Panama Update #84
November 12, 2008
Today we bought what is called a "tower fan." Our landlord recommended it as the best type of fan. It cost about $60. We have that fan in the living room along with a ceiling fan. It is still warm, but they help circulate the air. We keep both of them on all the time and turn the AC on in the bedroom at night. It is still not real cool at night in the bedroom because the room has vents in it so the air escapes. The heat is becoming the biggest adjustment for me living in this apartment. Our dorm room was small and had good AC on all the time. Even when I went out walking and got hot and sweaty, I could always come back to the AC. That was the relief I needed. In this current apartment we don't have that luxury so I am hotter more of the time. I have adjusted to the heat and humidity down here better than expected, so maybe that will continue. Electricity is very expensive here, so that is why people try to go without AC as much as possible in their homes. Plus, our current apartment is so big, that it would be very difficult and expensive to have a whole apartment system. The offices where Nikki works have AC and the school where I work has AC, so it must cost a fortune to cool those places.
We signed our lease last night for 7 months, to expire on June 9, 2009. At this point it looks like we will return to Minneapolis around that time. However, we most likely will not stay in Minneapolis. It will depend on what happens with Nikki's jobs. Our new landlord seems very supportive and sincere. He doesn't speak any English, but his daughter is visiting and knows some English so she helped translate a bit. I would say that her English is about equivalent to my Spanish. He is going to add some furnishings and we asked him to take out some others that we do not need. Right away this morning one of the guys he has working here came to move out the stuff we requested. There seems to be a few guys around doing work around here all the time, so he must pay them all. One of the guys he gives a small apartment to out in back for his residence. They also have a live-in maid, so people here with some money (middle class, not wealthy) can set themselves up very nicely. We brought the cleaning lady with us that we had in the dorm. We have her scheduled to come in one day a week to clean this new apartment. We arranged to pay her $20 for about a half day, which is above average wages.
