An Excellent Panama Day

The sun is shining...I've missed it...maybe the rainy season really is ending.

We came home last night from dinner at the Rock, a 5 star restaurant, a birthday party for a good friend with magnificent jazz...hard to beat this anywhere in the world..only to find no electricity.

Ugh!

A few notes on Panama electricity...

The power goes off several times a day. Sometimes it "bumps" hard, you can actually feel it. All our electric devices have surge protectors and the bigger stuff like the frig has a voltage limiter which cuts off the power if the voltage goes to high or low. And our computers are on battery backups to condition the power.

Even with all this protection stuff gets fried.

If the power goes off for the whole town, we don't worry too much because it will be repaired soon.

But if our power goes off and the town is good, we've got problems.

We live on a short line off the main line that no one at the power company knows about. And calling them to report the problem is dicey because my Spanish is poor.

This morning at 6 AM I called and got a guy that spoke enough English to take my report.

Now the fun starts.

I start getting calls...where are we...how far past the school are we...what side of the road are we on...etc.

All in Spanish.

This is a huge problem for me.

I was in a restaurant having just ordered food when I get the 4th call. I find someone who speaks English and have them translate. I have to rush home and try to find the crew on the way and get them to my house.

Remember, there are NO addresses where I live...it is all done by landmark.

I find the crew, lead them home and they fix the problem. All before 9:30 AM.

Wow!!! Was that slick.

Normally we wait all day and night, only to never get electricity. Then we call again. They pull a new work order. And we wait another day.

This was so fast.

I love electricity! I am for it. Bring it on.

After that, I did a whirlwind tour of town and got an incredible amount of errands completed.

What a great morning!

Anytime you get something done, much less on the day before 3 holidays, it is a wonderful day in Panama!