Getting a Ceiling

Work has finally begun on our ceiling!

In Panama, most houses have a zinc metal roof. It is common that the roof is also the ceiling - it just depends which surface you're looking at. You will see in the shots Les has taken that the metal beams are excellent real estate for bugs and geckos to make a comfortable living. I wish them well, but do not appreciate the mess they make. Assorted insect wings and legs drifting down, along with the inevitable gecko droppings, make for increased demands on the housekeeper. The housekeeper would rather be birding than cleaning up after the indoor wildlife. During the frequent, pounding rainstorms, the noise level inside the house is extreme. Unless we are in the same room, we cannot hear each other speak during these deluges. Also, the cones and twigs from the pine trees, and even the needles to a lesser extent, make a surprising amount of noise when the wind blows them onto the metal roof. For all these reasons as well as the aesthetics, finishing off the ceiling has been a priority for us since before the house was even ours.

The contractor we chose, Adam Haney, has been busier than a cat on a hot zinc roof since we met him last November. He is originally from Canada, so he speaks English, which is of major importance to us right now. Adam lives in Cerro Azul full time, and in January he married Katiana, a native Panamanian. He managed to fit our project into his schedule in March - not as soon as we would have preferred, but it was the best he could do.

In this humid climate, drywall is an option, but a very bad one. We saw one house where the ceiling had been finished with drywall, and each 4' x 8' section had begun to sag with the moisture they had absorbed. The sagging made for a very artistic and attractive appearance, with the slight curving undulations all the way across the ceiling. However - Adam told us that there was undoubtedly nasty black mold growing on the inside, and it would eventually begin falling down, and would be a huge and disgusting mess to clean up before doing things the right way.

So the preferred material is cement board, and the brand we see around is Plycem. It stands up to the humidity, unlike drywall.

After he took measurements of the ceiling, and after a few days of not being able to find a crew to do the work (for 3 days running, the excuse they all used was that it was the first day of school), Adam brought a couple of guys over on March 11th to begin the job. As Les commented, we are all at the mercy of men who do not want to work. We hear that offering higher wages, bonuses, or anything else is of no use - it does not get the desired results.

First step was cleaning the mold and mildew off. One worker used a spray bottle of chlorine bleach to do this. He wore no goggles, mouth, nose or head protection; he just stood on a ladder and started spraying. Mist and drops went everywhere, and even hours after he was done for the day, there were drips falling onto the tile floors or anything else below the beams where the bleach collects. I was not watching the process, but Les said the worker did not wipe the bleach off the ceiling. He would spray a section, climb down, move the ladder, and repeat. I mopped & wiped it up when he left, but there was more to clean up the next morning. The bleaching guy did not show up on Day 2, so we still have only about 50% of the ceiling cleaned. The other guy, Angel, cuts short aluminum pieces to fit between the beams and longer sections to go along the edges of the rooms, where they will attach the cement board. He also sawed several rectangular vent holes through the concrete walls where they meet the zinc ceiling. That process throws up the major dust, also chunks of concrete from pea-sized to almost quail egg-sized. He will have to cut more of these vent holes, so the worst is far from over, although it has begun.

To be continued . . . . .

Ferhisse

Restaurants of all stripes are abundant in Panama City, from small cafes that serve simple, typical Panamanian fare to large and expensive restaurants catering to upscale customers. Via Argentina is famous as an area where numerous restaurants serving a variety of ethnic fare can be found.

But up here in Los Altos de Cerro Azul, there is only the Club, which is fine, but a bit expensive for our budget, and it closes at 4:00 PM.

The closest restaurant outside the development is a small joint known as Las Nubes, and we were regular customers there until they closed.



The sign scrawled on a sheet of paper taped to the door says they are remodeling, but the sign went up in mid-January and we see no signs of progress other than one large appliance that has appeared inside. There was no printed menu at Las Nubes - you just walk in and ask what they have that day. It was usually two or three of the following: beef, chicken, fish, pork, served with lentils or beans, always white rice and a small tasty salad, and sometimes soup. The cost ranged from $2.25 to $2.75 per person. We really liked this place and hope they will reopen soon.

A little further down the hill is La Posada de Ferhisse, which has a restaurant, a mini-super, and cabanas for rent. They also have a nice, very well-maintained swimming pool.




The dining area is open-air, covered, and looks out over the pool, with beautiful views of the green hills beyond.

The owner is a welcoming and sociable sort - we have never been there when he was not present. They do a big business on weekends and holidays, but weekdays at the restaurant are often quiet. The menu does not vary, but it offers several dishes that we like well enough to order frequently. Fabio, the chef, makes a delicious baked chicken and smashed cod. (The smashed cod is delivered by Fabio at the end of the video above.)

Puttering

As most of the regular followers of this blog know, the casita is the first house we have ever owned. So far, it has been an enjoyable experience. We love staying home, puttering, organizing, watching the birds at the feeders and elsewhere in the yard, and making improvements around the house and yard. Another factor relating to this is that we retired at the end of June 2009, but the next 6+ months were full of decisions, research, exploration, health crises and deaths in our immediate families, more decisions, wrangling, meetings, wire transfers, many more meetings, establishing accounts in a foreign country, frequent air travel, rental vehicles, selling most of our possessions and giving away the rest, packing up and closing down our apartment of 28 years, saying farewell to our friends and full-time life in California, and a multitude of other large and small tasks related to relocating to another country.

It didn't feel much like retirement during this time, although we sure could not have accomplished what we did if we had to go to the office much.

Now, we are finally starting to enjoy retirement. It feels real, and it feels great.

Our days are often not particularly exciting, nothing like the birding trips we have taken in the past, but the days spent at home are sublimely satisfying. We walk around with smiles on our faces (usually) as we accomplish the many activities of daily living. Just to give you an idea of what that entails, here are a few recent activities and episodes.

Les has been building window screens. I wanted to hire someone to do this, but the guy who was recommended to us could not manage to find the time to come over, take measurements and give us an estimate. Les decided he did not want to wait any longer, so he went to the hardware store and bought fiberglass screen, 12-foot aluminum framing material, several feet of the rubbery stuff that keeps the screen in the channels of the aluminum frame, a hacksaw and a mitre box, along with all the screws and other hardware. After a short learning curve (one torn screen), he's been the screen guy. Four down and several to go.

** Update since I started this post: Les is the very happy owner of a spiffy new Black & Decker table saw. Nothing can stop him now!

When he's not building screens or securing the perimeter of the lot, Les is the one who does the maintenance on the six hummingbird feeders (putting them up and taking them down each day, cleaning them.) I cook up the sugar-water. The woodpeckers are turning out to be pretty hard on the hummingbird feeders. They peck off the bee guards on the ports. And somebody, I'm not sure if it was a woodpecker or a coati (the coati is my prime suspect), managed to knock off the whole lower (red) section of one of the hummer feeders, leaving only the clear reservoir. The red part is at the bottom of the hill.

We have five suet feeders that we use as banana feeders. The Plain-colored, Palm and Blue-gray Tanagers, Thick-billed Euphonias, Red-legged Honeycreepers and Tennessee Warblers have been regulars at the banana feeders since we first hung them up last fall. A Crimson-backed Tanager has come into the yard several times, observing the frenzied activity and eyeing the banana feeders, but he hasn't yet tried to get a bite. The Clay-colored Robins have also decided it's worth the energy required to hover long enough to grab a beak-full of banana. They're too big & heavy to hang on the side or bottom of the cage and feed at leisure like the little birds do.



Lately, the Red-crowned and Black-cheeked Woodpeckers are also eating the bananas. They look very cute curled around the little suet cages.

Les also puts out sunflower seeds, cracked corn and millet for the Yellow-faced Grassquits and the White-tipped Doves.

While I was outside watering a few days ago, I noticed a praying mantis (about 4 inches in length) on one of the hummingbird feeders. (We have read several accounts over the years of mantids lurking on hummer feeders, then grabbing and devouring a hummingbird, but even though we have seen the photo documentation, it's so hard to believe.) A few minutes later, I noticed that a Rufous-tailed Hummingbird was feeding at this feeder, and seemed very nervous, and kept to the side opposite the mantid. A few minutes after that, the hummer was back, and I saw the mantid lunge for the hummer with both front claws. That did it! I relocated the praying mantis to another spot, on the ground, far from any hummingbird feeder.

Last week we began hearing begging baby birds. It turned out to be a nest of Plain-colored Tanagers in a pine tree just outside the kitchen door. The nest is heavily obscured by pine needles, but we can occasionally see the bright orange bill of one of the chicks. We still can't tell how many chicks there are - only one has been visible at any time, so maybe that's all there is.

While working around the yard, we occasionally add a yard bird. Long-billed Starthroat was one a few weeks ago. It has been an irregular and infrequent visitor since that first time. The Rufous-tailed Hummer always chases it off. Swallow-tailed Kite was new for the yard on March 2nd. And Les heard a Masked Tityra this morning while he was getting set to cut another window screen frame - a male and female hung around in the yard trees for about an hour.

We won't be smiling as much or having as much fun for the next week or so - ceiling finishing starts in earnest tomorrow. We will be dealing with noise, disruption, major dust, and complete disarray.

Don Gennaro's

We have eaten several pizzas in the Republic of Panama. The first two were mediocre and definitely not something we would order again. But dogged persistence has led us to one decent pizza restaurant and one, Pizzeria Don Gennaro's, that we like a lot. Friends mentioned that Don Gennaro's had a wood-fired oven, so we thought it was worth a try. Les shot some video of the place while we were waiting for our $7.50 "Familia" sized pie.

OK - so the ambience isn't great, or even good, but if you sit away from the oven and out toward the front entry, it's only about 87 degrees, and although neither water nor ice is available, you are welcome to buy a soft drink from the cooler. The pie crust was flavorful and crisp, and although the mushrooms were canned (every other pizza we've had in Panama also had canned mushrooms), we plan to return to this place.

Utilities

Last week we cleaned up the final details related to buying the house. We met with our lawyer to pick up the deed (and to pay her for her outstandingly excellent representation throughout the process.) We also met with the former owner to transfer the accounts for the phone/internet service and for the electric service. We are not sure this is the only way to get our name on the accounts and begin to receive the bills, but we figured it would be a lot easier for us than going to the offices and trying to find someone who spoke enough English to accomplish this.

First the phone & internet: Cable & Wireless is the service most folks have in Cerro Azul. With the former owner accompanying us, we went to the C&W office, where we took a number and waited for about 10 minutes to see a customer service representative. Although my understanding of Spanish is rudimentary, I got that the rep was demanding the presence of the former tenant (whose name was on the account), not just the former owner, for the transfer to be made. The former owner held his ground and told her that we were the current owners, and that in order to be paid, C&W would be well-advised to change the account into our names. C&W proceeded to take down all our contact information and confirmed that the account had been paid to date, but eventually, the former owner did telephone the former tenant, who showed up after a short wait. C&W took his passport # and had him sign a form, and then they were satisfied.

Next was to get the Elektra (electric utility) account into our name. Again, the former owner accompanied us to an office, where we took a number and waited for about 20 minutes to be called. What followed was a mind-numbingly arcane process performed by an obviously experienced and efficient young clerk. First he photocopied our passports, the promissory contract for the house (why, why, why?), and the former owner's ID. Then he printed a few forms and filled them out by hand! Next he had me write my name and my passport number, followed by my signature, about 5 times on 5 different pages. After that he made notes and asked for my initials on a couple sheets in a couple of notebooks. Finally, he verified that there were no outstanding monies due from former owners or tenants, and in the end, he made photocopies of all the forms I had signed and gave the copies to me. The process took about 30 or 40 minutes. We are thankful that this young clerk was not a trainee - we might still be there!

The Elektra account will be in my name in order for us to receive the jubilado discount. Discounts for certain services are available to women aged 57 and older, as well as men aged 62 and older. I qualify, but Les does not.

Costa del Este

One of the premier birding spots in Panama City is Costa del Este. This area on the Pacific Ocean is filling with high-rise condo/retail buildings. To the south away from the construction, the rising tide brings in a large number of wading and water birds.

Cindy and I counted the birds here during the 2009 Panama Pacific Christmas Bird Count. And we got lifer Collared Plovers, to boot.

On a February day we stopped for a few moments on our way to other appointments in the city. There had been reports of Black-skimmers seen here earlier and we were hoping to see these graceful flyers in action. We were happy to find 17 of them roosting on the mud-flat. As we were leaving, Cindy saw one arcing over the water, floating on the air with long wings. The shaky-cam video of roosting birds was shot through my binoculars. But, you can see a bird stretch a wing, showing how far they reach out.

Flocks & Rocks

It has finally happened. We closed up our apartment in San Francisco, CA (where we had lived for the past 28 years - our landlord must be dancing in the streets, since the place was under rent control) and took a one-way flight to Panama City, Republic of Panama. We feel unbelievably fortunate on so many levels - we had the means and the perseverance to make the move, we had each other for help and support, we had friends and family who encouraged us (both in the U.S.A. and in the Republic of Panama), we did not have a house to sell in this difficult economy, we found a great lawyer to guide us through the purchase of our house in Cerro Azul. And on top of all that, our good friend Gail, who lived upstairs from us in our S.F. apartment since before we even moved in, decided to move downstairs into our apartment. Her willingness to buy several of our appliances and items of furniture made our last few weeks in S.F. so much more comfortable than they might have been. Right through the day of our flight, we had a full kitchen, chairs to sit in, lamps, and most of the other comforts of home.

So here we are - we and all our bags made it on time and with nothing missing, and our friends Bill & Claudia collected the lot of us (the bags filled the whole bed of their truck) at the airport and even took us shopping for some groceries before delivering us to our casita.

Unpacking and getting organized has occupied much of our time since our arrival on Wednesday February 18th, but we have spent some time observing the birds in the yard and elsewhere. Today we added two new yard birds. First was a Prothonotary Warbler who made a pass through the yard with a small, fast-moving flock that included several Tennessee Warblers, 2 Black and White Warblers, 2 Bay-breasted Warblers and a few small tanagers. Later, while hauling some supplies to the back yard, Les noticed a White-necked Jacobin at one of the feeders. We have no idea why it took so long for this species to show up. We hope for many more of his kind, and have budgeted for the sugar it will require.

This afternoon we drove up to a ridge in Cerro Azul for the purpose of collecting some rocks for our yard. It was foggy and misty and occasionally rainy up there, as it often is, making for an abundance of epiphytes on the tree trunks and water droplets on our eyelashes.

We got out of the truck hoping for a roving flock, and were happy when a small band of Black-and-Yellow Tanagers came along. Accompanying them was a smashing Emerald Tanager and a brilliant Rufous-winged Tanager. None of the printing in the field guides manages to do them justice.

We got good and muddy up there gathering rocks, and we know we will have to return for more. Arturo always uses them as fast as we can supply them.