Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Important Notice

Nora has a very painful back problem, and the doctor has ordered her not to drive. She is being treated with physical therapy, for the next month. We regret that until this condition is corrected, we must suspend all of the Services offered on the website, airport pickup and dropoff, city tours, and general driving. We hope it won't be for long.
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Cable and Wireless, Again

Our two house phones stopped accepting calls a week ago. We can call out, but anyone calling us gets a message saying the number is out of service. Nora reported it, and so far, nada, zip, nothing, no action. I assume that the reason nothing has happened is that the clueless "customer service" rep turned it over to what we called "outside plant" when I worked for the US Army telephone service. Those are the folks who come to your house, climb poles and run wire. This is not an outside plant problem. Since we can call out, (and our ADSL internet works fine) the two wires which connect us to the Dial Central Office (DCO) and our telephones are obviously OK. In fact, the customer service person should have immediately known the problem was not at our house, when we called it in from one of the two affected numbers. But, never mind, these folks are not paid to think, they are paid to follow a script. In the meantime, while we are waiting for someone to come to the house and figure out that the problem is not here, anyone calling either number, one of which is published on the website, are being told that the numbers are no longer in service.

This reminds me of an experience a friend had with the electric company. He was having a lot of problems with his computer rebooting, shutting off, etc. When he checked the voltage of the house mains, he found that it was close to 140 volts, which is quite high for house voltage, normally between 110 and 127. Mine runs on the high end too, but within limits. He called the electric folks and when the repairman got there, they agreed that the voltage was too high, and after an hour or so of checking all the connections coming into the house, they removed the meter to take to the shop for testing. My friend, who also has worked in electronics and understands that passive devices like electric meters cannot increase the voltage, laughed at him, but no amount of explanation would convince the guy that the meter could not possibly cause the problem. When the repairman returned the meter 24 hours later, my friend was finally able to convince him to check the transformer on the power pole, where the problem was found and corrected.

 License Plate Hassles

Over the years, the one constant about the hassle of paying your road use taxes in Panama has been an almost yearly change in the placement of the hoops that  "contributors" have to jump through. When I first came here, I had to take our cars to the old inspection station in Paitilla, about where Riba Smith in Plaza Pacifica stands today, get in line to play the charade of having the vehicle inspected, then form another line to pay and receive the license plate. All plates expired in the same month, so with every vehicle owner in the city trying to get inspected and buy plates at the same place in the same month, it was quite a hassle. Now, some 33 years later, after many improvements and changes in the system, it's still a hassle, and can still consume most of a day or two.

First you have to get the vehicle inspected. The government got out of the inspection business and turned it over to private contractors in the 80s and for years, you had to get your steering and/or headlights "alined" to pass inspection at an  extra cost of $10.00~$15.00. Smart shoppers refused to allow the fly-by-night inspection stations to touch the steering or headlights, but had to pay the fee anyway. In the 90s, the government allowed the inspection stations to keep a portion of the inspection fee, which eliminated most of the bogus alinement, and expanded the number of stations. In those days anyone could handle the paperwork for you, and no actual physical inspection of the car was required by most stations, so I usually just paid someone to do the legwork for me.

A few years back, they started requiring a written letter of authorization for anyone other than the owner to pick up the plates, which added yet another layer of bureaucracy to the process. Last year, the government introduced "cedulas" for your cars. I have no idea what this is supposed to accomplish, besides providing a conduit to move tax money into private hands by way of contracting the confection of the cards. Well, there is also the creation of yet another traffic "infraction", not having the card on your person while driving the car, which provides your friendly traffic cop with one more excuse to solicit a bribe. It's also a big inconvenience for cars which are used by several drivers, because the card is not supposed to kept in the car, but on your person. Incident to this nonsense requirement, is the rule that foreigners must present their passport, with number corresponding to the number on their carnet ID, so if you fit this category, never dispose of the passport used to get your "turista pensionada" visa. Even 30 years later you may have to show it to a bureaucrat.

Continued next column....
 Hassles continued...

Getting back to the inspection, when the certificate is printed, all the information on it is extracted from a government database. That means that the government already has all the information about you and the car and when and by whom it was inspected, but when you get to Municipio to pay for and pick up the plates, you have to provide the government with a physical copy of the inspection certificate. Why??? I have no idea, unless it is to provide income to the copy places which are near all Municipio offices.

OK, so after the inspection, you have to go to the Municipal offices (Municipio) to pay for and pick up the plates. This can be a frustrating experience, because for years they kept shuffling them around, and it was an adventure just keeping up with where to go. We have three cars, two of which we bought new, but all three are registered in different locations. It seems that where the vehicle is registered has more to do with moon phases, or the price of Seco, than with where you live, and it is a big hassle to get those locations changed.

This year, there are extremely long lines at Auto Depot where titles and modifications are done. Last December 31st was the deadline for all taxis to be yellow, and you can't paint your car a different color without changing the title to reflect the new color.
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Telephone Service in Rio San Cocho

The pueblo is about 500 feet too low to see the nearest cell phone tower, and there are no telephone wires. The only communication with the outside world is via a party-line radio link, which seems to work OK most of the time. Or at least it did until a few of weeks ago.

I had gone to Panama City and left the house key with my once a week maid, Rosalita. We arranged for me to call her each Monday to see how things were going. The first Monday there was no problem, but for the next three Mondays, even though I called every hour all day long, the line was busy. I was puzzled, because the handful of people on the shared radio link used their phones only for important calls.

I returned home on Friday, and realizing that I had forgotten to replenish my salt supply, I headed down the street to the Chino's.

There was a line outside M/S Chang. Not wanting to wait in line to buy a shaker of salt, I asked my neighbor, Arturo, what he was waiting for. "Hola Senor, he said. I wish to talk with my sister in Chorrera. El Chino has telephone now, and it costs only $.15 a minute to use it."

Then I understood why my telephone was busy all the time.