A Good Day in Paradise

Oh no, a good day in Paradise.  What have we here?  I can't believe it.

I want to introduce you to Migel.  He is a master cabinet maker that will craft our doors and cabinets.  We met him briefly yesterday at the house.  

For the most part, all doors and cabinets are hand made in Boquete.  Actually, they get the wood in blocks of raw timber and cut all the boards from the blocks.  I guess this is what you call "from scratch."  

Today we stopped by his shop to show him our "design" for the cabinets.  This was a crude scribble on a plan that was almost unintelligible.  

He instantly got it.  He was fast and perceptive with good comments about this issue or that.

We asked him about the color of the finish so he showed us.  He opened a can of clear sealer, stuck his hand in the sealer and worked it into an oak board and a cedar board.  Both were beautiful but I was amazed how he showed us.

We then went to David to purchase a dishwasher.  Yesterday, a problem with the location of the water line for the dishwasher came up and we needed to have the actual unit to see how to solve the issue.

Driving in David is dicey at best.  The drivers are as aggressive as in Panama City, their are NO maps of David, addresses are useless so all directions are with landmarks and we have been hopelessly lost many times.

Oops!  We only made one wrong turn and found the shop, got the dishwasher and we were on our way!   Yes, there is a God.

Just to give you a little insight into the communication with language and culture issues: I told the builder on the phone that we bought a dishwasher and had it in the car with us; he said great he would sent someone to David to pick it up; I said no, no we had it with us; he said you haven't bought it yet, and so on.  I gave up.  We will show him the dishwasher the next time we see him.

Now for the Creme De Le Creme.  The Retro (backhoe) was working on our road today!  Ya!  We have been struggling to get this done for 2 weeks.  This is a big issue because our household goods shipped from USA are arriving in a few days.  There was no way to drive the road to deliver the goods so we had to get this done prior to delivery.  

Just a side note.  The shipper has now asked us for another $700 for fees etc when the goods arrive in Panama.  In hind sight, I would ship NOTHING from the USA.  This is one of the most expensive propositions in the whole deal.  We will have spent about $10K to ship towels, books,  etc.  I am sure we could stock the entire town of Boquete for the cost of shipping!

Whew!  A big day in Panama!