La vida en rose.

I know...I know....just when you think its safe to sit in front of the computer I come up with a really bad pun which gets you groaning - I speak of yesterday. Lo Siento (I´m sorry) sort of.

Wet baby´s head with two Italians last night. Well, that´s not strictly true, I wet the baby´s head with mohitos while the Italians were there, helping.

Frederico was muy impressionante with the
´Frederico and Ricardo find a coconut´ headline.
If today were to have a headline it would be:

´Frederico and Ricardo find a path...
through jaguar infested forest which Ricardo is confident will lead to Bocas because he´s the kind of guy who knows how to follow his nose while Frederico flies in the face of Ricardo´s 100% record of being directionally correct and would rather take the bus.´

I am off to school.

Last night we were talking about the financial status of Panamanians, it was an interesting conversation. Before I came here I received a general email about the family I would be staying with (see post circa 18.07.13), which warned me that I would be coming to a modest home with standard of living which would be very different to the one I am used to. For me this isn´t true.

My home is lovely and very comfortable. There are five bedrooms (well, they are finishing three off at the moment) and three of the rooms are en suite. The other two share a bathroom. The house has mosquito screens on every window, a patio and large garden. It is nicely decorated and furniture is similar to that at home (more substantial than Ikea). There are 2-3 televisions, white goods (fridge-freezer, oven, washing machine, etc,), wifi and Mr and Mrs and their son each have a mobile - one Blackberry.

In terms of vehicles many people in Panama seem to have big Toyota/Hilux style 4x4 wheel drive - my family have two; one old for work, one newish. People dress well, although I haven´t seen many women wearing skirts (apart from traditional dress - more on that in a bit). It´s interesting. The vision which I had of a country which was slightly poor and closer to the third world than the first is quite wrong.

Yes, there are people who are obviously poor. The seem to be more the indigenous type, the women wear traditional dress and the men trousers and shirts. Often the men carry the tool of their trade which is a long, thin machete, wrapped in plastic for safely.

Traditional dress in pink.

When people are dressed traditionally the women and men seem usually to be together, they are often carrying large loads, e.g. food, they have children with them and from what I can make out live in much more modest homes of 1-2 rooms (haven´t been inside, so guessing).

I suppose the conclusion to all this is that assumptions are often wrong.

I like the way Panamanian people are. The come across as friendly and fun loving. The other day in church (I had an ecclesiastical accident, details another time) there was a microphone incident which everyone found very funny. People are warm and friendly and helpful.

I don´t know how much of this fun loving characteristic stretches to their choice of t-shirt but the irony of some of the choices have not been lost on me:

On a toothless, elderly lady: I only kiss superheroes.
On a well dressed man carrying a (wrapped) machete: I run this town.
On an older guy, very overweight with the dirty t-shirt stretched across his large stomach: I AM the after party.
On a man at a building site who was standing, smoking and watching the world go by: Slacker.

So, here la vida is not (to quote Ricky Martin /Martinez) loca. It is structured, civilised, well mannered and seemingly affluent for some, although they don´t have a health service and I´m not sure how comprehensive the school system is.

I love Panama. You should try it.