Where is Waldo AKA Jeeni

Life goes at a much slower pace here. Since the goal of this trip was to recover from law school and the bar, the pace is just what I needed. The weather is not as bad as I anticipated. It is always between 80 and 95, clouds mean less heat, but more moisture. I looked up a nifty formula so I can translate Celsius into Fahrenheit (all the thermostats are Celsius). When it rains several times in a row, it really cools down, but everything is sloshy wet. During particularly hard rainfalls the streets essentially turn into rivers. From Meivis´s three story window I can look down and it appears that we are on river front property. People and cars disappear suddenly. As soon as the rain stops, the people and cars return and the water drains away rather quickly. The garbage bins here are metal cages welded to two feet tall posts. This keeps the garbage in check when the streets flood.

I have been making adjustments to my wardrobe in order to fit in and be comfortable. Rather than wearing my REI zip off jungle pants, I bought myself a smoking hot pair of knock off Bebe shorts for only $10. Over the weekend I went shopping with Meivis and her sister Tita. We took a taxi ($1.75) to a market, essentially a long blocked off street with shops, street vendors, blaring music of all kinds, hundreds of lotto sellers, and street pedicures. It was fantastic. I have some pictures of the street pedicures and the lotto sales I will post when I remember to bring my USB cable to the Internet cafe (I remembered!) The reason for the shopping excursion, besides getting me some camouflage was that Tita needed a new bathing suit for our planned trip to the beach.




Let me point out that there is a great deal of diversity here, with one exception. Gringos! Yup, there are very few white people. We stopped to get some soft serve ice cream on our shopping excursion and a little boy came up to me asking for food in Spanish. I said no and he ran off. It was at that moment when I realized out of thousands of people working, walking, selling, dealing, singing, shouting, laughing and just milling about, I was the only whitey in site. I didn´t feel uncomfortable at all. There are all sorts of Latinos, blacks, and even Chinese and mix of every combination in Panama. I feel at home, especially growing up part of my life on the west side and then later living in Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco. Plus I am used to hearing Spanish, albeit a more ghetto version. No one here says 'ay way' or 'ese'. I pointed out the diversity phenomenon to Meivis and her sister and they laughed. Tita pointed out that her son six year old son with us was very white-looking and it was possible people thought I was a lighter Latina. I was flattered.

The market was an interesting people watching playground, but the merchandise was nothing special. Since Panama has the canal, they have tons of knock off and boot leg products. Most of the stuff is pretty crappy. In a shoe store, Meivis´s brother was checking out some Michael Jordan's and telling me 'muy bonita'. I picked one up and discovered the rubber soles to be much too stiff, the stitching sloppy and the overall quality very poor. Nonetheless, the price tag was $60, a discount compared to a similar, yet real pair back in the states. The only other thing I bought was the ice cream, the shorts and some new cheaply priced hanker chiefs.

I feel like I am getting used to most things here. For example, I no longer gasp when I jump in the shower (there is no hot water in the house). However I still giggle when everyone is watching TV. They play movies here in English with Spanish sub-titles, but they don´t bleep anything. So it´s f-this and f-that right on regular cable. At first I wondered in anyone else realized that the actors were cussing, but then I read the sub-titles and saw that it was being translated into the first words I learned in Spanish... You can guess which ones.

I am off to my second day of Spanish lessons. Hasta luego.

Jeeni