On November 28th, Pete’s Mom, Jean Fincher passed. At 91, she was one of the feistiest women I’ve ever known. The picture above is Jean with her 4 remaining children. During a recent visit in May, all the kids were home and we took this picture. Jean was preceded in death by her husband Bobby Gus in 2010 and a son Johnny Lee in 1992. She will be missed!
Thanksgiving is not a holiday celebrated by most Panamanians…. however, because we live in Boquete among many US expats, there were many restaurants in town offering a Thanksgiving Day dinner. Also, many turkeys in the store. We went to Big Daddy’s Grill, for dinner with all the sides. While it wasn’t exactly the same as what we’d have with family, it was familiar and oh so good. We had thought about making our own turkey dinner, but propane was nonexistent at this point due to the protests. (Propane is used for our stove, hot water and dryer).
On Friday, (after Thanksgiving), we took a bus to David. This cost us $1.75 per person. The trip down (which took about 1.5 hours) was in a converted school bus. They filled up every seat and then packed as many as possible into the aisle. Luckily, it was a nice day outside, and with the windows open, it wasn’t bad. We went to the Rey Grocery store, which is significantly larger than our stores in Boquete, and realized they had less selection than we did in our small town. Shelves were bare. But we were excited to have the opportunity to leave Boquete for a few short hours. While in David, we went to numerous stores (grocery, electronics and one similar to Target). Late in the day, tired and ready to head home, we went to the bus stop. After about 30 minutes, our ride came and (yeah!!), it was a big “luxury” bus…. the kind you’d ride if you had a big group renting a bus in the USA to a special location. Yes, we had to stand in the aisle for most of the trip home…. but it felt luxurious.
Back in Boquete, it was getting dark, and we decided to stop at the grocery store to see if they had anything new. We typically go to the store every time we’re in town even if we don’t need anything. Well, this Friday night, I was tired, and I told Pete I’d wait at the entrance while he did a quick loop around the store. He was back in less than a minute and told me he thought they had chicken in the meat section. We haven’t had chicken since arriving in Panama. It was one of the first meats to be gone from the stores when the protests started. Anyhow, not only did they have a full case of chicken, but they had boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a grown woman get excited about chicken breasts…. but OMG…. this was fabulous! I purchased the maximum amount, which was $20 of breasts (approximately 5 lbs).
I had so many plans for the chicken…. stir fry, and pasta with chicken/ sun dried tomatoes to name a few. And then very early on Sunday morning, we received the call that no one wants to get. Pete’s Mom has a massive stroke at home in Texas. And just like that, our life took an unexpected turn. I had our travel to TX booked by 9AM, and a ride found from Boquete to David airport by 9:30AM. We left our home about 1PM Sunday and after many layovers, we arrived at the TX hospital by 5PM on Monday afternoon. His Mom was moved to Hospice Monday night, and she passed on Tuesday evening. I was so thankful we had managed to get there while she was still alive.
We woke up this morning and it was raining. We usually get rain every day, but typically in the afternoon. This morning was so cloudy and overcast we couldn’t see Volcan Baru, our neighboring volcano.
The morning brought some great news…. apparently, there are 10,000 containers of Propane enroute to our province. We haven’t been able to get supplies from Panama City since the protests started. Yes, that would be 26 days of road closures brought on by the protesters. We’re not sure how long it will take for them to arrive (by sea), but the fact that we know they are coming is super exciting. We use propane to heat both our hot water and the oven/stove top. We’ve been trying to be conservative, not knowing when more supplies will be arriving.
We took a taxi into Boquete. We seem to do this every other day or so. Not having a vehicle has been really limiting. Our jaunts into Boquete provide both exercise, and social outings for us. During our walk, we passed the Delta gas station in town and there was a tanker filling up the tanks! This was just as exciting as the propane news. We’ve been out of gas for the better part of the last 3 weeks. There were already about 60 cars in line waiting for the tanker to finish. Again, because of the protests, gas can’t be delivered from Panama City. Our current gas is now coming in from Costa Rica under some type of temporary agreement between our 2 countries.
As we were eating lunch, Pete checked his email and our 5 boxes we had mailed before leaving Tennessee had FINALLY arrived in Boquete. We’d been tracking them with the air tag that I had accidently placed in one of the boxes. We knew they were in country…. but had been sitting in Panama City for almost a month, unable to get delivered to us. I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am about getting our boxes (which will be at our house in about 2 hours). I traveled without any type of walking shoes. All sneakers had been put into the boxes. At the time we shipped them, there weren’t any protests and we had thought they’d arrive shortly after our arrival. Little did we know. There is most likely a lot of useless stuff in the boxes…. but aside from my coveted shoes…. I know there are also some kitchen spices, kitchen utensils (such as a peeler, my much-needed garlic press, can openers etc.), and a bunch of other stuff that I can’t remember. It’s going to be like Christmas at our house!
And as we walked out of the shipping location, the sun came out. This day has been full of surprises and the weather is opposite of what we normally encounter. And it’s been amazing!
