Panama Update #56
September 30, 2008
On Sunday we were invited for an early dinner over to a new friend's house who lives in a place called the Ciudad del Saber (City of Knowledge). It is a former Canal Zone, gated city, which has nice parks, schools, and many non-profit groups devoted to helping the under served of Panama. It is a person I met through the Yoga classes. She is Jewish and was born and raised in Jamaica. She showed us a book that her mother wrote on the history of Jews in Jamaica. She said her family has been there since the 1600s. She came to Panama 6 years ago when her husband from Trinidad was relocated here. You can see that Panama is a real international city with people of quite varied backgrounds. She picked Nikki and I up and drove us to her house. The house is located on a park in a place called Colonel's row, where former high ranking officers lived during the Canal Zone days. We had juice, tea, quiche, and baklava. We also visited with her son and husband. I may pick up something at the store for her that would be very expensive to mail and is difficult to get in Panama. She lent Nikki two books, one by Bill Bryson called something like A Small Island. It is funny, light hearted reading. They belong to a book club and exchange English books because they are more difficult to find here.
Also yesterday, someone answered an ad I had in put in Craig's list a couple of weeks ago about offering English tutoring services. She is from Canada and has lived in Panama with her husband and children for about 3 years. She has 6 children (ages 6, 7, 11, 13, 17, and 19) and has been home schooling them. She is looking for someone to come in and work with the younger children a few hours a week. I am supposed to meet them tomorrow morning at 10:00 to discuss it and meet the children. I also need to figure out if this will fit in with my new job at the private school that I started last week.
