What its really like...

These are a few pictures that I feel capture the essence of what it is really like to live here. And we have had a few major changes lately that have upped our standard of living quite a bit.

The city shut our electricity and water off yesterday so they could replace some transformers. The cool part though was that we actually had warning in advance that that was going to happen, so we filled the kids toy bucket up with water the night before to prepare. That is how we found out what color our water really is and why they recommend you don't drink it.



This is our "couch" that has been our lounging place in the kitchen/dining/living room for the past three months. If you want to sit- that is where you go. The only other choice is a chair from the kitchen table (also made of wood). We have spent many evenings watching movies on our oh-so-comfy sofa.


We have a new couch! Yeah! The bench got banished to the front porch.


And now for the most exciting upgrade: We got a new air conditioner that actually works! It blows out COLD air- its the coolest thing. You can also see the patched hole in our wall where the previous air conditioner was. It had a slow death and we are happy to have concrete bricks in its place. I might actually stop sweating for once!



One of the nice things about living in Bocas is getting fresh fish, if you like seafood that is, which I do. This fish cost $1.00/lb. I bought two of this size for a total of $12.00. As I was scaling it our Panamanian neighbors saw what a lousy job I was doing and came over to teach me how to do it 'right'. She even sharpened my knives for me, reducing my male handi-man ego to the size of a small pea. Silly gringo.