settling in

Well, another two weeks have passed as I adjust to life in Panama.
I'm still sleeping in the windowless back room, and haven't yet had time to go out and buy a desk and chair so working from home involves this:

but I've bought an iron and ironing board, got the internet and cable TV hooked up and treated myself to a pair of skinny jeans and high heels so as to fit in more with the other women here.  My shopping bill is three times what I'd got used to, but then again I am including dried cranberries and wholemeal bread in my diet now, which were unavailable in Dakar.

I've discovered that the surprisingly cool weather (well, compared with what I was used to in West Africa) doesn't stop the humidity from rotting clothes, shoes and bags - this small rucksack had sat untouched in a cupboard for just two weeks when I got it out only to find this:

So I now have a de-humidifier in the apartment too.

To pay for all this I have had to get a salary payment by cheque, as I am still waiting to get an account of my own, which meant an outing last Saturday to cash it.  I located an accesible branch on the internet and went there with my cheque, to be faced by a locked door and a security guard with a revolver and bullet-proof vest.  I first had to persuade him that I needed to use that bank ("yes, it's a Credicorp cheque") then was sent to the back of the queue.  Once at the front he searched my bag and scanned me with his body scanner, then knocked on the door for a similarly attired guard inside to unlock the door and allow me in.  All this in a country which is supposed to be safe, but I suppose they have their eye on the drugs gangs slowly making their way south as they get driven out of Mexico.  & there was a gun shop not far from the bank.

The main obstacle to settling in, to everything I try to do, is the language.  This desk I need - well what is Spanish for desk?  & for "do you deliver?"  I went to one of the cable company's offices to pay my first bill, and having negotiated my way to join the right queue and pay the bill, I then in my stumbling learnt-a-bit-at-school-35-years-ago Spanish mentioned that the main TV didn't actually appear to have any channels available.  The lady said that it must have been set up incorrectly and that someone would come round to fix it.  "When?" I asked.  "When you get home" she replied, at which point I realised I'd probably misunderstood something she said earlier but with a queue of impatient people waiting behind me I nodded and accepted it.  Of course no-one turned up to fix it when I got home.

A few days later the real estate agent was round to check the inventory, so taking advantage of his English and kind nature, I asked if he would mind phoning the cable company to set up an appointment for me.  He told me they had English speakers, and started the call with his speaker phone option on.  Quickly they got to the "Por Ingles, opción 1", which he pressed before turning the phone around to me, but it was just as well he was there as the person manning the English option line spoke only Spanish...

My new home

Last Saturday, on 1 June, I moved into my new flat.  I must say it did look more spacious without the landlords' rugs, pictures, and some of his furniture, although now it has a kind of empty echo.  It's not a bad place, really - modern and clean looking, a dressing room full of drawers and hanging space and a view out over the bay.  But it is small - and unfortunately, very noisy with the twelve lanes of traffic going past down below on the Cinta Costera.  Nice though the main bedroom is, with floor-to-ceiling windows at one end looking over the bay (and the twelve lanes of traffic), I found I couldn't sleep through the noise and so I have reluctantly started sleeping in the other bedroom.  At the back of the flat, it has no windows and so is dark and quiet.

To my surprise I have also been a little cold at night.  Only sheets have been provided, so I slept in gym kit and socks all week until I was able to go shopping yesterday for a quilt.

Another surprise was that there seems to be virtually no radio reception at this height, and quite patchy phone reception - issues that I hadn't foreseen.  I have also been horrified to find that the orientation of the building and of the Hilton next door means that I get no sun on my balcony whatsoever!  A balcony with sun was one of my non-negotiable requirements but I just assumed that being more-or-less south-facing, I would get sun, not thinking about it being blocked by the position of neighbouring buildings in the morning and evening and directly overhead (even, strangely, slightly behind the building) in the middle of the day.  Maybe later in the year when it is a little lower in the sky it might sneak onto the balcony for a short time - I really hope so.  Although as you can see from the photo above, taken from my balcony, we aren´t getting much sun at present.

My main concern before moving in though had been the journey to work, as a trial run had taken 90 minutes.  However I found a better bus route, and am travelling against the traffic, so have found I can do the trip in an hour.  Not quite the five minute walk I had in Dakar, but bearable.

So I am trying to make the place feel like home.  The majority of my stuff isn't here yet - it hasn't arrived from Dakar - so I can't yet start putting books on shelves and hanging masks on the walls.  I've been shopping for some little things though, the quilt I mentioned above, a set of towels, a shower caddy ... also a bottle of wine but then I remembered that my corkscrew is not here yet so it will have to sit unopened for a while.  So I'm getting there.  Perhaps you could say my mood now is rather like the weather the other morning looking the other way from my balcony - cloudy but with sunny intervals.