Safety in Panama

Recent world events spark conversations daily about how safe it is to live in a developing country. Yesterday a gunman walked into a gaming event in the United States and killed participants before turning the gun on himself. Our dinner conversation last night was interesting. Does this happen here in Panama and we just don’t know it? Are these events isolated to the United States? The short answer is that this is a problem worldwide. We have done research on the safety of life in Panama and have concluded that we have to be diligent in protecting ourselves. We do not live in a vacuum ignoring local news, however it is much less “in our face” than media in the States. We live in a gated community with armed security. Our choice to live here is not as much about security  as it is to reside in a place we love and enjoy. The majority of crime in Panama isn’t murder. It is crime of opportunity like petty theft (people helping themselves to something that is easy to take). The prevalent crime victim tends to be people who let their guard down or enter into transactions without due diligence. We do neither of these things and have had no problems. That being said, we don’t want to make this political at all, but believe that the news media often dramatizes stories to keep people watching the news. Our blog is another example of security in a developing country. Some of our viewers will notice that we changed our physical address to Panama today. Some may also have noticed over the past few days that when signing into our site there is a pop-up stating that we are not secure. This is false information. We compose on a secure network and pay for layers of security. We get weekly updates that show no security concerns. We pay big bucks to make sure that all of you can read our blog without concern for security. We have WordPress, VaultPress, and Jetpack investigating the source of our problem and will keep it safe or shut it down. Please let us know if you experience problems with our site.

That is about enough of things that keep people awake at night. It has been several weeks since our last post. We spent a couple of weeks at our home in the States and are returning to normal here in Panama. We love our friends and family, but frequent visits to Michigan are stressful. We have a great deal of interest in our home and are looking forward to turning it over to a new family soon. Our advice in this matter is that you should get your home sold before relocating. Remote care for real estate is difficult at best.  On the flip side, we have stated on numerous occasions that you should not purchase property in Panama until you have been on the ground for a year. The real estate market in Panama is quite different from the U.S. and this time is necessary to gauge the market and find a location that suits your lifestyle. Rent for at least a year. We continue to stand by that advice.

Before returning to the States we had visitors at our church from Logos Hope. Logos Hope is a floating mission/bookstore to take Christianity throughout the world. Our visitors shared testimony and told of their experiences aboard the ship. Over 60 countries and nationalities are represented aboard the ship. Many people who live on the ship are from countries where they would be persecuted for sharing Christianity. We were intrigued by this awesome mission so upon our return to Panama we went to visit the ship. Due to persecution, taking pictures was difficult. We are sharing limited pictures from the ship.

 

The ship left late last week to continue its mission. It will dock next in Guatemala. The wonderful people on board carry their message and bookstore to all parts of the world. Please check out their website.

Since our return to Panama we have been crazy busy. In addition to the Logos Hope adventure we spent a day (including the night before) in Panama City. The purpose of our stay was to complete the  paperwork for our Cedula. A Cedula is the national identification carried by all Panamanian people. Most Panamanian people do not have driver’s licenses so this is the instrument that identifies a person and gives credibility for their ability to conduct business. A Cedula is not a requirement for our residency, however it will make it easier for us to conduct bank business and make major purchases. Our appointment was at 7 a.m.  Our attorney had a  solid agenda and got us finished very quickly by Panama standards. We highly recommend our attorney for all immigration needs. We are happy to provide her contact info to anyone by private  correspondence. It has been our experience that her rates are very fair and her ability to get things done are without reproach. The process was entirely done at the Tribunal Electoral. The building was beautiful and well organized. We got our business started at 7 a.m. sharp, and waited the hour for paperwork processing, in a great cafeteria where we enjoyed an authentic Panamanian breakfast. Once the paperwork was complete we waited in line to have a photograph made and pay the fee. As a Jubilado there is a discount for the fee to get your Cedula. We took  photographs below at the Tribunal Electoral.

We made good use of our time in the city. We made reservations for future travel and paid for our tickets using our Jubilado discount. We also learned that one of the future trips planned would require a vaccination, so we made our way to the Minister of Health and got our vaccination. As residents, we got the vaccination at a substantial discount. The experience was interesting to say the least. No officials there spoke English and we had a few communication issues. Fortunately there are wonderful people all over who know a little English and they helped us be understood. We used our due diligence and read the container which contained the vaccine to be sure we were getting what was required for our travel. They then provided a document that states the time in which the vaccine remains effective. This is called a yellow card and we must always be able to provide it before travel. We have committed to keeping it safely stored with our Passports. We have heard that people have been denied entry to some countries without the proper documentation of vaccinations. We plan to travel extensively in our retirement. We are anxious to explore and Central America is an excellent place to explore from.

Waiting for our vaccination
Waiting for our vaccination

We also got in a little retail therapy while in the city. We didn’t really buy much but we had a nice lunch at the mall. We have become big fans of Leonardo Pizza. Our lunch for two pictured below was just over $6 with our Jubilado discount.

lunch for two
lunch for two

Yesterday we traveled with friends to El Valle de Anton where we frequently enjoy the fresh vegetable market. We had purchased a huge clay pot for our balcony and wanted to fill it with tropical plants. Our visit was a great success. Our pot now has some colorful plantings that we will enjoy. We also picked up our usual supply of salad fixings.

Balcony Planter
Lovely tropical plants from El Valle.

Every day proves to be an adventure and it is the most relaxing, inexpensive, and beautiful place to spend retirement. We know that this life isn’t for everyone, but it suits us well. We continue to learn Spanish. The language barrier is only an inconvenience, and most of the time our English is enough to survive daily life. That being said we have volunteered to help teach English to Panamanian people in our community. The people here can get better jobs and prosper with the ability to speak English. We know that God had a plan when he moved us here and in some small way this may be our way to give back.

Dios los bendiga,

Greg and Jen

The Most Iconic Building In Panama City

 

Since our last post we have been busy getting ready to return to Michigan. We reported that we had a hard lesson buying airline tickets from Copa Airlines. One sure thing is that everything moves along at a much slower pace in Panama. We got an e-mail message from Copa customer service letting us know how to resolve the issue involving our Pensionado discount. The resolution involved driving into the city to a special ticket counter. Terror ensued…driving into downtown is frightening. We made the journey on Monday and we were able to get our feature image along the way. More about the F&F Building (El Tornillo) later. After our arrival at Copa it took the agent almost 2 hours to get our refund credited. The lesson now is that we must never pay for tickets in advance. Once the reservation is made we have 24 hours to report to a ticket counter to make payment. The discount is 25%-40% depending on where you travel. The result for us was a refund of nearly $300. We are getting better about asking for our Pensionado discount. Check out our previous post from November of 2017 to see how to qualify for Pensionado Visa discounts. The discounts are available to us  almost everywhere. The government requires participation here. We even save at least $2 on lunch at McDonalds. We usually don’t ask the Fonda’s or street vendors to give the discount. We did get the 50% discount at a movie on Sunday. Regular ticket price at the Cines Moderno is $5 per ticket. We got ours at $2.50 each. We saw Mission Impossible 6. The film was in English with Spanish subtitles. Had we gone at a different time we could have saw the version dubbed in Spanish with English subtitles. The snack bar did not offer any discounts, however the prices were not bad and we had a jumbo Caramel popcorn. It was hot and yummy, but a little sweet.

Cines Moderno
Cines Moderno

We also returned to the Nissan dealer to get our key-fob programmed. This is another thing that we expected to be  only minutes, after all we had an appointment. It took over 2 hours. When getting settled in Panama one big lesson is that everything takes longer here. We are often amazed by how many people working it takes to get a job done or a customer taken care of. Often we find that there are more workers than customers in businesses. When we enter a department store, we almost always have an employee dedicated to make sure we have a pleasant shopping experience. They will help you find things carry your stuff or whatever you may need until you check out. Personally I like to be left alone while shopping, but this seems to work here. If the language barrier is too much to handle the “personal shopper” will go find someone for you with better English skills.

From the file that we will call small world comes a story that many will appreciate. Our home in Panama is in an area of many other Expats, and one of the first couples that we met relocated here from Grand Rapids, Michigan. They are about our age and we find that we enjoy many of the same things. It is nice to have Tom and Patty around because they have been here about 3 years and have been sharing some of their experiences with us. Last night the four of us enjoyed dinner at Las Bovedas Restaurante. It is a nice restaurant in the Ensenada community which lies just to the east of us.

Dinner at Las Bovedas
Dinner at Las Bovedas

We wanted to share some pictures of the community where we are living before signing out. Some of you may have seen these on Face Book , but others may not be following on that social media platform. One of the things we learn as we go along is that everyone chooses to receive our blog in different platforms. Facebook this week has made changes in their rules of use. It is our understanding that we will no longer be able to make automatic blog posts to Facebook. We will try to personally share, but not sure how that may work. If you are a reader on Face Book, we encourage you to follow us on Twitter @PanamaGreg89 , Tumblr 2RetireInPanama? ,or Google+ 2RetireInPanama.com. The other option is to sign up to receive our blog by e-mail. We will try to connect other new services as they present themselves.

Wikipedia says the F&F Tower (previously known as the Revolution Tower) is an office tower in Panama City. In 2011 Emporis selected this building 7th of the 10 best skyscrapers based on architectural excellence for design and functionality. It is one of the most iconic buildings downtown and we were able to get this picture while on Calle 50 visiting the Copa Airlines ticket counter. The traffic doesn’t appear nearly as bad as it was. Any trip into the city involves traffic gridlock and parking challenges. Fortunately we were able to find a place to park a couple of blocks from our destination.

El Torrnillo (The Screw)
This is the screw building in downtown Panama City. The F&F Building. Previously known as Revolution Tower.

Thanks for continuing to follow along. We will try to manually post to our personal Face Book pages this time, but we’re not sure how it will work. Please Like and Share even if you haven’t in the past. We want to keep sharing, but will not pay to post on Face Book. We have it set up to go automatically to 2RetireInPanama Facebook page but most of you will not see it there unless you follow it. The best way to be sure to never miss a post is to scroll down and sign up to receive it by e-mail.

Adios,

Greg and Jen