The End of the Weekend

Tons to write about today!
We went to Boquete for dinner and had Panamanian food. I had glazed pork chops, coleslaw and rice, and Rick had chicken and rice. The hot sauce was great and VERY spicy! Everyone keeps asking me what Panama food is, so I thought I would include it this time. The food itself is never spicy, but the sauce you can add is.

We do not pay for sewer (we have a septic tank), water is something like $50 a year and the trash trucks do not come up our hill, so there is no fee for trash. However, we have to get rid of our trash, so we have a few options. One, we could take it to the dump...or two, on Sunday nights the trash trucks are placed in front of the fire station in Boquete for people who do not have trash delivery. So on Sundays, we try to go into town, have dinner somewhere and throw our trash into the trash trucks. It makes for a nice end of the weekend. As you can see in the picture the road is all torn up. They have punched holes in the street and are about to redo the road. I am not sure how quickly they plan to do it, but I hope I can find the trash trucks when the road is closed for construction! I also included a picture of the new fire engine for all of the firefighters out there. :)

After dinner and trash dumping, we went by the farmer's market. To our surprise, it has been completely remodeled. A few of the stalls were still open and we bought a few bananas (3 for 25 cents), a pineapple for a dollar and a papaya for 40 cents. Our neighbor is cutting down a banana tree tomorrow, but the bananas will not be ready to eat for a week or so. I have not looked to see how close our trees are to cutting down yet, guess I should put that on the list.

The other picture is the town square. We can always find vendors and people hanging out here. Sometimes there are entertainers as well. Rick and I had a nice walk around this evening and even though we have been busy, it still feels like it always does when we are vacationing here. Our stress level is lower than it has been all year, even with the language barriers and our lack of how things work, like banking and car registrations. Which leads me to my last picture for the night.

For those that do not know my husband...he can be a little OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) at times. He is a perfectionist and neat freak with some things. The picture above is just a few of the parts of our truck. He keeps handing them to me to clean in the kitchen sink! The truck is used and has some flaws, it will need to go to a mechanic for some items, but I believe my husband intends to do most of the work himself. He spends the evenings reading manuals and then during the day, he takes sections of the truck apart to clean and inspects each piece, taking inventory on everything he will need to fix. But, even he is more relaxed than he has been all year....we are very happy to be here on this new journey.