can usually walk out my front door and run into someone I know. And because I have close, dear friends of many, many years there. But each time I come back to Panama, it feels hard at first. I assume that probably doesn’t happen to couples, but I’m on my own…sola. And usually, that’s the good news. But those first couple of weeks…