Bud

In the interest of full disclosure, there is a rudimentary "test" regarding rules of the road and signage, etc. It is done via a machine (not a paper test or oral exam). Further, be advised that there is a book of the rules of the road that every driver is supposed to have in his vehicle. Last I heard was that it is available at Super Centro Ivan in Alto Boquete (but I presume at many other stores as well). Good luck. P.S., my experience with Sertracen located at Chiriqui Mall in David (where you get your license) has always been very friendly and supportive staff. So far, all discussion has been in Spanish, but Spanglish works.

Personal opinion here. At least someone is studying and reporting on these kinds of social issues. The statistics re graduates vs job availability is very discouraging. Is this a case of too many babies and not enough jobs, jobs, jobs? And yet there are reports of businesses not being able to find qualified applications (for mostly high tech positions). Scary information. Education is the key to moving forward in a good direction.

We recently were in the US (Houston), and could not resist taking a picture of the large Haas avocados in an HEB store. Note the price. These avocados were imported from Mexico. It is reasonable to believe that HEB was making a profit on these avocados, including with higher labor costs (compared to local store labor costs). Further, experience tells me that Haas avocados are more expensive than non-Haas. I will grant that economies of scale may play a role here. I leave to the viewer their conclusion about local pricing structure.

Watching how fervently the Panamanian people express their disapproval of this proposed electricity rate hike is admirable and makes me proud of the public's interest and involvement in issues that really affect them. Let's just hope their activities will be peaceful.

Dottie, You continue to perform a valuable service for the Volcan community. We are somewhat stressed to read your comments about the "dumping" of animals in that area. I cannot imagine any rational reason behind such action, but trust your assessment. Please don't give up on your passion of taking care of the domestic pets in Volcan. However, Marcelyn and I knowing you as we do do not think your mindset includes an option for giving up. Thank you, and to all of your volunteers and to Dr. Tello as well.

Again no electricity for many hours today, and no hope in sight. Yes, I call the electric company and place a trouble ticket, but it just seems to be wasted energy. They should recognize my voice by now. Anybody got electricity in Boquete, and with a long extension cord?

Marcelyn and I had our first dining experience at the new Boulder 54 Restaurant (located at Hotel Oasis) last evening. A friend joined us, so there were three of us. We sat in the gazebo area next to the fireplace, which was lit and helping keep us warm. The really pleasant surprise for us was that we were greeted by Nelson, who called us by name upon our arrival. For those who don't know Nelson, he is a well known person in the restaurant trade here in Boquete. Always professional, smiling, knowledgeable, attentive and with good English skills. Hooray for Chef Chris and his partner Justin for including Nelson in the staff of this new restaurant. We miss the service of Calixto from the Restaurant Oasis days, but Nelson made up for his absence. There have been numerous changes in the facility itself, all of which were creating a warm and engaging ambiance. Overall it was a nice experience. Presentation of our main dishes was excellent. The food was prepared as requested. And the unplanned entertainment added a bit of levity to the event -- two ducks decided to come into our area and bash their heads against the glass windows. The staff promptly escorted the unwanted and rather large ducks out of our area, but the animals tried to return a few times. Here are some pictures taken last night. First are the two main entrees: Note the large serving sizes and nice presentation. Next a picture of the two unwanted dinner guests as they were trying to reenter the gazebo area (we presume they could smell the aromas of our food).. Next, a shot of Justin and Chef Chris, the two principals behind Boulder 54 and other businesses in the Boquete and Puerto Armuelles areas. At the table behind Justin and Chris are Lola Braxton and her husband Steve. We have known Lola for many years, and engaged her services several times. Lola lives in David, and is well known in the expat community as a translator and liaison/coordinator. And finally, upon departing we noted one of those high tech laser/LED signs displaying the logo of the restaurant on the concrete walkway at the entrance area from the parking lot. Nice touch here, but it would have been better had the sign correctly spelled Chef Chris' last name (Young, not Yonug). We got a big laugh from that sign, but it just adds to happy memories.

Sad news for all in our community. Deepest condolences to the Ruiz family. In our years here we would occasionally encounter Sr Don Plinio. Here is a link to a posting we did of one such encounter in January 2017:

Marcelyn and I have been enjoying the various musical performances and cultural displays at Biblioteca de Boquete. We chatted with Elsa a few days ago, and she provided us with a brochure of the musical performances for 2018. We encourage all of the expats in this area to participate in and support these events. You can even stop by the library to purchase a season ticket, that then gives you reserved seating. That can be important because several of these events so far have been standing room only. Here is that flyer:

Nice to read some good news about local eateries. Thanks for posting.

Even though Dan (Twin Wolf Technology) has moved out of Panama, he is still able to diagnose and fix software and operating system issues. He spent about 40 minutes today working remotely on my primary desktop machine, and it was an amazing experience to watch him. A wizard at work. If you need help with a Windows machine of any variety, call on Dan. Highly recommended. Just send a PM (private message) to @Twin Wolf Technology Group.

Bud here. It seems to me that the underlying message of Marcelyn's initial posting in this topic is being lost. In the incidents originally mentioned I was the driver. Marcelyn has her license but prefers not to drive if it can be avoided. (Maybe it is a kind of "Driving Miss Daisy" thing? ) Note that I have been in Panama for 17+ years. I have many (as in MANY) stories I could tell about unsolicited acts of kindness on the part of the Panamanians. To me, it was very noticeable from the git-go because of the contrast between the US and Panama in this regard. Those acts of kindness continue to this day. Along the same line of thought is how many Panamanians will recall a person's name, without aid of a database lookup or accessing their cell phone address book. That is a characteristic that I find almost uniquely Panamanian. Only one example here for instance: many years ago while at MultiPlaza in PC I purchased a vacuum packing machine at a kitchen utensil store. I still have and use that machine on a frequent basis. Well, about a year later I went back to the same store in PC to purchase more supplies for that machine. As I walked in the store -- one year later, and having been in the store only one prior time -- the same lady behind behind the cash register saw me, smiled, and then immediately said, "Good afternoon Mr. Huber. How is your machine working and how can I help you?" I was stunned. That is not the only time that I have experienced such. Well, back now to the main reason for posting here. I have had only a few incidents as originally written about in Marcelyn's posting. And never before the finger treatment. I/we could be wrong, but the underlying issue is that we sense that the attitudes are changing, albeit slowly, but they are changing. We are not suggesting that this is a thoroughly documented and well-analyzed trend, but only that we sense things are slowly beginning to change. None of us individually cause this or can turn it around. We are simply putting on the table the thought that maybe we are witnessing the beginning of a "mega-trend", and in this case an undesirable one. Just my thoughts here about what we perceive as "something may be changing in the attitude towards expats". Look at the title that Marcelyn used for her posting.

I am so saddened to hear this news. The only good in this is that Hershel is not suffering. Hershel and Mikey were part of the "first wave" of expats to come to this area. Some even said they were the first wave. They, along with a few others, always were trying to make things better for our entire community. Hershel and Mikey and I spent a lot of time together here in Boquete, they at my home and vice versa. (I was not married then, and so Marcelyn never got to meet either of them.) They were very active in the early days of the "Tuesday meetings", which originally started in homes, and then expanded to a size requiring the Panamonte facilities, etc. When "Hershel's List" (what today is known as News.Boquete) got too big for administering using simple email clients, Hershel saw the wisdom of keeping it growing but using newer technology so that scaling was not an issue. Back in those days, the email list was about 100 or so people. Today it is just short of 2,000 subscribers and a mainstay communications channel for all of us. Thanks to Hershel for your vision, and to Penny for carrying forward with Hershel's List, i.e., News.Boquete. The most memorable time I had with Hershel was a trip that we did to PC. I was driving my then Toyota HiLux, and it was during that trip that I saw the breadth of Hershel's interests in the world around us. He was always humble, never liked to brag, and rarely got upset or angry. The roads back in those days were not very good, and so the trip was a long one. Mikey stayed in Boquete, and so it was just us two guys. It was shortly after that trip that Hershel and Mikey moved from their home in Alto Lino to a beach community on the Pacific side of Panama, but they never forgot their Boquete friends. Later with more health issues, they moved to New Mexico. RIP my friend. You will never be forgotten.

The restaurant at Hotel Oasis has long been one of our favorites. It all began in 2013 when we had our wedding reception at the Oasis. What an event. Since then Calixto and Neyra have always taken good care of us, to the point that Calixto knows what we are going to order when we arrive just by looking at our faces. Marcelyn asserts that Calixto makes the best gin and tonic drink in town (always with one particular brand of gin). And his lemonade drinks for me are really fantastic. As Marcelyn said in the above post, last night was both a happy and a sad time for us. We do wish them all the best in their future endeavors. Here is a picture of Oscar, Neyra, and Calixto for good memories. Taken last night, March 31st, 2018.

Here are two pictures of Anouk visiting with Dra Chely this morning. One can tell just by watching her interaction with Anouk that Dra Chely genuinely cares about pets. First is getting ready for the injection. And here having her teeth and mouth thoroughly checked.

I just now chatted with Ursula Bevan to see if the doctors have relaxed the restrictions as to donor age and travel outside of Panama. She indicated that the doctors have waived those constraints, but that the laboratory will not relax the restrictions. Unread Content Blood is still needed.

Just curious. Are we beginning to see a pattern/problem here?

I went to his site but couldn't find the survey. I did see a question in the lower right (a pop-down menu thing) about how much I would be willing to pay for "large organic shrimp", but when I clicked there it became a request for funding for the business. I don't have $2M laying around in petty cash, so I just shut down. Maye it is a website problem?

Thanks for posting. We will give it a try in the near future. Agree with your comments about the lack of marketing skills. Just seems so basic to me, but I obviously don't know how things work here. Duh! Encouraged re your comments about the food service, sizes of the servings, etc. Nowadays Marcelyn and I typically order one main dish and then split, and there still is food leftover. Re the parking, there must be a law that requires new restaurants to open without providing any parking. Will post a review after we have visited the new JF Restaurant. We wish them well, and there is reasonable expectation of success given your comments about pricing, service, food quality, and serving sizes.

Here it is after 4:30am the next day and still no electricity. When I called Gas Natural for the second time just now, there was a recording with at least 40 (admittedly just an estimation here since they talk at the speed of light ) cities/regions that they already know are without service. Not encouraging for quick restoration where we live here at the end of the line. My response to John’s question is heads will not roll. There may be some talk, perhaps strong or animated talk, but nothing will change.

When I was [much] younger and growing up in Texas, we had an expression: A “STOP” sign means Slight Tap On Pedal. Maybe “ALTO” means A Little Tap Only.

We had no choice but to be in David all day today. Our exit late in the day was probably the worst traffic we have ever experienced in David. The closer we got toward the area of the stadium, the slower the cars were going, and eventually just stopping. There were lots of police in (literally in the lanes of) the InterAmerican Hwy, and they had to have a horrible time. Lots of cars, slow moving at best, some drivers doing really stupid things, and the heat. Boy was it hot in David today.

Thank you for posting this. Bad news for the doctors, and a bad reputation for Panama. Lost passports and large amounts of money stolen really hurt the victims. Were any weapons used (guns, knives, etc.)? Is there anything the community can do to help? Just curious -- what nationality are the medical missionaries? Apologies for all of the questions, but this really ticks me off!

Nice video. Someone put a bit of tie and energy into putting it together.