Off to Hospital in David

Bocas del Toro Hospital

I received a phone call last night telling me that I needed to be at the hospital at nine for some blood work. What, and why? Tito and I headed out at eight, bypassed a line of 200 people for some reason.

The woman with whom we met spent half an hour trying to convince me that it was in my best interests to have by blood test results ready for the hospital in David by taking them now.

We met with a women who spent an hour filling out 3 x 5 thin little forms with lines so close together I couldn't write in them. She drew blood, I paid my $12 and left.

Resort

I went to the Real Estate office and met with Eladio, the man who is going to build my dock. He knows  next to no English, my Spanish is better than his English.  He walked up, "Eladio".  Then he looked at me and gave me his ever charming smile and a very warm "Jim Schmidt".  We sat on some stumps and engaged in a fractured conversation in Spanish.   I owed him $480 as a balance on the down payment but more importantly wanted to ensure that there was agreement on what was to be constructed.  I wrote down a big description in English, Walter translated to Spanish for Eladio.   We spent half an hour going over this point by point.  

Pack

We went back to my house.  I couldn't get off the boat because everywhere I went the dogs blocked the way while licking my face.   I eventually pulled it off.   All the clothes I own except those I was wearing at the time were in a plastic bag that Tito had just retrieved from the laundry.  I chose a shirt, a pair of pants, a change of underwear and a pair of socks and put them in my day pack along with my notebook computer and Kindle.  Travelling light.

Private Ride

I started feeling bad and decided to take up a suggestion by a friend of mine to use a private driver.  I hadn't heard the part about needing four hours lead time as the driver was going to drive across the isthmus from my destination before we could go.   The pickup was setup and I had four hours to kill.

Haircut

I couldn't find a place in town that cuts hair that was open.  It had been three months since my last haircut and I was looking extremely unkempt.  Finally Tito called some guy who gives haircuts out of his house.   I ascended the stairs and sat on a stool and waited for him to show up.   There was no mirror I insisted on one.  His tools consisted of a pair clippers, not even a comb.  It was the worst haircut of all time. 

Change of Plans, Again

I went to Casa Verde to kill some more time by hanging out with friends.  I received a phone call from the private driver telling me he couldn't be in Almirante until five.   This is ridiculous, back to taking a water taxi.

Great Deal - Private Ride

Arriving in Almirante a guy told me I could get a private ride for $25.  Now that is a deal.  Then the driver found a group of four and kicked me out.    Best I can do is ninety, piece of shit car asshole.

Taxi to Bus Terminal

So I took a taxi to the bus terminal.  There were two women in the back seat and I related my recent experience.  "Are you ok?"  "No, I am off to the hospital."  The driver told me he would take me to David for only $100.  No thanks, I'll take the bus.  He told me he could make it $90.   No thanks, I'll take the bus.  His car was a piece of shit, he was more than a bit of a dick.  He kept pushing, I blew up. He shut up.

The Ride to David

As soon as we got to the bus terminal I boarded the bus.  Very nice, the aisle was very narrow as they had widened the seats.  On all my other trips the person on the aisle would have a substantial part of his body hanging out into the aisle.  This arrangement doesn't make the aisle any narrower for an occupied bus.  Most seats were occupied but the entire four seat back bench was empty.  What a godsend.  I sat down and spread out.  There was a piece of luggage on the seat, I guess somebody will be coming back here.   

An exceptionally hot young woman in boots sat down several rows ahead of me.   After about ten minutes she looked back, left her seat and came back and sat in the back seat.   This could be a very pleasant ride.  Then a pretty girl came back pointed to the luggage and indicated this was her seat, the hot chick left.  I thought "Hey, there are four seats here, please stay."  I said nothing.

I curled up in the space for three and we headed out.  After a couple of hours we came to a stop, traffic stretched out as far as they eye could see.  We sat there for I don't know how long, maybe an hour.  Finally we left our lane into the oncoming traffic lane which was vacant.  I don't know what made us special.  Finally all the traffic started moving, weaving in and out in a chaotic fashion.  Later I found that this was another road obstruction by the indigenous people protesting proposed mining on their land.

Over the continental divide, waterfalls, driving through the clouds.  Down hill, air brakes for forty five minutes.   Arrived in David and it was like a beauty contest.  There are plenty of hot women in Panama City by the ratio in David is amazing.  Not only are they hot, but they are dressed to impress.

Hospital Chiriqui

Five minute taxi ride.  

Trying to check in I found my drivers license was missing.  Did I leave that at the immigration office when I attempted to get a document to allow me to fly to Panama City without a passport so I could get a replacement passport?

I was given a bed and flirted with the nurse who was giving me my IV.  Then the doctor of internal medicine came by to see me.  She was a smoking hot Panamanian who had spent some time at Mayo Clinic.   I was sorry to see her go after an hour.

The accounting office came in, they wanted a $300 deposit for services.

I asked for some food and a women ordered me chicken, french fries and a salad.  The cafeteria was closed so it was takeout.  After an  hour she told me it was just a few minutes more, I was ravished.  She came in half an hour later and told me I needed to make a deposit.  I told her I needed food.  I was teasing her.  If I have to wait for food you have to wait to get paid.   She brought somebody in to translate.   I said I understood perfectly, I just want my damn food.  Then I gave her my credit card and she ran off to process it.  A while later she came to show me that she had my food and then walked away.  Ok, that is just sadistic.   How cold is this going to be?  Five minutes later she gave me the food.    I don't know how much chicken was in there but it must have been family sized.  Same thing with the fries.   I pigged out.

I remove my clothes and put on one of those "your ass is showing" semi sharongs.  I don't know why they don't have a tie in the back.   Got and ekg and a chest x-ray and was brought to my room, hooked up to an IV. The IV was inserted in the crook of my right elbow and the hose was screwed on rather than simply pushed on.  In the process of screwing it she was screwing the part of the IV in arm and the  skin.   I let out a yelp.

The lights were left on.  How to get them off the switch is across the room.

Finally I found the intercom hidden behind the curtain that separates my bed from the other bed.  There should be a nurse call button.  I am looking around with limited range due to the IV.  The nurses call button produced no result, but the call button on the intercom did the trick.   I was told there was wifi in the room but the provided password didn't work on any of the available networks.  I tried it in upper case and lower case, people don't seem to realize this is case sensitive.

Too sleep, perchance to dream

Plumbing Repairs

A friend of mine dropped by after hearing that I was having problems with my water supply.   This guy used to be a house builder but he can fix damn near anything.   I'm embarrassed to say it turned out to be a   defective pump.  Apparently when the tank went dry the last one just ran until it smoked itself out.  Let that be a lesson too you.  If you run out of water, shut off the power to the pump.

In to town another TropicGas propane tank, a hot water heater, a water  pump, an amazing number of pieces to adapt the pump to the water lines.  In the US it would be one piece but the stores here carry far fewer fitting parts so you do a "This gozinta that then this gozinta that" until you've created a long string that finally has the corrrect fitting on the end.   Works out for the stores I guess, they don't have to stock many fittings and when you want to do something you end up buying five times as much.

I'll make this short.  We got the hot water heater installed uneventfully.  The pump was more problematic. The shutoff switch, a separate component is also fried.  Need to get another one tomorrow.  But damn! Do I have some water pressure.  Awesome.  To take a shower all I have to do is turn on the taps run out, plug in the pump run back shower, run out turn off the pump run back shut off the shower.

Doesn't matter I'm really close.  The refrigerator is cooling.  The stove is blasting out heat.  The hot water heater rocks.   I guess I need another propane tank.  I am giving each appliance its own tank.  Right now I have two sitting in my kitchen. One of them I will 

Dock Negotiations

I was expecting a repairman.  Sitting reading my Kindle someone yelled out my name from the dock.  I yelled back "YO!"  My name was yelled out again. "Come on up."  A minute later I was called again.  WTF?  I stood up and looked and saw an Indian next the dock.  It looked like he was in the water, but was most certainly in a cayacu.  I waved him up.   He waved again.  God damn it.   I walked down to the dock.  It was Eladio, the guy I bought the land from in a dugout with two very fat young women.  He gave me a big grin shook my hand.  I asked him out of the boat.  He looked at me, "enfermo?" My entire body covered in sores from a very bad staph infection.

How did Eladio know where I live?  One of life's mysteries.

I wouldn't shake his hand, he did not understand.  I invited the girls up to the house, they seemed embarrassed at the prospect.  We walked up to the house and Eladio and I sat on the couch.  The girls stood until directed to sit down.

Eladio wanted to draw up a bill of materials for a dock.

100 Poste
125: pies de 10
Madera de sapatero 
65 x pies 
1850 pest


He handed over, that was it.

What the fuck?  Ok time to decipher.

I need 100 posts, sounds reasonable considering the length of the dock.
$125 a foot.  Hmmm he must mean $1.25 a foot.
That would make the madera $.65 a foot and I need 1850 feet of it.

Ok I created a spreadsheet with the numbers so the he could understand and agree to the dollars but he didn't have a clue what it meant.  My Spanish horrible as it is surpasses his English but I did manage to say this is the cost of the posts he did the calculations by hand at an commendable rate and the numbers matched.  Next the madera, which is the type of wood to be used on the planks.  Same thing.  Ok we are at about $2,400 in materials, seems quite reasonable for a 180 foot dock.  Labor $500.  Quite reasonable for a 150 dock.  A friend of mine paid $13,000 for a 100 foot dock.  Of course his has concrete posts and will last indefinitely these posts have a life expectancy of twelve years.

He was delighted when I agreed without negotiation.  As he trusts me they had already started cutting the posts. Then he asked how much money I had in the house.  What the fuck?   You think I am going to answer that?   He is such a sweet guy that this was surely a language barrier thing.   I called a friend who talked to Eladio.  There is a $500 down payment.  Well I don't have $500 with me.  Turns out he just wanted a few bucks in advance right now so he could eat.  I gave a $20 and we agreed to meet tomorrow at the real estate office.

He gave me another one of his winning smiles and again wanted to put my mitt into his paw but I pointed to the scabs all over my arms and shook my head.   They walked down to the dock and silently but quickly disappeared around the bend.

House Cleaning

Time to give the house an intensive cleaning.  A guy I know said his sister could clean the house for me.  Ok.  Today she showed up with an eight year old in tow.  "When is the baby due?"  "I have five children."  You know, I just realized she is just really fat; I am glad her English isn't very good.

Within five minutes they had moved two convertible couches, a dining table, six chairs and two end tables onto the deck.   A big bucket, one of those stringy mops I hate in the absence of a wringer bucket the woman mopped like her life depended on, passed it to the kid who would take it outside and wring it out so that the dirty water wouldn't mix with the soapy clear water. There, that didn't take long.  The kid brushed off and washed all the chairs and the table while mother washed dishes in a cooler (I have no running water).  Scrub down the kitchen counters.  Attack the bathroom.  "You need a woman to take care of you at all times." "I know." "I have no husband."  Oops, you are not my type and you have five kids.

Mop the entire deck all the way around the house.   Sort out groceries, make smoothies. She kept flirting with me the whole time.

 It was a whirlwind of activity for four hours.  I was so pleased I offered her a twenty, at prevailing Panamanian wages this was worth about six dollars for the half day for the woman but the kid had been busting his ass so make twelve.  Whatever, here, have a tip.

Then things got strange.  She told me her usual rate was $160 but she would only charge me $100.  What the fuck?   Then she went down to $80 and told me she would give me a discount on the next job.  Is this a joke?  Ok, fifty but that's the lowest I can go.   Then we argued for half an hour, Tito her brother was telling me that it's the time its the size of the house and this is a really big house.  My house is 800 square feet.  I have a friend with 3,500 square foot house that pays $12 to get it cleaned and the woman works for eight hours.  "Ok, I'll take the $20 today, you can pay me the rest tomorrow when I come to clean out the refrigerator."  Look crazy, you are not coming back.

As they departed she was yelling and screaming at Tito all the way down to the boat.  I could hear her

Hospital Visit - Passport.

Went to hospital, saw a doctor in five minutes, got an IV drip, a shot in the ass with penicillin, four prescription drugs and a lecture on not having had this skin infection looked at much earlier. Total cost $30.


Now I need to bring in two people tomorrow to rip this house apart and see if my passport can be found.  I doubt it. I always kept it in a bright orange waterproof passport case.  Then I let my son use the case for his phone.   Now I have a tiny black leather thing that I put god knows where.  I used to have it in my fanny pack at all times but without the protective case I didn't want it destroyed in a heavy rain.  Slick move.   There are only so many places to put stuff in this little 800 square foot house.  The people coming to help think it is a mansion.

To the Hospital

I couldn't get water for the dogs because I couldn't walk down three steps without leaning on a mop.  I need to get to the hospital.  I went I called Tito who took a water taxi right over.  Tito had to help me down the stairs and onto the boat. We took off and stopped at a wooden shack over the water.  I climbed out and was greeted by a mechanic working on an outboard.   He greeted me warmly, we see each other on te street all the time.   It's a small town so you see everybody all the time.  Time to walk a wooden plank but was too unsteady, I've never had good balance but I was fucked.  He grabbed my arm to help.  Up the plank came an Indian who greeted me warmly and also assisted on getting me to shore.

He held onto my arm as we walked to the road.  Still unsteady he held my arm as he walked me to the hospital.  "Mi buen amigo!" I gave him a blank look.  "Su Barco". Ahh, this is the guy who helped me when my boat almost sank and the guy who's cayuca I had strapped to my boat and given a ride home.

I gave him a big grin.  As we walked arm in arm a pretty girl on a bike road by and gave a big amused smile.  No, we are not a couple.  We got to the hospital and I triaged within minutes and then chatted for five minutes while waiting to see the doctor.  Tito walked in and seeing that I had an escort the Indian shook my hand and left.  I was shown into the doctors office and Tito joined to translate.  She just kept staring at my skin.  Covered with sores from head to toe.   Festering lessions and scabs everywhere.  I was sent to get an intravenous drip.   The technician mixed up a concoction and I laid down for I don't know how long while it flowed into my system.  Then I got a shot in the ass with penicillin and three prescriptions which Tito promptly filled.  

A doctor came out and consulted with me for half an hour telling me that I was severely malnourished. I would need somebody to look after me, get me some proper nutrition and my strength would return.  Having no family here I asked Tito if he could find a girl to come to my house and cook.  Now the refrigerator and stove are broken and I have no running water.  These should all be fixed on Monday.  After a month of searching I have found a highly recommended handyman thanks to one of the Bocas groups on Facebook.  Done with the hospital.  Cost for treatment and drugs?  Thirty bucks.

Bought lots of fruits and veggies.

Well, maybe we should buy another stove anyway as I will need one at the resort.  Off to the hardware store.  Here, this looks like a flame throwing three burner.  You get some awesome cooking power with little cast iron stoves, things that will throw off a lot more heat than my $600 stove.   A leg fell off, it was miscast.  A new one was found and Shakey tried to install it by removing a bolt using a flat head screwdriver in a phillips head and a wire cutter on the nut.  Come on, its a hardware store, don't you have a wrench or socket and a phillips head screwdriver.  After watching this idiocy for ten minutes I told Shakey that somebody would be in tomorrow to pick it up.

Tito volunteered to care for me and told me he would find a girl to clean the house.  His brother, Fernando came and the three of us headed to my house where they carried the stuff up.  I gave Tito $200 and a big shopping list of food and cleaning supplies.

They left in my boat to return tomorrow with a large amount of food, cleaning supplies and a stove.

I searched for four hours for my passport.  In the process, organizing and throwing out a bunch of crap, too much clutter here.  Conclusion?  The passport will never be seen again.

So, I will be home bound for a while as I recover.  Wish me luck.

Computer Drowning

I spilled a cup of cranberry juice on the keyboard of the computer.  This poor thing has been boat slammed, beaten and now drowned.   It still works fine but makes a loud metronome like clicking.  It's pretty annoying.  Guess I'll have to take it to Changuinola have it taken apart and cleaned.

Boat Repair

The boat choked and died, I had to call a friend to give me a tow.  The fuel filter was filthy, but would Yamaha dealer didn't stock this little part.  We back flushed it and then replaced the water separator.   They only sold the whole unit a $59 plastic bowl which was sold separately had to be bought with the separator.   $129 later I was out the door we installed it and the engine fired up.   I was within 10 feet of the gas dock when I ran out of gas.  I fueled up but she wouldn't start so I retained a water taxi to tow me. Damn.   After about 5 minutes of being towed I got her to start and then she ran fine.   I asked the guy to follow me, just in case.   No further problems.   Now to fix the  bilge pump again.

Random Shit

Let me see.

The dog, will I take your dog?  No I don't need another dog.  I don't want another dog.  You are leaving town tomorrow and have no home.  Oh, what the hell, if she is over a year old spayed and has her shots, I  will take her in.

Four Indians came by.  Just an hour or two's paddle for various reasons.  One to give me a quote on a boat house.  My Spanish is embarassingly bad.  Yup a 30 foot by 15 foot boat house with concrete posts in PVC in the water and membrillo uprights, Nispero deck and a metal roof.  I think he understood.  Maybe I will get a hamster hut.

Thanks for the dogs.  I had time to put some clothes on.  I don't know why I bothered to take them off all of these times.  It just seems so right to be naked.  The temperature is perfect, I am in the shade.

Then the guy from whom I am buying the land took a water taxi to my house and asked if I could give him another $200.  What the hell?  Off to town, to the ATM and gave him some cash.  Dinner at the Riptide.  Well, I've given up on the girl I desire most so what the hell, let's see if I can shake up a little action.  Two embarrassingly young Chinese girls.  No, inappropriately young.  Younger than the girl my youngest son is dating.  Too young to have any discussions with. Oh, what the hell, just a little eye candy, I wouldn't touch 'em.  "You want to go on a boat ride to Loma Partida on Tuesday?"  Well, they spoke not a word of English.  The guy next to me translated.  He told them, I think, "If you would like to go on a boat ride and hike through some jungle, this guy is giving you a chance.  You will be gone just after dawn and be back at sunset." "Sure, here is my facebook account."  Why did I even ask?  A buxom dutch 25 year old blonde looked at me and said, "Why didn't you ask me?"  "Well, I was sitting next to them. I didn't want to yell across the bar, but you are more than welcome." This little hottie well,  I could spend some time with her.  Then a 27 year old raven haired Wwede said, "Do you have room for more?"  Ahh for you, shit, I'd kick all the rest to shore. "Sure."  Bocas, thanks.

Best burger in Bocas then back home.