Panama Update #12
July 25, 2008
This morning I decided to take a taxi out to “Ciudad del Saber”. It used to be called Fort Clayton but now is called City of Knowledge. It is a huge, gated suburban community which houses schools, big houses, parks, and international organizations such as Peace Corp, UNICEF, and the U.S. Embassy. It is on the same side of town where we are staying and since you don’t have to cut across downtown to get there, it is a fairly easy 10-15 minute taxi ride. I went there to see a school called Colegio Isaac Rabin, a K-12 school. It is not bilingual, but they do offer English classes to the students. It is about 40% Jewish students and they learn Hebrew, but the non-Jewish students study French so it is a reform type of school as opposed to the Orthodox Jewish school where I was offered a job previously. I did not make an appointment because their website was down and I could not get any contact information. There was quite a bit of security at the entrance. I introduced myself to the guard in Spanish saying I was a licensed English and math teacher from the United States. I am sure they were stunned to hear that since normally they have to recruit in the U.S. to find a background like that and now someone was showing up at their front door. They searched my bag before I went in and then I waited for a few minutes in the office. They brought the high school coordinator to talk with me since the principal does not speak English. The coordinator was from Israel and then New York so he spoke Spanish, Hebrew, and English. He only had time to talk for a few minutes, but he was interested and said he would get in touch early next week. I mentioned to him about only wanting part-time and he wasn’t real excited about that so we’ll see what happens. I also had a feeling the pay wouldn’t be too good,
but if they call I can find out all about that.
Someone else told me about a Christian school that is relativey close to where we are staying. I looked on line and sent an email. They got back to me right away and asked if I could fill out the on-line application and then they would call next week for an interview. After looking at the application I decided not to apply since you had to sign something that says you uphold the Christian ideals in Luke, verse something. After reading that application it seemed like the school would not be a great fit for me.
In the afternoon I took a taxi to the mall to do some errands and found a store called Nuvey, which is a huge hardware store, about ¾ the size of a Home Depot.
We ate at an Indian restaurant for dinner called Taj Mahal with David and Yasmine, which was about a 20 minute taxi ride from where we live. The food was pretty much like you would find in an Indian restaurant in the U.S. The prices were also similar to what you would find in an Indian restaurant in the U.S., which means they were very high for Panama. The average vegetarian dish was about $12 plus the cost of rice and bread and the meat dishes were in the $15-17 range. I am starting to understand that you can live in Panama for relatively cheap, but you can also spend a lot of money here, depending on the choices you make.
