Rockin’ & Rollin’

Well I’ll be darned! It feels like we’re back in good ol’ California again! We just had a pretty good earthquake here in Boquete. It’s been awhile since you guys have had one there, in California as a matter of fact the last real big one was way back in like what….1989? Was that the last big one, when the bridge collapsed? Well, this was nothing so dramatic but they do have them here occasionally and this was our first significant one since we’ve been living here. We’ve felt a few little tremors but this was a good roller! Whew! Glad it wasn’t anything serious.

Today is kind of a dreary, rainy day with some good lightening and a few massive thunders! That part of living here is very different for us and I really love it. I can’t say the same for the cat’s ! They are currently hiding , Midnight under the bed and Copper under the sheets on the bed, poor guys. Scott’s coming down with what looks like it’s going to be a nasty cold! So today is a stay at home and relax kinda day. We are bummed that he’s getting sick because we’ve been really looking forward to a gathering we were invited to on Thursday at some friends house. Scott was going to make Chili and I was looking forward to socializing and meeting new people. I still have my fingers crossed that he suddenly and miraculously gets well, like tomorrow.

We also have a fun outing for Saturday. Jere,( the hiking lady) has organized a trip to Nancito which is about two hours outside of Boquete. Nancito is an archaeological park area located in the district of Remedios and is the home of a series of petroglyphs. Jere has a friend named Dr. Luz Joly, who is a professor at UNACHI in David and she will accompany us on this trip. Dr Joly is an Anthropologist and has done much research in the study of Panama’s petroglyphs, she has written books on the topic and has traveled around the world giving lectures on the subject. We are so lucky to have such a guide to provide us with a presentation about the history of these ancient rock engravings. I’m really looking forward to learning about this area.

Yesterday, My new friend Aris and I met at her house to practice our language learning. It’s so fun to get to know her and her husband, they’re such nice people. Her husband made us some delicious snacks to munch on while we were chatting, (another man who likes to cook!! Yippee!) I’m obviously not a teacher and I know Aris is interested in trying to learn English just exactly like me , trying to learn Spanish , but I’m good at talking and that is exactly what we both want to do! It’s helping me so much to have a native speaker to practice with and I really hope she feels the same. I decided to see if she would be interested in looking through my People magazine together and I thought it was pretty fun to try to talk about fashion and makeup and read recipes together, me attempting Spanish and her using English as best as we could. We spent two hours chatting and giggling at ourselves and the two hours flies by soooo fast! All of a sudden it’s 5:00 and time for me to leave. So, we must be enjoying ourselves if it’s flying by so fast, right? Next week she said her 26 year old daughter might join us, I am looking forward to meeting her too, the more the merrier!! I’m so grateful to my Friend Valerie for introducing me to Aris and for inviting me to their Monday afternoon practice sessions. Valerie has gone on a vacation to the States so I’ve been going on my own and even though I was nervous at first, now I’m just looking forward to my Monday afternoons.

I only have two more days left in my Spanish classes and I’m kinda relieved to have a break and also kinda nervous about not having the daily dose of learning. The school has announced a special discount they will be offering for residents , 50% off of classes starting in September. Scott and I are planning to sign up. I will do the three days a week, two hours a day, private residence class. It’s my understanding that the residence class focuses more on just day to day phrases and things to get by as a new spanish speaker, which I will really benefit from. I think we will likely start those classes around mid september and go for about 6 weeks or so.. Scott and Valerie are about the same level so they are planning to be in a group class with just the two of them for ten weeks. We are really focused on learning and even though its time consuming and a bit frustrating at times, we have all the time in the world, and it’s so rewarding when I say something and am actually understood. This is sooooo worth every minute we have put into it. I just dream of the day when I can have a coherent conversation with Aris, although she’ll probably be speaking English by then!! Ha! Ha!

The other thing that is happening this week is that we are moving into our new furnished rental house. We’re soooo excited to get settled someplace for awhile. We were able to go over to the house last week to meet with the current tenants who have lived there for the last year. They are moving back to the states and selling off much of their things so we bought a few things from them and were able to find out some of the nitty gritty’s of the house. I was glad to hear that the landlord recently installed a new security system and we had only seen the house very briefly one time so I we couldn’t remember much about the yard and I didn’t know if there was a washer/dryer, (there is!!! Yea!) The property is beautiful, there are so many banana trees and coffee plants we will never have to buy Bananas while we’re living there. I’ll post pictures after we get all settled in. We did have to go buy a few things from the mall in David. The “furnished” house doesn’t include linens so we went and bought some queen size sheets and a bedspread. I bought a couple sets of towel from the former tenants, we have brand new ones in our container so I didn’t want to buy new ones. I think we are going to be really comfy there. That’s about it for this week.