Mission to the Americas

The other day, we took a journey to our kid’s school to hear our son’s book report. 

It took a combination of 4 buses, and because of construction and holiday traffic, about 5 hours round trip.  Traffic volume is a known problem here and this time of year is the worst it gets as people do their Christmas shopping.  Going to the mall on Saturday is a bad idea.  Did that.

I’m not complaining, but simply describing for our friends and supporters a picture of our life.

Near our house, a new interchange is being built as part of a highway project to facilitate traffic flow.  Because of land locking, the only way to rebuild the interchange is up.  This causes all sorts of traffic flow issues during construction, particularly when lanes have to be closed to move these beams or to put the supports in for the concrete forms.

The image here is the new set of bridges being built to elevate a highway around one of the local malls.

You can get a feel of the traffic around it in this picture.

The volume of traffic is heavy though these photos may not show it well.  It moves at a snails pace as several lanes of traffic (I think 8) condense into 3 in front of the mall.  There at the mall are hundreds of people daily being dropped off by taxis and getting on/off buses.  Not a well designed intersection and thus the elevated highways being constructed.

We play Frogger when we cross the streets to walk to church or to the hardware store.  Traffic moves slow enough that you simply take your life into your own hands, step into it and hope you don’t get hit.  It’s like parting the Red Sea.

Most times traffic is a jammed as what you see in this photo from our big window:

Imagine this scene with impatient drivers, lots of horns blowing, and sometimes 3 lanes coming from the two side streets (from the bottom and the top). 

The street from the top is a two way street, but often, impatient drivers will pull into the oncoming lane to rush up ahead of the line.

If someone turns off the main artery (from the right side of the picture) and there is a car there going the wrong way, no one moves anywhere and angry drivers blow their horn.  This time of year, that road stays packed like that almost from 7am through 6pm at night.  If the traffic light at the end of the main artery is not working it might take 30 minutes to an hour to move a few feet, as cops try to their best to faciliate traffic flow.

However, on Mother’s day and on 3 days weekends, the same interchange  looks like this:

One can get around the city quite easily because a great number of people have gone to the interior to celebrate the three day weekend.  This is the second 3 day weekend in a row. December has many holidays here.

Just a glimpse of our life.  Continue to pray for us that we get a car so we too can get out of the city on weekends like this, and to faciliate our work here.

We are planning a second Thanksgiving feast for family members here in Panama.

Brenda has several relatives in this country and has invited a total of 12 people for dinner (we discovered tonight that we don’t have enough chairs).  Pictured is last year’s thanksgiving dinner.

To share a little of our life in a foreign country, let me share some of our adventure in planning and American Holiday meal while living outside America.

Remember, we do not have a car so we simply can’t run errands like most of you.  A trip to the grocery stores is not as easy as getting in your car and driving to minutes to the nearest one.

Also, please read these as stories, not complaints.  It’s easy to put a tone of voice into writing.

1.  Sweet Potatoes.

Brenda wants to make yams with marshmallows.  Three groceries stores didn’t have them.

Either

a) the Americans in Panama bought them all (like not finding black-eyed peas in Wal-Mart on December 31 at 10pm) or

b) the store may not cater to Americans so there was no “stocking up” on normal inventory.

c) Sweet potato is not a popular food and just not stocked in bulk.

Thus, the attempt to locate sweet potatoes resulted in having to settle for finding some in cans.  At the 3rd store, Brenda found some.

2.  Pumpkin Pie Filling.

If you live in the USA, you likely take it for granted that come Thanksgiving, you can find lots of seasonal canned goods like the filling for pumpkin pie.

I can guess that pumpkin pie filling is not a common flavor here.

Four grocery stores later, we finally find a can of imported pie filling.  It wasn’t located where we thought it would be (with the other pie fillings like cherry, lemon, or blackberry), but located above the freezer case next to the Imported Pop-Tarts and Triscuits.

It is so huge that it actually made three pumpkin pies for our early thanksgiving celebration.

3.  Silver Queen Corn:

Simply put, can’t get it.  Corn on the cob here tastes nothing like corn on the cob in the USA.  We just don’t eat it here.

We have bought some frozen corn on the cob, but it’s institutional quality and not a big hit with our family.

Though we can’t expect to have the same benefits of living in America, there are some things we simply miss.  Silver Queen Corn is one of those.  During our road trip in Summer of 08, we asked for lots of Silver Queen Corn.

4.  Ready Made Pie Shells.

Shopping in two cultures shows a big difference when it comes to frozen food, or ready made pre-frozen items.  Here, we have not run into Lean Cuisine frozen meals, or anything of its kind.

Likewise, we have not encountered pre-made pie shells in the freezer case.

This means making them from scratch.

While that is not difficult, having the ingredients on hand when they are needed is not always the case.  For example: shortening.  We had run out.  Last night, we discovered that we didn’t have any in the house so that means yet another trip to the grocery store.

Our friends invited us to participate in a Thanksgiving feast.  It was a week early, but that was not of any import. 

The celebration of a uniquely American holiday with 24 friends from 9 different countries meant a great deal to our family.  We are a few thousand miles away from our immediate family where for years we’d gather around a common table.   To be welcomed into a new local family is indeed an honor.

Our host family had lived in the United States for a few years and grew to like and understand the significance of an American Thanksgiving dinner.  Even though they no longer live in the states, it is a holiday they choose to celebrate.  We have noticed that many churches have adopted the holiday as a day of thankfulness to God for the blessings of the year. 

While it is not a holiday that involves a 4 day weekend as it is in the US, some churches have had special feasts and banquets.

Brenda organized the children to do a little drama that told the story of an American Thanksgiving.  She made crafts for cornstalks, pilgrim hats, and plates full of food.  They were awesome ideas.

We enjoyed a big turkey, pumpkin pie, as well as some green bean casserole and corn.  One thing we do miss from the US is silver queen corn.  There is no replacing that sweetness with local corn.

The fellowship around the table was fantastic.  Nine different nationalities.  One of the blessings of being in this country is that it is also a national melting pot of immigrants.  While Spanish is the common language, many come to Panama in search of a better future — economic and social.  There is lots of economic opportunity in this country, even in the midst of such extreme poverty.

To see the full photo album (23 photos), visit our Facebook Photo Album.