Waiting for the Rain - May 15, 2023
Hello from Panama! I have been on dental work hiatus, and while regaining oomph, I had to wade through the acquisition of Miguel's monster cold, change-of-season allergies, and the asthma of it all settling into my chest; the good news is that I am starting to feel stronger and it appears that my teeth are in pretty good shape so the leftover dental work shouldn't be too burdensome, as was feared at the start of April. My goal of ridding myself of the asthmatic cough that sounded like I could restart the pandemic on my own was accomplished by May 5; I had my temporary dental work permamentized on May 9 and actually ate a few bites of steak dinner for Mother's Day - whoopee! I ate not just solid food but chewy, resistant, savory, warm food that I could chew on the left side of my mouth! I marked it on my calendar as a significant accomplishment for my teeth; my move up from the bland, temperature-controlled, mushy blah of the previous ten weeks!
And in June, my extraction gap gets filled with an implant. I cannot just fill the hole with a bridge because of my high number of crowns, so implant it is. The cost of this will be $1400, and the specialist only comes to town once a month - quite an honor, and compared to the USA cost, an inexpensive one!
I look forward to an exciting few more bites of high-resistance, chewable food that I can chew on the right side of my mouth!
Meanwhile, Panama marches on, in search of rain!
This is officially "low season". Low in tourism, lacking in energy. But higher in humidity as the end of the dry season tries to shift to the rainy season, but it is not going quite as everyone anticipated, including the birds.
A funny thing is that I have my phone set to tell me the weather on the face screen - and it often tells me it is raining or thunder showers - when I look out the window, the sky is blue, and there might be a misty haze in the distance, but blue skies are overhead; apparently, somewhere in the valley or mountains of the Boquete district, there is rain, but not in our neighborhood! Because of the acoustics of the valley, sounds travel too well - thunder anywhere can be heard everywhere (as can music on Friday and Saturday nights), so thunderstorms don't go unnoticed, even if we don't see any rain from them. But rain could happen without our notice, and apparently does, often!
We have often heard about how big a difference a few miles makes in the micro-climates of the mountains and the valleys, but this is the first time it has been so evident.
In early March, the birds were eating everything offered - avocado, watermelon/sandia, mango, rice soaked in fruit juice, papaya, plantains, bananas, pretty much anything and everything I put out, and mostly gone by 1:00pm/13:00. By the end of March, many fewer birds were around (migration northwards), AND diets were shifting as evidenced by a change in the color of the bird poop from brown/orange to purple. The birds have been eating less and less, even those who are year-round and still in the yard - though they still peck at the bananas and papaya as though dropping by for a bite of dessert. Don't bother with the watermelon/sandia, avocado, mango, or other treats, as those only serve to feed the bugs. At this point, it takes the birds two days to eat a small papaya spread around the yard, and on day two, I can flip the banana meat in the peel and expose the unbrowned flesh for picky birds. They still drop by to check out the goods, but only have a bite or two and then move into the grass to check for bugs and slimy things that are the mainstay of their diet. We continue to be a popular dining spot because our grass is green and the babbling brook brings critters, but my breakfast fruit buffet, even for the bugs attracted by the uneaten fruit, is not the main attraction.
We have had three afternoons of significant rain in the six weeks since the Rainy Season officially began on April 1, the first on April 22, with a deluge at 4:01pm/16:01 that lasted for 90 minutes. It was impressively deluge-y; the neighbors stood on their porch and shrugged their shoulders, shaking their heads. After that, we had two days of light drizzle between 5:00pm and 7:00pm, which meant we didn't have to think about watering anything for the week, but then our neighborhood went dry and humid without the expected late afternoon rains.
The temperature has not changed much from the dry season, but we get spurts of high humidity that make it feel much hotter than the thermometer says. The micro-climate of our neighborhood is less rainy than others, so we have not had a lot of liquid relief. Our high temperatures have been around 81 (which hits around 12:00am and lasts until 1:30pm) though we more normally have a high of about 78, but our humidity can hit 90-95% in spurts, which makes it feel quite sweaty and much hotter. It also brings bugs out that haven't been visible or as active in other seasons, so the beacon-like whiteness of my skin seems to call out, "Bite me!". There isn't standing water in our neighborhood, so we don't have many mosquitos, and Boquete is not a place where the CDC warns we should get shots for malaria or warns about dengue from mosquitos. Nevertheless, I am a map of pale pink with many angry red hot spots labeled as stop-offs for bugs that have gone before. One day, I could not lace my right shoe because I had a huge bug bite that I had scratched right at the apex of the ankle joint where the shoe tongue rubbed - sandals for that day!
I was reading that we are not seeing the expected rains because of El Niño weather patterns, and we may not see the April and May rains at all this year. Typically, four months are most rainy - April and May, then October and November. We saw October/November last year, where the heavy rains coincided with passing hurricanes, and the rains and winds were impressive. "Skipping" the April/May rains is hard on the crops here, but it is also physically and mentally uncomfortable for Miguel and me - we keep expecting the rain, hearing the thunder, seeing the birds get excited and then disappointed, feeling the humidity mount, then nothing comes to relieve it...
Being from Seattle, having all of the workup to rain, then no rain is just nerve-racking! The humidity has us breaking out in sweats! We grit our teeth with the crashing thunder! The grey clouds roll across the sky with grumbles like a tummy that is just not happy.
It is like the sky is constipated - try as it might, it CAN NOT RAIN!
This Timely Change of Topic is brought to you by the Belladonna Lily:
And now, back to our regularly scheduled blog post:
Tomorrow, we head to Panama City for four days and three nights of fun and frolic in the Big City rain (The City has some rain, but the precip appears unable to cross the mountains) while we are processed at the US Embassy for our driver's licenses and our "cedula" or official Panama ID cards. This is exciting stuff! With our USA driver's licenses transferred to Panama driver's credentials, plus the permanent residency we got in April, we can buy a car and finally get to see some of the corners of Panama that we have been wondering about wandering. We can buy a car. We can go to dinner after dark (very few taxi drivers are out and about in the evening in Boquete!). The possibilities are so exciting!
My idea is that because we are not hugely social in Panama City, I will wrap this up today, take the laptop to Panama City, and then drop you some smaller bits in the evenings. We fly out tomorrow (Tuesday morning) and return on Friday night, so that should give me a couple of days to catch you up on the little features of our past month. It feels like not much has happened since I have been stuck around the house, but I am sure that something will come to me!
Until tomorrow from Panama City, have a delightful evening!
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 extinct volcanos around, and the added interference of lightning and thunderstorms in the afternoons, so there are periods where transmissions will not get through. Find WhatsApp for your phone or computer at your favorite App Store.
Phone calls: In theory, our phones can connect, but the reality is that usually, it rings once, and then a voicemail transcription shows up, and sometimes it never rings, and a voicemail transcription shows up days later. Don't trust it. If you try and we don't pick up, we probably aren't seeing or hearing it ring. If you don't use WhatsApp, stick to email as more likely to get through. We are in the outback and reliant on many factors that may not all align.
Blog Post Subscription:
- Current: I subscribed everyone receiving this as an initial mailing, so you are already signed up. See below if you wish to change your email address or add someone.
- Add: If anyone wants to get on the list for the future, you can send me their name and favored email address, and I will add them, or they can sign up through Subscribe buttons on this page: https://seattletopanama.digitalpress.blog/page/2/?ref=Seattle+to+Panama-newsletter.
- Remove or change email address: Let me know if you want to be taken OFF the list or if you prefer that I use 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/ghost/#/site