Puerto Armuelles' San Vicente Elementary School
has created play structures, furniture, and planters from old tires. It is part of its recycling program.
With no help from any organization or government entity, this elementary school has developed its own recycling program. I commend the students and the
The tires add playful color to the parkprincipal for making it happen.
However, my heart sank when I first saw all the tire structures put up in the park. But it is amazing what a fun and colorful paint job can do to tires. I am pleasantly surprised by the cheerful effect.
The school did get the support for the park project from Panama's Bandera Azul program which supports environmental awareness projects. It is promoted by Panama's First Lady and administered by ANAM, Panama's National Environmental Authority.
ANAM was here in Puerto on July 19th to celebrate the structures the children had created by repurposing old tires.
Coincidentally, the beach or park railings are being redone. As you can see in the photos here and the photo gallery below; they were way past repair.
My family and I go to the park often; 2 to 4 times a week. In the last year or so the railings have disintegrated at an astonishing rate.
We often shared our concern over the condition of the park with our friend, Alberto Carbono, of the nearby Don Carlos restaurant. Each of us wanted to do something to help fix it up. Neither of us could drum up enough money to finance the railing project.
Then a few weeks ago, the local community started to donate money. It started as a trickle, but it is gaining momentum.
Just last week, Diputado Osman Gómez (a local politician) donated $500. Now the railings are being built at a rapid rate.
The cost per section of railing is $125,
Please consider donating to help buy rebar, paint, cement and labor so all 50 railing can be rebuilt.
Give your donations to Alberto Carbono, at the Don Carlos Restaurant located in front of the park.
The park is particularly special to Alberto. Not only was he was instrumental in the getting the park and the sea wall built about 15 years ago; but the park is also named after his father, Carlos Alberto Carbono. (See the photo at the top of this page).
His father also started the restaurant across the street from the Park, He named it after himself, Don Carlos. Alberto and his mother still run that restaurant.
If you go to his restaurant, ask to see the scrapbook Alberto put together detailing the process of getting the seawall and park constructed. It was done in the last years of Chiquita; but without Chiquita's help.
July 10, 2013
"35 minutes a day for 6 weeks and you will speak Spanish" - the author asserts.
I am deeply fond of this book. I am not good at languages. I took Spanish in Spain - twice - and once in Oaxaca, Mexico. I studied both in groups and with an individual tutor.
I just could not fathom how to speak Spanish with anything approaching ease.
Then one day a man working at a hotel in Granada Spain gave me this book. Someone must have left it behind. The receptionist also must have been tired of hearing me and my pathetic attempts to speak Spanish to him.
I don't know why, but something in this book clicked with me.
Suddenly I was creating sentences in Spanish. Real sentences with nouns, adjectives and most importantly verbs!
If you don't have any ambition to speak fluently, or to use many verb tenses, you could just have this book. It is pretty basic. But it has a very effective and doable learning style - for me, at least.
I don't know if you will have the same experience as I did with this book. But since Amazon has it for only 1 cent, plus shipping, it might be worth a try. Click to see it on Amazon.
This book has many rave reviews.
At first this book seems very simplistic. Its approach is to let you know all the Spanish you already "know". That is, by adding specific ending to amazing number of English words they become Spanish words.
Some people criticize the book for this seemingly simplistic approach to learning Spanish. I think it is its strength. Also, it goes into more grammar and verb tenses, in a very helpful way, later on in the book.
You might want to see check it out. It is usually $10 or less.
You can see it on Amazon, here.
You may be able to speak Spanish well enough. That is, you can have a "small talky" conversation and negotiate daily life in Spanish.
But maybe you find yourself tired of not being able to express and discuss more complex thoughts and ideas with native Spanish speakers. Maybe you hanker to have real adult conversations in the Spanish language.
Then it is time for this book. It is not a dry textbook. It really is a fun way to explore the next level of competence. Go read the reviews on Amazon to see what other's think, click here.
I wrote a more recent post about my and my husband's experiences learning to speak Spanish. Click here to read that post.
I also explain my plan to improve my Spanish. As part of that goal I am exploring various Spanish language programs. I am starting with the 2 listed below.
You can explore the free versions of these programs by clicking the links below.
- Fluent in 3 months (aka Benny the polygot)
You can check them out yourself as well.
Sign up for my newsletter to get my review of these programs in your inbox.
July 9, 2013
I was leaving for the States in a few day, so I needed to attend to it immediately.
I went to a private clinic in David Panama, the Mae Lewis Clinic. It is a more expensive option, but it is usually fast, which is what I needed.
I arrived at the clinic with no appointment. I was ushered into to see a doctor within 15 minutes. 10 minutes later I was getting my ankle x-rayed. 10 minutes after that I saw a specialist. Turns out my fears of rheumatoid arthritis or some chronic condition, were groundless.
My ankle was infected.
I had a few infected cuts on my leg, and those infections had settled into my ankle. I didn't even know a joint could get an infection that way.
The English-speaking specialist (whose dad was from Seattle via Norway) said the infection had settled into my ankle because, as the x-ray showed, my ankle had incurred much trauma over time. I remember many of those traumas. They were inflicted by forwards trouncing on my feet and ankles during my years playing soccer as a full back.
Prescription: antibiotics, which I picked up at the clinic's pharmacy
Total time spent at clinic : 1 hour
Money spent: $30
My husband talks about 2 recent visits to the hospital in Puerto Armuelles, Panama
Learn more about health care in Panama
If you are thinking of getting health insurance, visit this post to learn about Panama's health insurance options.
Still deciding if you will be happy in Panama? Take our quiz to find out.
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Basically, it takes 5 and half months before the banana plant "gives birth" to the banana fruit.
Then it takes about 2 weeks for the bananas to fully grow.
To help them ripen and protect the bananas from insects the bananas are covered in a plastic bag, while still on the tree, for about 90 days.
Chiquita used chemicals and fertilizers on their banana plants. However, they are not necessary.
We have many banana plants in our yard and we never use chemicals or fertilizer.
In the video, you can see two ways bananas grow.
Take A Spin At The Fair in Puerto Armuelles This Weekend
The fair has come to town!
Depending upon who you are, this is either a wonderful event or something to avoid.
The Fair Has
We Always Enjoy The Fair. This is a 2010 Fair Photo.If you visit Puerto Armuelles this weekend, you will hear the fair until the wee hours.
We have kids, so we will be going.
We always have a good time. I particularly enjoy the bumper cars and browsing the stalls.
The San Antionio de Padua fair is much bigger than the Fair that comes to Puerto Armuelles in March.
Maybe we will see you at the fair on Sunday.
Updated: Nov. 14, 2017
This Summer Prove To SSA You Are Alive - Or Else No More SSA ChecksAnd you need to do it every 2 years.
That is how often the US government requires a Proof-of-Life" response from every social security recipient.
Otherwise they will stop your Social Security payments.
FYI, the official name of the "Proof-of-Life" requirement is the Foreign Enforcement Questionnaire.
However, the US Government will only send you this vital Proof-of-Life request if you have an "Acceptable Address".
If you live overseas, what SSA considers an acceptable address is strictly defined.
If you live in Panama, you must provide SSA with your mailing address in Panama. This is true even if your checks are direct deposited into a bank located in the US.
SSA's requirements for an acceptable address:
Note: These requirements are the same regardless of the country you live in. You must provide SSA with your mailing address in that country. In the example above, the country is Panama.
If you haven't provided SSA with an "acceptable address", you need to change your address.
Which means you need to fill out Form SSA-21. Send Form SSA-21 and your passport to the Federal Benefits Unit (FBU) of the US Embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica. For more information on changing your address, visit the US Embassy's Federal Benefits page.
The FBU will inform the SSA of your new Panama address.
You must do this if you want to receive your Proof of Life form/questionnaire.
You must return the questionnaire to SSA by December. If you don't respond in time, your Social Security benefits will be suspended.
That is, you will not receive your Social Security check starting in February or March.
Don't worry. Even if your checks are stopped, you will get all your SSA checks. Unfortunately, it may take some time to restart your checks and receive your back payments.
Go to the "Contact FBU" section below, to learn how to let the FBU know you didn't get your SSA check.
The Regional Federal Benefits Unit (FBU) of the US Embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica is now responsible for providing Federal Benefit services to US Citizens living in Caribbean, Central and South America countries.
Which means if you live in Panama, the Federal Benefits Unit of the US Embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica is your "go-to" place for questions about your Social Security benefits (as well as Veterans' benefits and more).
For more information on their services and how to contact them, please visit their webpage. Tip: the best way to contact them is by e-mail:[email protected].
For comprehensive information on SSA’s services abroad, please visit SSA’s Service Around the World.
You will receive your Proof of Life questionnaire every other year. The questionnaires are mailed out in May.
Which year you get it depends upon your social security number (SSN):
If you are 90 years old or older, you will be sent a Proof of Life request every year.
Again, the SSA sends out the questionnaire in May. If SSA does not receive your completed questionnaire by September, it will send out a follow up letter in October.
You must return your proof of life form to SSA before the end of the year.
If August comes and you still haven't received your Proof of Life questionnaire, you need to take action immediately.
You must contact the FBU (see below) ASAP. Part of the mission of the FBU is to help US Citizens receive their SSA payments.
The Federal Benefits Unit in San Jose operates on an appointment-only system.
To tell the FBU about your "lost" SSA check, schedule an appointment, or to ask questions, contact them via their online inquiry form.
They don't promise a speedy reply.
On their webpage they state, "We normally respond to e-mail inquiries within 15-working days." By email inquiries, they mean inquiries made via their online inquiry form.
You can also send the FBU a letter or fax them. The FBU in San Jose, has both a Costa Rica and a USA mailing address. To get those addresses and their fax number, go to their webpage here.
Although the FBU does not provide a phone number, you can call the US Embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica. Their phone number is (506) 2519-2000. (506 is the country code).
There is also an office to help US citizens living overseas or planning to live overseas with their SSA benefits.
It has a very dry and bewildering name: Office of Earnings & International Operations (OEIO).
You can visit OEIO's website here.
Check out this post on whether expats need to pay into ObamaCare.
Puerto Armuelles' 2-Lane Road Will Soon Be A 4-Lane HighwayPresident Martinelli gave serious weight to his “soon” timetable, declaring that he and his close associate David Ochi, who will head the project, are giving themselves a deadline of 700 days in which to complete the new highway.
Of course, deadlines of public projects in Panama are proposed so that they can be broken. Still, with $114 million in government funding budgeted for the highway, it seems clear that there is some serious money to be made on the project. Both the President, as well as David Ochi, are well known to be highly motivated by money.
Given that workers on the road expansion are already actively looking for places to rent in Puerto Armuelles, it seems that Martinelli's speech was not just talk. The road expansion really does seem like it will happen "soon", even in the North American sense of that word.
As a sidebar to this story, for sometime there has been talk of President Martinelli’s friend Mr. Ochi quietly taking over the leases on many hectares of the former Chiquita Banana plantation around Puerto Armuelles. With the defunct banana workers’ syndicate, Coosemupar, safely out of the way, it was just a matter of time before a major Panamanian player found a way to wiggle into a position of control of the Banana Plantations.
What does this mean for Puerto Armuelles? Plenty.
After the departure of Chiquita Banana from Puerto, several international fruit companies, including Dole, Del Monte, and even Chiquita, have expressed interest in taking over the production and distribution of bananas from Puerto Armuelles. However, each interested party has been either given the cold shoulder by politicians, or actively scared off by threats of more labor union action.
The real problem was that there was no major Panamanian investor who stood to benefit from the renewal of Banana production in Puerto Armuelles.
Now that David Ochi, and most likely, President Martinelli himself, stand to make millions of dollars from the sale or lease of the banana plantations, as well as making tens of millions of dollars on the construction of the new Puerto Armuelles/Paso Canoas highway, the project is a “definite”.
Better still, if the president and his associate David Ochi want to get funding under his own administration, then they will have to get started right away.
Meanwhile, gringo retirees continue to trickle into Puerto Armuelles, at an increasing rate every year. It’s not a flood yet, but it seems clear that the Ex-pats are in Puerto Armuelles to stay. The new highway is sure to draw more attention to Puerto Armuelles from retirees, as well as foreign investors.
June 1, 2013
If you have all three, you can communicate freely.
Well, except for when the electricity or internet goes out.
FYI: This is North American/Panama focused technology discussion. I believe what I am suggesting works worldwide, but I have very limited experience with using it in that way. I would love to hear comments from people who communicate regularly with folks in Europe or other non-North American locations.
If you buy or have a phone with those two items you can use it throughout the world.
When you get to a new country, pop out your sim card and pop in the new one. Or have a cell phone person do it for you. Your contact information in your phone remains intact.
I finally purchased my smartphone, an Iphone 4s, a few weeks ago. I wish I had done it long ago.
Frankly, I had been intimidated by smartphones and trying to use it in different countries.
It seemed so complicated:
Like most things, once I went through the process it was so easy.
I chose an Iphone because I am an Apple person. I own 3 Apple computers. I bought an Iphone 4s. However, the Samsung Galaxy looks like a very nice phone as well.
Keep in mind that unlocked phones are more expensive than phones you buy from a cell phone provider.
The cell phone provider offers cell phones free or at reduced prices in exchange for a 2 year contract. You will more than pay for that phone over the course of 2 years.
I bought my unlocked Iphone on eBay and my daughter's on Amazon. You can buy your iphone unlocked or get it unlocked by your provider once your contract expires. You can also get your phone unlocked here in Panama or using a service elsewhere.
An unlocked GSM network phone means that you can use the phone with any provider or pay as you go service. Keep in mind that you cannot use a Verizon or other CDMA phone in Panama.
One of the most wonderful side benefits is that you have no cell phone contract. You only pay money if you are using your phone. You can choose your provider and what you pay.
When I was in the States I bought one month's worth of service from Ultra mobile for $49. I had unlimited talk, text and data. Plus a $20 credit to call internationally. I never used up the credit even though I called my family in Panama, including reading bedtime stories, often.
Ultra has plans from $19 to $59 a month. There are now many options for non-contract phones. I chose that one. It worked well for me.
Given that one of my sisters has a plan with Verizon that cost $100 a month, but does not included unlimited talk, text, and data, I was especially happy with it.
I use Movistar in Panama. I bought a sim card for $7.50 and a card for talk minutes of $5 (tarjeta de movistar). If I had wanted to I could buy Internet time seperately (from $2 to $14), or get a plan that covers only Internet, not talk time. Instead, I decided to use wi-fi for my internet needs. The gentleman that helped me at the Movistar stall at the Albrook Mall in Panama City was very helpful.
You should ask people what cell phone provider currently works best in your area of Panama. It can change.
The word on the street is that Mas Movil has the best coverage in Puerto Armuelles these days. I am happy with Movistar though. Cell phone towers have a tendency to pop up everywhere in Panama. So coverage can change.
Cell phone towers are off the topic of this post, but I cannot help mentioning this issue. I am hoping that the many cell phone providers here start entering into agreements so they can use each others cell phone towers. Right now each company feels compelled to erect their own towers to get full coverage, instead of using another company's towers to bridge a gap.
In Panama it is not uncommon to see 2 to 4 towers within 1000 yards of each other. For the most part, people do not object to cell phone towers. Getting a cell phone tower on your land is money in your pocket. The monthly lease can be significantly more than most people make in a month.
The world of apps had always bewildered me. But that was only because I had never used them before. I have lived in Panama throughout the most of the smartphone revolution so my contact with smartphones has been very limited. Once you have one, the world of apps becomes much more clearer and obvious.
Also the world is becoming more conversant with apps. I took a taxi ride to David, Panama a month ago, and my driver was showing me all the apps he had on his android phone. He even had an interactive app that pinpointed the location of police with radar guns. Very useful.
I also bought my daughter an iphone, an Iphone 3gs. Within minutes of getting her hands on it she was downloading apps, mostly games. She is acutely aware about how the world of app works.
You will want a some apps. (FYI, apps is short for applications)
As I mentioned, I am new to both smartphones and apps. However, I have researched apps that allow me to more fully use my Iphone while in Panama. That is texting and international phone calls.
Heywire allows you to text people in many countries for free.
I investigated many free texting apps. I discovered that for most the promise of free was deceptive. That is you could text for free only if your recipient had the same app on his or her phone.
I did not want to deal with either asking my friends to sign up with that app or to pay for texting them. Heywire does not require that. Also, it works seemlessly with my phone. I can text using my contact in my phone, not via the app service, as I had been doing in the States.
So far Heywire has worked well for me. Everyone I have texted in the States have been able to receive and text me back - free for all of us. Yippee!
You can have your Skype account on your phone. You can even do video calls from your phone.
I downloaded it and it seems to work well so far.
Vonage has at least 2 apps to use on your cell phone. Vonage Mobile and Vonage Extensions are the 2 I looked into.
With Vonage Extensions app you can, theoretically, route your Vonage number to your smart phone. However, I was unable to get my Vonage number routed to my phone using that app.
The stumbling block is Panama's 11 digit number for cell phones. The Vonage Extension app only works with cell phones that are 10 digits long, including area code or country code. Panama, Costa Rica, and every other country that has a 8 digit phone numbers will have the same problem.
You can also use the Vonage Mobile app. You do not need to have a Vonage account to use that app. Although, you will need to determine for yourself if the app is a cost savings to you. For me it is not. Currently, I can call the USA with my Smartphone, using no apps, for 8 cents a minute.
However, I was able to simply forward my Vonage phone number to my smart phone, even though it is an 11 digit number. That way I can get phone calls on my smart phone from people in the USA - at no charge to them.
MagicJack also has an app for your Smartphone.
I have not used it. The reviews of the app were so mixed I decided to wait to see if I could find something better first.
Also, you should be be careful if you have more than one Magicjack number. MagicJack will not let you change your MagicJack number on your smartphone once it is assigned, via the app, to your smartphone.
There are apps out there that promise free phone calls, but I have not tested them as of yet. I will update this post as I learn more.
You can simply have 2 cell phones. One you use in the States (or elsewhere) and one you use in Panama.
I own a Cricket phone. With Cricket you can stop and start your cell phone service in the States.
I had thought you could keep the same phone number each time you restarted Cricket service, but that turns out not to be the case. You do keep all your contact information intact in your phone. If you buy a Cricket phone then you must use Cricket for your cell phone service. Therefore, you cannot use the Cricket phone in Panama or outside the USA. Basically it is a phone contract that you can stop and start.
While in Panama, you simply buy whatever cell phone you desire and pay as you go cell phone service.
I much prefer having one phone now, not 2.
I have used both MagicJack and Vonage. Both are good.
Skype
I use Skype as my plan B. As well as a good option for video calling.
It is especially useful if you need to make phone calls to someplace other than the USA or Canada. When for various reasons my other phones have failed me I have even used Skype to call Panama numbers while in Panama.
Skype is a free service. However to make a phone call to a regular phone using Skype it costs money. The cost depends upon where you are calling. I have never done an analysis of the costs. But it seems very reasonable. I love that I can use it from any computer and from anywhere and to anywhere in the world.
Usually when you need to use Skype, you need to make your phone call immediately. For this reason, I keep my credit with Skype at $10. I set it up to happen automatically.
The video calling is free. To do group video calling between more than 2 computers there is a fee.
For most people, being able to get a bunch of people on the same phone call is not needed. But after many time-consuming attempts to set up strings of 3-ways calls , I have found a reliable conference call necessary.
Over the years, we have discovered that the best choice is is Free Conference Call. We have tried Skype, using 3 way calls, a more. None of those worked well consistently.
I have had great experiences with FreeConferenceCall.com. I highly recommend it.
In the last 6 or 7 years telephone technology has really improved. Expensive and hard to make international calls are in the past.
You can now communication with your friends and family around the world very easily and cheaply. This means even if you don't live in the same country with someone, you can still keep in constant communication. If you want to.
What telephone technology do you use while abroad?
