Posted by editor on July 2, 2009
It did not rain in Boquete today. It is rainy, green, season in Panama but we usually only see rain in the afternoon, today the sky has held and we had time for a ride up toward La India. La India is high above Jaramillo and the watershed for much of Jaramillo.
I have driven up to La India before but this was my first time going on a horse. Chevy reminds me of the Don Maclean song, he seems to be a traditional American Pie way to travel. Chevy is slow and steady and a good platform for taking some photos.
Heather and my daughter Paige AKA Gumby lead the way on faster rides.
The branches in hand are not olive branches but are gentle reminders to the horses that they need to move. I declined a branch until Chevy stuck himself in the ground and did not move until a young Panamanian handed me a branch and demonstrated the gentle buttocks swat; it worked.
As we went up La India I was able to take a few photos of our new aqueduct. I am not an engineer but I need to wonder.
Taking photos slowed my progress enough that Heather and Gumby waited to see if I was still with them.
The views from the road are fantastic all the way out to the ocean.
Some of the views along the way a big contrast to the expansive expensive gringo houses in the area and should and do give me some pause as I consider the challenges Panama faces in the future.
Yes, I do see the little boy squatting behind the young girl. Seems the toilet is the ground around the tin shack called home.
Posted by editor on July 1, 2009
Today, July 1st is a holiday in Boquete and all of Panama. It is Inauguration Day, a day when a new president takes office and an old administration leaves. This is an event celebrated in many countries. In Panama this is the fifth inauguration since the US invasion of 1989, a celebration of new found democracy and made all the more important by the events in Honduras this week.
Central and South America has a long tradition of political instability; Panama included. This fifth democratically elected president since the end of a string of military dictators has special significance. Ricardo Martinelli is a US educated entrepreneur. The founder of the largest chain of supermarkets in Panama. He is also known as a maverick and a leader, not a follower. When elected he received about 60% of the vote in three way race.
Panama has hopes for the next five years. A hope for a reduction in corruption, for better education, for more better jobs, for solutions to vexing problems in transportation and new problems of growing crime. The people of Panama have hopes.
In this small country of under 4 million people there is opportunity to effect change quickly and with fast impact. We all join the hopes and prayers.
I think my comments above are echoed in this linked message from Julio Santamaria at Habla Ya in Boquete.
Posted by editor on June 27, 2009
In September 2007 I posted a link to a video of the proposed new Balboa Avenue. Here is the link again.
Things can happen fast here when the government spends $186 million dollars and has a the will to cut the ribbon before leaving office on July 1.
Starting Sunday at 7am the new Balboa Avenue will be opened. We drove through the pre opening morass of traffic yesterday and I hope the opening fulfills the promise of less congestion.
Posted by editor on June 25, 2009
It is summer, or it is winter depending upon region perspective. Either way it has been a shuttle from Boquete Panama to Playa Blanca Panama to Panama City. Between furnishing and pushing for the post occupancy completion of Heather’s condo at Playa Blanca and visiting doctors in Panama City, it has been a highway experience. I can tell I have been driving too much when I can predict where the traffic police will be hiding.
The condo experience has some lessons for future buyers. Most contracts for new construction in Panama require final payment when an occupancy permit is issued. In our North American concept an occupancy permit might imply that the building and apartment are ready to be occupied. Leave that naive concept at the airport.
In Panama occupancy permits are issued long before the building is complete. It seems by observation that at some time in the course of construction, perhaps when the builder needs to collect more funds from buyers to make payroll, the permit is magically granted. I think the official logic is you need the permit to turn on the electricity, which of course is long before completion. In any event when we first occupied this condo it had no gas, limited water pressure and a long punch list of defects. We now have gas, water, electricity, Internet and a long punch list of defects. The builder and developer have smiles of their faces and appear to be moving on to new projects leaving the punch list to be handled by divine intervention. It will be amusing to see if they honor their warranty and expensive if they do not.
Yesterday we went to a beach area, gringo, social event at Twister restaurant in Coronado. Twister is a fusion of pseudo Mexican and pizza that must appeal to someone. In any event the gathering had about fifty people from far and wide, we met two of them. The significant observation about these events is that here and in Panama City there are periodic gatherings of the English speaking tribes. In Boquete we have so much more.
Boquete has a rich small town culture for English speakers. For better or worse Boquete Panama is a micro environment of Anglophones in Panama. Boquete is a very different environment both climatically and culturally than the rest of the country. This is a double edged sword, nice if you want to isolate yourself in a micro culture and not so if you want to live in the real Panama.
I know Boquete Angophones who live in Boquete, fly to Panama City, take a cab to Tocumen and leave the country. They never learn the language or culture of their new home country. In my opinion they are missing out on the opportunity of their lives. Why move here if you want to live in the US or Canada?
Posted by editor on June 22, 2009
My thanks to Richard Detrich for several bags of what could be yellow gold. Commonly known as Mani in Boquete Panama. Arachis pintoi or Mani forajero, manicito, a perennial peanut is a great groundcover.
In addition to being perennial it can survive the dry season and adds high food value to grazing animals. The article below describes an effort in Puerto Rico to use mani as a ground cover in coffee plantations. I am not sure if anyone has tried this in Boquete yet. Thanks to Richard’s generosity we have enough to give it a try here too.
Mani is a peanut and as such should be a nitrogen fixer also, good for coffee plants.
FS105-193 Organic Farming in the Tropics with Legume Groundcover
The general problem we are addressing is the improper use of agricultural land and the consequent effects on soil conservation and water resources. The principal reservoirs of Puerto Rico are rapidly losing their water storage capacity because of high rates of sediment influx and accumulation. In our area of Utuado, for example, the Lago Dos Bocas reservoir has over one half of its storage capacity since it was first measured in 1942. Erosion mitigation is essential to preserve the existing and future reservoirs.
A mayor cause of erosion is agricultural land use without conservation practices, especially on our typically steep mountain terrain where the main crop is sun-grown coffee. Our organization is involved in efforts to model appropriate agricultural land use, in particular, through the cultivation of shade coffee. We are now in the fourth year of our Shade Coffee Reforestation Project consisting of 13 acres of shade coffee under plantain trees that will provide temporary shade during the growth process of leguminous trees that we have planted in this area (every 35 feet).
Last year, through the support of a SARE Producer grant, we attempted to take this project a step further by producing an acre of organic coffee. An important component of this project was establishing a groundcover with arachis pantanal , called “mani pantanal” in Puerto Rico , for weed control. This was the most difficult part of our project. The great diversity of weeds and the excellent conditions for their growth makes their control one of the greatest challenges for organic farming in the tropics. As we sought to overcome this problem with groundcover, the small plants we established in the nursery were unable to compete with the aggressive tropical weeds. We were eventually forced to use chemicals on the weeds so that the groundcover could take hold. Though the rest of our project was successful, this failed component frustrated our attempt to grow organic shade coffee.
Through Professor Grisely De Jesus, who teaches Agricultural Technology at the University of Puerto Rico, we learned of a different method for the propagation of “mani pantanal.” She used this method successfully in an experiment she conducted with her students. It consists of establishing “carpets” of “mani pantanal” in specially designed, temporary nurseries. The method is very low-cost and requires a minimal amount of labor.
We intend to implement the “carpet” method on the same acre we used for last year’s SARE project. We will take advantage of the efforts and resources that were already dedicated to establishing an acre of organic coffee, which except for the ground cover, is doing well. Before we begin, we will photograph the area and measure exactly how many square feet of ground cover we now have. The degree of success will be measured by comparing the area, in square feet, where the “mani pantanal” takes hold in comparison to how much of it took hold as a result of our previous effort. We will also measure the costs in materials and labor, against last year’s costs. These and all other comparables of each project will be displayed in a table for an overall view of the advantages of one over the other.
Luis Miguel Rico
HC 03 Box 14182
Utuado, PR 00641
Ph: 787-602-6849 Fax: 787-894-6341
luismi@haciendaverde.org Resource Link
Posted by editor on June 21, 2009
Long overdue and very incomplete, but a start. This link is to a new page of resources I have used and would recommend. The list includes some of the people I used in remodeling, several doctors, several lawyers and no indian chiefs.
My experiences with all of those list has been good. I continue to add to the list.
The List
Posted by editor on June 19, 2009
What better place to hear a discussion of the Vagina Monologues in Boquete Panama than the mens room during the intermission. The conversation around the urinals was to the point, FANTASTIC.
Director Jim Hatch was able to coax amazing performances out of Boquete’s most talented female actresses. Excellence in a high risk context, of a play that was not a musical, despite the empassioned moaning of Yella Weder, nor a comedy, despite all the laughter from an engrossed audience.
The monologues were exceptional. The simple set and theme of black allowed the talent to dominate. Each performer, Dana Applegate, Diane Heidke, Phyllis McNaughton, Donna O’Toole, Pam Pankrantz, Susan Thoms, Yella Werder and Elizabeth Worley was fantastic.
From the sorrows of a Bosnian rape victim done by Elizabeth Worley, the angry comedic Vagina done by Phyllis and the Little Coochie Snorher of Pam Pankrantz, the cast covered then entire gamut of emotions. We drowned with Susan Thoms and we were entranced by the ecstasy of Donna O’Toole. It was amazing.
The final monologue performed by a newcomer to Boquete theater, Yella Werder was amazing with both her acknowledged skill as a singer and her recently discovered thespian abilities. I for one, was impressed as were the others in attendance.
If you missed Thursday and Friday, RUN do not walk to Mail Boxes Etc and be sure to get one of the few tickets remaining for the last two performances, Saturday at 7pm and Sunday at 2 pm.
Posted by editor on
Today in a public meeting at the Lions Club in Boquete Panama the members of the Boquete Community Players empowered their elected Board to lease the bar formerly known as Snoopys.
This event allows the currently abandoned facility to be renovated by the BCP into a theater and social facility. It will be operated by the BCP with the involvement of the owners of the property who also own the adjoining Oasis restaurant and hotel.
Once complete Boquete will have a modest convention center. A theater seating about 100 people, a large party room and quality catering. The BCP will have a permanent home for plays, events, meetings and a facility available for rental to other community organizations.
The import of this decision is significant not only to the Boquete Community Players but to the entire community as one of the prime river front venues in Boquete will move from shuttered to as community asset.
Posted by editor on June 15, 2009
Water wars in Alto Jaramillo, Boquete Panama are of themselves not worth anther post. However the knowledge gained and experiences in the battles are worthy of comment. Especially when many people are negative about the way they perceive expat treatment in Panaman government hands.
Our can of worms opened when the local water Directiva decided “expats” should pay more for water. In a series of secret meetings they set a rate of $1.50 a month for “Panamanians” and $10 a month for “others”. They also decided “new residents” needed to pay $150 hookup fee while locals pay $40. I and others in the community objected and we were shut down in efforts to have a public vote on something clearly illegal under Panama’s constitution.
In March the Alto Jaramillo Directiva resigned and after an effort to elect a new group hostile to the discrimination the wars began. Yesterday this battle finally ended. At a community meeting of eighty one families the new Directiva was ratified and installed.
There were objections by four people one of who challenged people based on residency and citizenship. The representatives of MINSA, the Health Department which is in charge of rural aqueducts in Panama, addressed the layers of misinformation and the FUD factor in Jaramillo. The result was a resounding vote of support from the community for the new Directiva.
Lessons for those of you in other Boquete Rural water districts.
Your Directiva can create new regulations but they must be approved by a vote of the community at a semi annual or extra ordinary meeting. The Directiva must meet monthly and can make decisions within the MINSA regulations and publicly approved local regulations. The Directiva cannot impose it’s will on users through private meetings and cannot raise rates, etc without public hearing and approval. It is illegal to charge you more money based upon citizenship, ethnicity or the language you speak.
When you pay your water bill insist on a receipt from your local water district. Checks should be made to the District not a private individual. MINSA is conducting an audit in Alto Jaramillo now and if you have paid an individual and do not have a proper receipt you might want to let someone know about it.
All residents in the district can vote regardless of citizenship. Non citizen residents can serve on the Directiva as Vocales. We have a voice in our community and the officials from MINSA were enforced the law.
MINSA in Boquete will step in as they did in Jaramillo if their involvement is requested. What was impressive on Jaramillo was the single voice from the entire community, English and Spanish speaking.
We have issues in front of us, issues with the new aqueduct serving Alto Jaramillo and Jaramillo Central but at least now we have voice and are learning our legal rights in Panama.
One important footnote and recommendation. In our battle we sought legal advice and received it from a local Boquete lawyer, Julio Espinosa, he has been on top of the entire situation and has helped considerably so if your community is heading into a water war email me for his telephone number.
Posted by editor on June 13, 2009
It has been almost a week since I have written on this blog. We are now back in Boquete Panama but between remodeling and and horse education, time has been of the essence. Tomorrow we have another Alto Jaramillo Water meeting, hopefully the final public meeting for some time. Tonight I am cooking some clams in red sauce for dinner and reflecting on the amazing Casa de Lourdes in El Valle.
We stumbled upon Casa de Lourdes by accident, Heather asked at the IPAT booth in El Valle for a recommendation for lunch. They gave us the recommendation and off we went. Casa de Lourdes is located at the Los Manderinos Hotel in El Valle and is a most beautiful venue, in my experience unique in Panama.
This is the reception area and when we arrived at noon on Sunday they were just opening for lunch. Although reservations are suggested we were seated in the garden. Lourdes de Ward, the Executive Chef was there making sure things were as they should be.
The menu was a simple two page xerox indicating constant change.
I enjoyed this bowl of Pumpkin Gnocchi with fresh mushrooms, it was excellent.
Heather a bowl of Spanish style sausage and beans, also Excellent.
We both agreed the poolside venue, the service and the food were wonderful. The meals cost no more than dinners at many mediocre restaurants in Panama. We plan to return, hopefully for dinner next time.
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