Boquete Musings - Oct. 6, 2022
Hello! MaryBea in the Paradise of Boquete, Panama! Miguel is here, too, suffering from allergies he didn't know he had.
Which is a lovely segue to the cost of private medical services in a country of public health. Soon after arriving, I felt I had cracked a tooth - huge pain any time I created a vacuum (like sucking through a straw) or drank a hot or cold drink. So I went to a dentist recommended by the Panama Relocation Tours folks. The cost for a same-day appointment, x-ray, anesthesia, drilling out a very old and compromised filling, and then replacing it in 30 minutes or so was $40 - and I felt better immediately. Tuesday, Miguel dropped into a private doctor just across the bridge for a general work-up, complaining of congestion, sneezes, and coughing; the doctor presented several possibilities of diagnoses, ordered a bunch of lab tests and a chest x-ray, and said to drop by when those were completed to discuss the results - this was just a drop in visit on his way to the gym. The doctor visit was $7, the lab work was $52, including a whole panel of blood work, a stool sample, and urine testing, and the chest x-ray was $13. Miguel will stop by again on Monday so he can see the same doctor, and he expects the visit to cost less than $20. There is no reason to avoid health care in Panama - between affordable care and healthy foods, you practically have to work at being unhealthy.
Vacating vs. Vacation:
I have been vacillating between feeling like I need to settle into the environment and soak everything up slowly, like I am settling into a new neighborhood, and that sense of vacation where I need to do something every day as though there might not be an opportunity again if I don't hurry up! InstaPot myself into Boquete and let myself marinate in the humid juices of the place, or meet everyone and find out what every opportunity and activity offered is so that I can get busy and organize my life and structure my time. I figured out that even though Miguel and I usually stay in one place for 4-6 weeks, and we always vacation with enough time for downtime and slow days, we still try to tourist about with fairly consistent activities and sightseeing.
I feel like I am not doing enough. Not getting out enough. Not touring the countryside to see new things. The sense that we have only been in Panama for three weeks is kind of bordering on "stale vacation" and "I should be doing more" rather than "fresh new life" and "my Panamanian feet are just getting wet"!
Vacating Seattle was not as complete as I expected - we still have a pretty full storage space, mostly my things, as I did a better job of packing the mountains of things Miguel was sure he would need than I did getting to my own packing. I am glad, as I would have a lot of things I now know I wouldn't use here, but still, vacating Seattle was not as clean a break as I had planned. The sense of relocating, of MOVING to Panama, has not hit me - I feel like I just barely made it to the airport in time for a 6 week vacation, not for running away from Seattle!
Miguel is very into being moved. He feels vacated from Seattle, and not at all that he is vacationing in Panama. He is making friends around town; Ken, the USA vet with a Brazilian girlfriend who works out at his gym; Claudia from Columbia and Henrik from Denmark, who own a health food restaurant; and Anayansi at the front desk who misses Guatemalan pepián just as Miguel does.
We have reserved this hotel apartment for one month, and if we find a place to rent before our month runs out, we pay by the week for the reduced time - a good deal. November and December are holiday months in Panama - November is filled from start to finish with national holidays and December with religious holidays. After that, it is the "not so rainy season," and snowbird ex-pats move down from the distant norths of the Americas and Europe. Rent prices go up from November to May, so it is worthwhile to rent now.
Tomorrow, we have an appointment to spend the day with our private tour guide, Maury, who took us around the area to look at some rentals in February to get an idea of pricing and sizes and a sense of the make-up of different neighborhoods. If you were on my list back in those olden days, you might remember that we chose three neighborhoods to try as our first-offs; our idea was to rent for 6 months in each of three neighborhoods, and during that time, also identify if there were other towns or neighborhoods we wanted to try before deciding on longer-term contracts. Maury has been looking into those three neighborhoods this week to find places we could see, and we have been building two lists - questions for Maury such as bank accounts and driver's licenses, shoe shopping recommendations, and important landing-in-Boquete things like that. The second list is things we want/like in a home; Right now, that "home" list is short - arches, tiles, open and light-filled.
Meanwhile, I am trying not to push myself; thinking that I have to have something to do all the time is partly based on many years of working and many years of stuff that needed to be worked. My jewelry makings are in Seattle, and my hands are not able to hold the pliers to make jewelry, nor hooks and yarn to crochet, nor most of the things I had set aside for when I retired. I don't want to collect a lot of things - practically nothing, in fact. I want to collect ideas, and photos in a cloud. I want to have flowers and plants in a garden, with birds and butterflies that visit, all of which I can leave to the next person who lives there.
The new people I meet interest me because they are here in Panama, which means they are on an adventure. If they are here to learn new things, I am too - we have something important in common. If a new culture, or several, captivates someone I meet and causes them to see new perspectives, I want to enjoy that with them, hear their impressions, and share mine. The openness attracts me to people, which takes time to find, see, and enjoy. There is no value in hurrying, poking my toe in the water, and returning to my old life and ways.
I am fighting the vacation mentality - staying hasn't quite struck me as a reality, but maybe tomorrow's search for our first rental will help to cement the idea that this beautiful new place is home.
I added some photos to brighten up the post. Flowers and the birds make me smile. The butterflies don't stand still much, but I am working on them, and one butterfly stopped to wink at me!
More after our first home hunt!
MaryBea y Miguel
How to find us:
Replies to blog postings via email: If you hit "reply" to this email and get a "no reply" address, use the x to knock it out, type in MaryBeaGallagher@gmail.com, and I will get your response. Quirky.
Email: Use our Gmail accounts for email - for some reason, my Comcast/Xfinity doesn't work consistently in Central America.
WhatsApp is the best route for texts and voice calls, but it is uncertain for video calls. We are officially in the Outback of Panama now, in a valley with mountains and volcanos around, and the added interference of lightning and thunderstorms in the afternoons, so there are periods where transmissions will not get through immediately. Find WhatsApp for your phone or computer at your favorite App store.
Blog Post Subscription: Everyone receiving this as an initial mailing is subscribed by me - so you are already signed up. If there is anyone who wants to get on the list for the future, you can send me their name and favored email address, and I will add them. Let me know if you want to be taken OFF the list or if you prefer I send to a different email address. Otherwise, you will get all future posts as you have received this.
Past Blog Posts: Go to this site and poke around to find past posts, some as old as January 2022. https://seattletopanama.digitalpress.blog/page/2/