Panama: Day 1

I don't think that I'll ever have a job as conducive to traveling as teaching at Jiangsu Teachers University of Technology. It was ridiculous. Because of that, I'm not going to be taking nearly the sorts of vacations I took back then, and of course, the Peace Corps doesn't exist for us to take vacations-but we are given some vacation days. So, although I could write up the trip to Panama in one post, I'm going to string it out into many posts. Also, I have a feeling that some other Peace Corps Volunteers might want to go down there on vacation, so I'll mention restaurants, etc. by name.

The trip down was a 16 hour bus ride, but since I've already been on one of the worst bus rides ever, it was a breeze. Due to all sorts of plans getting changed and ticket purchasing complications-I ended up traveling down with Eric, Liz, Elena, and Katherine, all fellow volunteers. We traveled with TicaBus, in the 'executive' class, which meant they gave us snacks and meals-which I thought were delicious, but I also haven't ever been disappointed with airline fare. The seats reclined and were reasonably comfortable, although I had already seen Taken on a plane, I watched it again. I don't know how in the world two separate travel providers have thought this movie appropriate for traveling, but they have, it blows my mind! They keep the bus super cold, so that if you can't sleep, at least you'll go numb. A fun anecdote was that, at 23:25, for our bus that was to leave at 23:00, when I went out to ask if this was the right bus and everything was okay, the other guy that had gone out to ask the same thing was also American. We left 40 minutes after official departure. No one apologized or said anything. C'est la vie.

(Panama City skyline seen from Casco Viejo)

The border opened at 6:00. We arrived at the border at 4:40. We stood in line, there were some bench like opportunities and plenty of curb to sit on. The British spell curb "kerb." This is only slightly less mind-blowing than the fact that a company that drives buses to Panama every day has its passengers wait at the border for almost an hour and half. And imagine if we had left on time! I can't think of a good reason why this happened, yet I'm open to suggestions. I am proud to say I was the first person to get out of line, cross the street, and sit down at the restaurant that opened at 5:15, and had a nice breakfast of gallo pinto and eggs.

The rest of the trip went very smoothly. Literally, the highways in Panama are significantly, noticeably, considerably better than those in Costa Rica. They're almost exactly the same as American highways. There are certain downfalls to having the U.S. all up in your business for the better part of a century, but certain benefits-like nice highways. Another novel concept in many of the towns where we stopped were pedestrian overpasses. In much of Costa Rica, and the entire region where I live, after you get off the bus, you wait for it to pass and then cross the highway. A student from my high school was hit by a car and killed this way this year. Pedestrian overpasses, on the other hand, either Panama or their American friends, figured out, avoid this problem.

 (Casco Viejo district-where I stayed)

Panama City also has something amazing (number three so far, for those of you keeping score): a central bus station. Yes, one bus station where all the long distance buses stop, and many of the city buses as well. It's also right next to the airport. Amazingly convenient. The bus to our destination didn't seem to come too often, so we taxied into town, got to our respective hostels, washed up, and had a delightful dinner, and I had my first Panama Beer-amazing creativity in that name! We ate at Pedro's, which was kind of an imitation sports bar (emphasis on boxing)-good pizza, good salads, but there's better at other places we went.

Oh, at the border I had to change my watch, which brings up the fourth thing that I instantly loved about Panama, they use Daylight Savings Time. It doesn't make as much sense here as it does in places farther from the equator-but-hey Panama isn't quite there, so it still makes sense. And, well, additionally, I'd much rather have the sun go down at 18:30 than at 17:30!

*There are some pictures from past day one, forgive the inconsistency, but there are lots of pictures I'd like to put up, Panama City is quite photogenic. 

Getting wet

So, my last post went up when I was taking my first vacation in Panama. It was a blast, more to come soon on that. After that I spent five days in San José for my mid-service training, which was a great chance to see everyone from my group, share successes and challenges, and learn some new things. After that, the plan was to come home, relax, and get up some blogs about Panama. Well, the rain had another idea.

Heavy rains in the mountains combined with heavy rains in the area where I live, and the biggest flood I've seen yet came to town. When I returned from training, the main bridge to the side of town I live on was out, meaning that school was out as well-the pedestrian bridge, which is much higher, was still well above the water. Everything seemed fairly okay (the bridge floods every month or so) when I went to bed, but I did notice that family I live with was up super late. The next morning, the family I rent from woke me up and suggested I start to put everything that was on the floor or low shelves onto my desk, shelves, and bed. Coincidentally, one of my two bosses happened to be in town for a meeting with the teachers I and other volunteers work with. Due to the flood, this meeting didn't really happen, but he was concerned about me, so he took a raft over to my side of town, checked out the flooding, and he suggested I get out of dodge for a bit. I left just as the water crossed the doorway into my room. So, I spent two delightful days with Megon and Kevin, a couple near me, and even got to see Megon's elementary school choir sing at a Christmas festival (which included lots of tasty tamales as well!).

(if you look closely, you can see a brown barn on the other side of the where the road and bridge usually are)

To further delay these posts, upon return to my house, everything was fine, besides some water stains on the wall and doors (water got to 14 or 15 inches in my room (.38 meters)), yet, the Internet wasn't working. So, after some wire checking and waiting for the family to call the phone company, the Internet finally got working the other day, so expect the posts to start coming. Enjoy the pictures-the one at the top is my house (when I left it), the one below is the road out of town-it got in on the flooding as well!

Books

While I was fairly busy during training, one thing that I did realize is that I was going to have plenty of time to do some reading in the Peace Corps. I still remember from one of my interviews the interviewer talking about how a girl she served with read War and Peace in just a few days during the rainy season-as there was little else to do. That turned out to be fairly true. I got through a few books during training-and shamelessly plugged the Kindle to anyone who would listen. I still will: I’m a huge Kindle fan. If you travel much, live abroad, or have a fear of libraries: the Kindle is one of the best buys you can make (assuming you enjoy reading).

There are plenty of things to occupy my time here, and many things that I probably ought to be doing a lot more of, but with Costa Rican television offering nothing more than telenovelas during the evening, many a night can be spent with a book. Sometime early in my service I decided that I would try to read a book a week during my service. I got well ahead of pace early on-with no school in January and February, and my community diagnostic report coming along without taking too much of my time (I even turned it in early!) I spent plenty of time on the couch with my Kindle. I was eager for a conversation with my new host family-but understood that they didn’t want to spend every waking hour talking to me and, in the case of Estefany, my host sister, actually watch the telenovelas.

Getting Internet at my house made a million things easier for me, but didn’t help out my reading. Well, rather, just shifted it. I spend lots more time reading news and random Wikipedia articles online than before, but my book reading has slowed down. The other big block to my reading was the fact that I got hold of some TV series, and well Friday Night Lights and The Wire pretty much sucked up all my leisure time. (Both are highly recommended.) Bus rides help, so my trip to Panama (going on right now) will hopefully help that out. Unfortunately, I have to say, that as of November 25, I had slacked a bit, and had only read 55 books. One a week would have had me at 58 or 59. Guess I’ll have to pick it up over the remaining year plus of service. So, now, on to the good stuff: my reviews. I tried to read a balance between non-fiction and fiction, so I’ve broken up the recommendations that way. And, well, in doing these, I’ve realized that I’ve got pretty low standards, which is great, because it meant that I’ve enjoyed almost every book I’ve read so far.

Top three fiction books (this was hard to choose):
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
-The characters were incredibly human. It was difficult at times to understand why the main character did what he did, and at other times not at all. Just like real people. 

The Quiet American by Graham Greene
-Fantastic characters and great settings. Thought provoking and chocked full of quotes to write down, read again, and think about. Not directly emotional for me, as I was born 13 years after the US pulled out of Vietnam. 


The World According to Garp by John Irving
-It was fun, sad, interesting, thought provoking, and fun. I liked the main character a lot, I don't know if that's true for all readers, I tend to think it isn't and probably shouldn't be. Mostly though, it's a fun book, like a good novel can be. 


*Dubliners (Joyce), Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Safran Foer), and Pride and Prejudice (Austen) were also in the running.

Top three non-fiction books (even harder to choose):
Economic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell
-Much of the reason I like this book is that much of it fits within my beliefs and positions, I'll admit that much. Yet, I'd highly recommend it because it takes an economic and objective view about some of our most commonly held beliefs regarding society.



The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis
-It was a page turner for me. Granted I studied finance and am super interested in finance and economics. Regardless, it's a great perspective on the financial crisis by a great author.

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer
-An incredibly interesting subject is treated with the seriousness, attention to detail, and frank honesty that he deserved.

*Plan B 4.0 (Brown), The Looming Tower (Wright) and The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life (Schroeder) were also in the running.
Worst fiction book:
The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho
-The author used lots of fluffy words and mystical expressions to cover the fact that he was putting an undeveloped character in unrealistic situations-which made the book hard for me to be interested in. I think you can put fantastic crazy characters in realistic situations and vice versa, realistic characters in fantastical situations make amazing fiction-but this book does neither. Maybe it's better in Portuguese. 

Worst non-fiction book:
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
-There were some passages that I wrote down and will repeat and think about for years to come. There truly are some great passages.  Yet, that doesn't overcome the fact that I could barely get myself through pages of describing which lake froze first in the winter, or on what date the lake had frozen the last few years, or how long he cut the boards to make the wall, or a cost analysis of corn meal versus Indian meal...I think you're starting to get the point. It's a whole lot better to visit nature (or watch Planet Earth) than to read about it.

And, in looking over my reading list (there's no way I could've done this from memory) I found it fun that these three books were on the same list: Eat, Pray, Love; The Communist Manifesto; and The Fountainhead.