Newsletter #41

Mail Service

We hear a lot of horror stories about Panama's mail service, and some of them are no doubt true. In our recent experience, a package mailed to Chame arrived the next day, but a letter to Boquete still hasn't arrived two months later. Mail that my fraternity sends out sometimes takes more than a month to get across town to the APO. A package we sent to our son who was in Iraq at the time took more than a month to get there, but that may have been the APO system. A common complaint from military people is the time it takes to get mail, something I've noticed with the local APO.

Express Mail Service is an international service offered in most countries and Panama is no exception. We recently sent fruitcake to our son in Idaho, and it arrived just before Christmas within the 8 day time frame promised by the PO. More recently we sent a small package via the APO and it took almost two weeks.

So, my conclusions are that local mail service is a mixed bag. Most of the time it works OK.

Annoyances

I wasn't going to write about this, figuring I've been a bit too negative lately, but I've got to get it out of my system. Sometimes things just pile up and everyday annoyances become major pains in the .......

The week and the new year got off to a bad start with another ATM incident. (See below) Then I discovered my Jeep has a bad universal joint on the front axle, and of course, there are none available in Panama so Nora and I will have to postpone our excursions into the wilds another 3 weeks or so. In keeping with my usual run of luck, I discovered the bad u-joint a day after buying new tires.

There has been some discussion on the Yahoo groups about how people have a tendency to walk into your path even when there is plenty of room. To that I add people walking in the street even where there is a sidewalk, people walking side by side and then splitting in the middle leaving just enough room for your car to pass slowly, and last but most dangerous, people who let their car drift toward the center line as you are passing them. Oh, I forgot one other, when you stop for pedestrians and they saunter slowly in front of your car instead of walking at a normal pace.

Another biggy is the way many commercial establishments have their roofs cleverly designed so that when you park, the waterfall from the edge of the roof falls directly onto the driver's door. Then there are the many stores that open only one side of their double doors, usually the left side coming in. This is so pervasive that many people enter from the left as a matter of course, even where both doors are open.

I went to Super 99 in Los Pueblos to buy some envelopes and a few other small items. I've been buying Clarocom pre-paid phone cards there for months, so after waiting a long time while the woman in front of me filled out the form to pay with a $50.00 bill, I waited some more while the clerk laboriously counted, one by one, the 200 envelopes I bought. I then asked for a pre-paid card and was informed that I would have to go to a different cash register, because the one I was at didn't have any. Of course, there were no signs indicating which registers have cards and which don't.

A Saturday trip to Colon didn't help my mood any. I find it incomprehensible that a country can pretend to promote tourism and invite foreign investment when the only highway between its two major cities and shipping ports is such an unmitigated disaster. It's an accomplishment just to get from PC to Colon and back without inflicting major damage to your car. While I'm on the subject of Colon, there has been some recent discussion about Colon and how safe/unsafe the city is. Nora's sister has lived in Colon all her life, and her two sons and daughter do not go into town alone. My brother in law tells me he doesn't even allow them to go to the Supermarket alone. I'm not talking about children here, either. All three are adults, but in Panama fashion, living at home. The whole family considers Colon to be too dangerous to walk the streets. Take it for what it's worth.

ATM - Redux

Some months ago, I asked an ATM machine for $500.00 and it gave me only $300.00. In that instance it took almost four weeks to get my money. Bad luck, right? Once in a blue moon happening, right? Apparently not. On January 3d, I went to Plaza Pacifica, where I normally make ATM withdrawals, and after having two machines belonging to different banks tell me I had exceeded my daily limit, I went to my bank in Paitilla. After explaining the problem, the nice lady suggested I try their machine at the bank, and that the others were probably out of money. So, I asked the machine for $500.00 and it ruminated in silence for about 5 minutes and nothing came out. I pressed 'Cancel' and started over, and that time was successful in getting my money. When I got home, I checked my account at Pentagon Federal Credit Union and discovered I have been charged for TWO $500.00 withdrawals. My bank, Banco Continental, was not nearly so cooperative as Banistmo had been in the first instance, and refused to do anything, telling me my only recourse was to file a claim with my US bank, which I did. Now, once again, I get to wait two or three weeks to get my money, assuming I get it at all.

I'm well aware that some (most) of you use ATMs in Panama with no problems. Maybe I'm just unlucky. Whatever, be forewarned that the ATM machine may rob you.

The Website

We've added a store where you can buy T-shirts, with more items coming in the near future. The T-shirts feature a picture of a 'Diablo Rojo' and the legend 'Survivor Panama, Street Division', something that was suggested on one of the Yahoo groups.