Continuing with the expat social: Richard finally bought a car and it broke down on him shortly thereafter. It is a ’94 Land Rover, a $50K vehicle and top of the line 4WD. He ran it out of water and fried the engine. He had it rebuilt locally but it is not the same as before: it is weak and still smokes. So he is selling it for $3900 but will take $3000 because it needs a new engine. An original one could cost $20,000 but Rovers will accept other, cheaper engines as well. This would be a deal for a mechanic to fix up and re-sell. How can a former trucker not notice the water gauge on his dash? I have to assume that there was no idiot light flashing. His next car will be a Toyota because it is so common and the parts are cheap here.
I got to catch up with Larry from Altos del Maria to see how his Bed & Breakfast is going and he reported on good progress, with walls and ceiling/roof up and the floors being laid. He said that a big building supply store is being built right in Sorá, the village just outside of this huge gringo enclave. Someone’s thinking ahead; it used to be that they had to go all the way to the city for their supplies. That village is very temperate at 2200’ elevation. In his rural neighborhood he is shielded from the poverty and desperation that I see in Colón on a daily basis. It is a crowded city: around 50,000 in just a square mile, although some sources peg it at 90,000.
Wesley was at our table and we got a dose of his latest opinions. He is teaching English at a wealthy private school and he said that the kids, high school age, are as obnoxious as any in the USA. He assigned them a free-writing exercise and they wrote about every perverted topic you could imagine. He said that the hardest part of the job is getting them to practice and do repetitions. The adult class that he teaches on his own is very rewarding because the students pay him a lot and they are serious about learning. It seems that every good job in the country requires English proficiency. For private lessons he will charge up to $50 an hour and for classes he gets $10 an hour from each student. Wesley has a good reputation for teaching effectively. There are a lot of language schools out there which are scamming the locals because their instructors don’t know how to teach and they don’t even have a mastery of English to begin with.
I heard a funny story about teaching English that was sworn as true: A local “teacher” advertised a “course to learn of a proper English”. He assembles a class and posts a large picture of Benjamin Franklin on the wall. He spends his lecture time describing the virtues of this proper English (man) but not teaching a bit of English language, of which he knows little. His defense against incrimination is that he taught just what he advertised. After the social we hailed a taxi and returned to our temporary quarters with Nereida. The Diablo rojos, (nick-name for the busses) were out in force tonight: there were six of them trying to jockey for a spot at a bus stop on Calle Peru in Calidonia, taking up all of the lanes. Our taxi was trying to snake its way through them to cross the boulevard. It was a hairy situation but our cabbie was brave and held off the beasts.
A friend sent me a story written by one of those US pensioners living in the high priced, cool climate district of Boquete, high in the mountains of Panama. It sounded like an Idyllic existence of hiring locals to build a custom house and to manage the coffee plantation while spending mornings breakfasting and socializing at a local restaurant and evenings watching US programs on satellite TV. I could only comment that it sounded like living on another planet compared to life in Colón or in Casco Antigua. I guess that I am mostly describing the dark underbelly of Panamá, the polar opposite of the heavenly life of the retired foreigners. Even the wealthy foreigners who have to live in Colón to work in the Free Trade Zone will recognize my descriptions. I am living more on the level of the local working class. I don’t have a car, but take busses wherever I want to go and buy food at the street stands to save money. I’m not trying to be negative, but I do report on what I see and hear and don’t try to clean it up for the Ministry of Tourism.
Altos del Maria -gated valley
