El Valle Bridge is Falling Down

El Valle bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down,
El Valle bridge is falling down,
My fair lady.

Did you know that the London Bridge nursery rhyme goes back almost a thousand years, to the destruction of London Bridge by Viking invaders, led by King Olaf II of Norway in 1014? In fact that ill-fated bridge over the Thames was destroyed and rebuilt many times: the wooden bridge was burned by Olaf I, torn down by Olaf II, destroyed by a tornado of all things about 80 years later, and then burned down again in the early 1100's.

Finally, Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine - the "fair lady" - commissioned a new bridge with permanent stone construction. Eleanor was queen of both England and France, mother of Kings Richard and John, and perhaps the most powerful and wealthy European woman of the Middle Ages. The new bridge was completed under the reign of her son, King John, and was so well built that it lasted over 600 years.

I don't expect El Valle de Anton to be invaded by Vikings, but our bridge is shut down nonetheless. El Valle actually has three main bridges that I can think of, all on the main road: one at the entrance of town, just past Centro Commerical; one in the center of town, just before the Melo store and chicken shop; and one past the church.

A few weeks ago, I noticed a small pothole developing in the middle of the center bridge. This is a crucial bridge, since 90% of the town's traffic passes over it at some point. Nothing was done, and the hole widened, until it was a literal hole in the bridge - you could see the water rushing down below. The rebar held, but the concrete was gone.

Now there are two holes in the bridge, and the police have taped it off so no one can cross. This means that anyone who wants to get from one side of town to the other by vehicle must go all the way around on Calle de los Millonarios ("Millionaires Street"), which is itself badly rutted and potholed and is in no condition to withstand heavy traffic. Other vehicles are using smaller side streets - most of which are unpaved, just dirt and grass - as detours, and are digging ruts and holes in these small residential roads.

Cherry, a friend of ours, dropped by yesterday and told me that she ran into a woman named Irene near the market. Apparently this Irene is a wealthy woman with connections. Cherry talked to her about the bridge, and Irene said, "Usually someone has to get hurt before they fix things. But I'm seeing the President today, I'll mention it to him."

I guess there's some benefit to living in a town where some residents lunch with the President. Let's see if it gets fixed quickly or not.

Update: they welded a steel plate over the hole in the bridge, but since then another hole has begun to open up to the side of the plate. For now it remains open and driveable.

Zippy the Cat

A few people have expressed concern about Salma, since I wrote some time ago that she was not feeling well. Not to worry, she's fine.

It's true that for more than two weeks she had a fever, vomiting, diarrhea and sleeplessness, and we couldn't figure out the problem. Well, it turned out that she had four molars coming in at once. That's a painful change and it was wreaking havoc on all her systems, but once the teeth came in she was fine.

Our cat Zippy, on the other hand, is not doing so well. He's the orange on on the right, above.

Zippy is almost 14 years old now. He lived with me for years in my studio apartment on Market Street in San Francisco, then years more in Oakland after Laura and I were married, then in Linda's house in Palo Alto after I moved to Panama, and then finally he made the trip here to El Valle de Anton.

Both Zippy and Li'l Fishy settled in well here and have been quite happy, but I'm aware that they are getting quite high up in years for a cat.

Zippy has always had a healthy appetite, but about two weeks ago he suddenly began refusing to eat. At first we thought maybe he had eaten a toad or a gecko. The thing is he still has the desire for food. He cries for food at his mealtimes, but when we put his bowl down he simply walks away without tasting it. We called the local vet and he thought that maybe Zippy had an infected tooth, so he gave him antiobiotic injections for three days, and gave us a vitamin solution to feed to Zippy with a syringe.

Two weeks later there has been no change. Zippy's weight has dropped from 18 pounds to 13.5. We can get him to eat a spoonful of wet food at a time but it takes five minutes of following him around, enticing him and petting him.

We may take him down to a vet in Coronado who has more diagnostic facilities. But in the end I think we have to accept the fact that our beloved companion is nearing his last days.

I'm happy that Zippy has been able to live out his last years here in this beautiful place. He loves to go out in the yard and watch the birds, chase frogs, eat grass and lay on the car in the sun. There are no cars to worry about, and the few dogs who wander into our yard leave Zippy alone because he's much larger than the local feral cats. The house itself is by far the largest place we have lived in and Zippy has many comfy spots to sleep or relax. So I feel good for him that he has been able to experience this perfect place.

HBO Evenings

We don't get good reception of Panamanian TV here, and we have not signed up for cable because I'm afraid that the temptation of 24-hour English programming will be hard to resist and we'll end up TV junkies.

Instead we order movies on Amazon and have them delivered to us via our Miami P.O. Box. We almost always order them used - it's much cheaper and we've never had a problem with quality.

Often we order entire seasons of TV shows. You get so much more viewing time for your money - for example I got the first season of NYPD Blue for $14 - and it's fun to watch an episode of the same show every evening. Every night after Salma has gone to bed we sit down with our dinner in the bedroom and watch one episode of whatever show we are viewing.

Over the last several months we've watched the first three seasons of The Wire. This is a fantastic HBO show. It's about a crack police surveillance squad in Baltimore that is approaching urban crime in a different way. Each seasons deals with a single case. At first it feels slow, but then you begin to realize that this is TV on an entirely new plane. The depth of characterization (of both the good guys and the bad) and the level of detail is unlike anything else on TV. Situations don't get neatly wrapped up in 60 minutes, and a as a result it feels very real.

More recently we needed a break from all the drama and we decided to try another HBO show, a comedy this time (we never had cable TV in the U.S., so all these shows are new to us).

Curb Your Enthusiasm stars Larry David, the creator of Seinfeld. Curb Your Enthusiasm is unscripted. That is, they come into each episode with an outline of the story, but the actual dialogue is improvised. In addition, they use the actors' real names for the characters. The result is that, once again, it has a very real-life feel to it, even if the situations that Larry gets himself into are ridiculous.

It's funny and I do laugh out loud, but I get frustrated at the idiotic situations that Larry ends up in time and time again. Still, comedies this good are rare, so I think I will order season two.

Salma's New Game; Worrying About the Kid

In the past, whenever we got home from a big shopping trip, one of us would have to care for Salma while the other put the groceries away. Not anymore. We have discovered that all we have to do is put Salma down on the floor with a bag of (non-breakable) groceries and she will happily spend an hour stacking the items on top of each other, knocking them down, and sorting and re-sorting them. Sometimes she gets stacks of three!


I worry about her a lot. Most of the time she is energetic, playful, happy and talkative. But she seems to get sick a lot. Little things like colds, fever, mysterious rashes that come and go... For the last two days she's been very irritable, not sleeping well and wanting to be held all the time. Today we noticed a rash on her chest and back. It could be insect bites and frankly I hope that's the case, because that's easy to fix. Put some ointment on her, air out her mattress and bedding and make sure there are no bugs around.


I've found that being a parent means worrying a lot. I worry that she'll fall down, eat the wrong thing, become ill, get stung, or simply be unhappy.

When Salma is irritable and weepy like she has been lately, we have a standard set of distractions that we employ to keep her occupied and entertained. We take her to the Centro Commercial - the main store in town. She knows all the employees, the store has two cats and several pigeons living in the store or the storeroom in back, and they have a small tricycle that Salma likes to sit on.

Then we go down the street to the open air market. Again, Salma knows the vendors there and often there are children or babies for her to look at and interact with. I enjoy walking through the aisles and browsing the crafts, though I rarely buy anything except perhaps some fruits or vegetables.

Back at home we try reading books to Salma, walking around the house with her, or even letting her play with things that are normally forbidden, like my cell phone.

If none of this works and Salma is still grouchy, there is a last resort: the TV.

Well, what are you gonna do? Idealism is fine, but when you've got a crying kid, believe me, you're glad for Sesame Street. No matter how bad Salma's mood is, if I sit her down in my lap and put Big Bird and Elmo on, she gets a big smile on her face and settles down to watch peacefully and happily.

By the way, we don't curl Salma's hair. That's 100% natural.

Power Outages; Salma is Better; Ramadan Half Over; Microwave is Dead

We've had two long power outages this week, for several hours each time. These usually occur in the late afternoon or at night. Whenever this happens we get out our candles and light them, wind up our lanterns and flashlights, and settle down for an evening of quiet reading. We have a pair of very nice crank-powered lanterns. 100 turns of the handle gives more than an hour of light.

If I want to work I get out my large UPS device, basically a super-duper battery back up unit that can power my computer for up to eight hours on battery power alone.

I don't mind any of this. I'm kind of glad that Salma gets to grow up in a place where the power goes out. I remember this happening during my childhood in Libya and other places; it's kind of exciting for a child, like camping in your own home. Now, as an adult, it remind me how thin our veneer of modernity really is: take away the power, and we're back to doing things much as they were done by our ancestors.

Today when the power went out I went to the Centro Commercial and bought several more votive candles with stickers of San Jose (the saint, not the city) on them. That's the only kind of votive they sell - I just peel off the stickers. By the time I got home, the power was back.

*****

Salma was sick for almost a month, vomiting at night, eating very little, crying a lot, and carrying a fever. We took her to the doctor, had a stool sample tested, and just worried a lot. We thought it might be a virus, or a food allergy. Well, it turned out to be her teeth. She had four molars coming in all at once. Apparently this can cause all the symptoms mentioned, and of course the pain would be bad as well. Poor baby.

The teeth have now come in and she's back to normal - Alhamdulillah, thank God. Playing, laughing, shrieking at cats, dogs, balloons and piñatas, eating, and sleeping well.

We just received a gift for her from our friends Jen, Brian and Greta - thank you, guys! It's a wooden, articulated crocodile on wheels with a string attached. See the photo to the left (click on it for a larger version). The crocodile undulates and clacks loudly when Salma pulls it. Salma loves it and likes to hold her Mama's hand and walk while pulling the crocodile with her other hand.

*****

Ramadan is about half over. I do miss being around other Muslims during Ramadan. I go to Panama or Penonome for Friday prayer, but that's about it. The rest of the time I pray at home, break fast by myself, listen to Qur'an on my iPod... still, Ramadan is a special time.

I find myself eating less and less. My appetite is simply drying up. I break my fast with a date and a sandwich, maybe a banana, and then I'm full. I mean really, I feel stuffed, and cannot eat anymore for several hours. I don't even feel the desire to eat. It makes me realize that outside of Ramadan I eat so much more than my body really needs - it boggles my mind.

*****

Our microwave just quit for good. Enter the time and press start and it will count down the time ok, but no microwaves. Not even an itty bitty wave. I'll have to go to Panama and buy a new one next week, but I've been to Panama and Penonome three times in the last week and for now I need a break from driving. We'll just have to get by with an oven and a toaster, like cavemen!

Ramadan Mubarak

I'd like to wish a belated Ramadan Mubarak (blessed Ramadan) to all my readers. May your Ramadan be full of joy and may God accept our sacrifice and our pure intentions. Many of us have experienced difficulties and pain in the last year. Let's use this holy month to turn to our Creator and ask for mercy, forgiveness, guidance and tranquility. Remember that fasting is not just about hunger and thirst. It's about re-dedicating yourself to Allah; trying to become an excellent person in every way; and remembering those less fortunate than us. It's a spiritual recharge to carry us through the year.

Trip to the Doctor for Salma

Salma has experienced several bouts of diarrhea and night-time vomiting over the last few weeks. Monday night she began vomiting around 2am and continued every few hours. She couldn't hold anything down. We called Dr. Medrano, Salma's pediatrician, and make an appointment to see him that same day. That's him with Salma in the photo above. You can see that she's not in a good mood.

Dr. Medrano speaks fluent English, and despite the photo above he's good with children and Salma is generally quite comfortable with him. He's a good doctor.

By the time we saw him in the afternoon Salma seemed to be doing better. She had not vomited since 8am or so and she was able to keep her drink and food down. Dr. Medrano says that there are some viruses going around, and if the problem reoccurs we'll get a stool sample and analyze it, but for now just keep her hydrated.

Today she's much better. It's hard to know what the problem is exactly. Our house is clean - we have a full time maid - but we're going to have to start keeping the floors pristine, because Salma will eat anything she finds on the floor, including cat food, insect parts or gecko droppings. Lovely, I know.

Also, I believe that Ani, Salma's nanny, is a very clean person, but just in case we'll have a talk with her about the importance of thorough hand-washing after changing Salma's diapers or going to the bathroom.

We also went to the Riba Smith grocery store for things we can't get here in El Valle, like tofu, diet root beer, almonds, cauliflower, and nice cheeses. We got back from the city late, and Salma went straight to bed. Here she is this morning doing one of her favorite things:


Now, before we get any lectures, we only let her watch a little TV each day, and she normally sits in her mama's lap a good distance from the TV. But if we let her up she heads straight for the TV, holds on to the edge of the cabinet as you see here, and dances to the Sesame Street songs by bobbing up and down and shaking her rump from side to side. It's very funny to see. We'll have to make a video.

Salma Loves to Walk

Salma has been practicing walking while holding a parent's hand. She can walk fairly well now with one hand. She enjoys it tremendously and she often laughs as she walks. She has taken a few tentative steps on her own, but she only manages two or three steps before she falls on her rump.


Laura was feeling restless the other day and wanted to get out of town, so we went to Panama city on Friday. I made it to Friday prayer just in time, then we went to Multicentro mall for lunch. We haven't seen Nora Smith (of Paradise Services) in a while, but luckily she had a few hours free between appointments and happened to be in Paitilla, so she joined us at the mall. I fed Salma and walked her all around the food court while Laura and Nora visited.


Nora says that some property sellers are asking $75/m2 for land here in El Valle. Unbelievable. I'm glad we bought this house when we did, Alhamdulillah. I've been convinced for years that good timing is one of the secrets of a happy life.

Afterwards we went to our post office, where a bounty of goods awaited us. I received a DVD I had ordered from Amazon.com - Searching for Bobby Fischer. I heard an interview with Josh Waitzkin, the subject of the move, recently on NPR (I download the podcasts). After becoming a chess champion he went on to study Tai Chi and win national championships in that as well. He says he seems to have an intuitive understanding of certain learning principles that he applies to anything he does. He's written a book about this, called, The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence.

I also received some mail and magazines from my parents, and Laura got a number of surprises, including children's books that friends had sent, and some new shirts. Someone must know of my interest in the domain name business, because I received a new magazine called Modern Domainer, that I have not subscribed to.

It's always fun to get packages in the mail.

We always stop at Arrocha as well. This time we picked up some cabinet guards to keep Salma out of the kitchen cabinets, and two Swiss chocolate bars - our favorite!

Mac and Tuna Memories

Rosa made macaroni and tuna for lunch. I love this dish, and it brings back old memories.

From 1993 to 1998 I lived in a loft apartment at the corner of 6th and Market streets in San Francisco. It was a rough neighborhood, one that the travel books advised tourists to avoid. Drug dealers, junkies and alcoholics, homeless people, nutcases and just plain down on their luck folks lived in this neighborhood. There were often homeless people - including children, at times, and once a boy and a dog - sleeping in the doorway of my building, and I'd have to step over them to get in. It's incredible to me that we could have homeless children in America, but we do. Most are teenagers, but some are as young as eleven or twelve. I volunteered for a while at the Larkin Street Youth Center and I saw many of them.

Once I had to step over a man who was seizing, foaming at the mouth, blocking the doorway to my building. Often I had to step over or around human waste.

At night I would hear the street people fighting, bottles breaking, drug dealers clapping out their codes, police sirens. Black dust from car exhaust came in through the window and formed sludgy little dust balls. The smells on the street were disgusting at times.

So why did I live there? It was cheap. The rent was only $550 a month when I moved in - cheap for San Francisco. The landlord, a burly fellow named Rocky who was gradually buying up many of the nearby buildings and renovating them, allowed me to pay my rent bi-weekly when I couldn't manage the entire month at once. Since I was a bike messenger at the time, riding 10 hours a day through San Francisco traffic for a meager paycheck, the low rent was very helpful.

Also, there were a few interesting features to the neighborhood. On the ground floor of the building there was a legendary burrito joint called Taqueria Cancun. My Irish friend Ian, another messenger who worked with me and was my closest friend in those days, used to drop by my apartment regularly and drag me downstairs for Cancun's fiery, sauce and cheese covered, $2.75 "wetback burrito."

Next to Cancun was a Cambodian-owned donut shop that made good chocolate twists and cake donuts, and beyond that a hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese joint called Tu-Lan that was so delicious that I still compare all Asian dishes to it. I used to eat at Tu-Lan three times a week or more. I'd get a delicious place of curried shrimp fried rice - a big mound of yellow rice with eggs and chock full of shrimp - for $4.75.

Here's a photo of the lunch counter at Tu-Lan. It's a small restaurant, and I often had to stand in the doorway, waiting for a table or a stool to open up. Either that or go up to the second floor, where they have a few extra tables, but where the kitchen staff also chop the vegetables and meat.

Also, my building itself wasn't too bad. It was a haven to artists and working class folks. Yes, I got tired of sharing bathrooms and showers with the entire floor (actually the showers were shared by two floors) but I met some interesting people there, including the young woman who would later become my wife.

The building is still there, with its artists and odd characters, leading a very slow process of gentrification along the Sixth Street corridor. That's it on the right.

We're getting to the mac and tuna. Be patient.

A few doors down from Tu-Lan on Sixth Street was a small neighborhood market called Tom's Groceries. Tom's was utterly unique in this area because they did not sell liquor. Tom, a tall, elderly black man with a blond Swedish wife, did not want to contribute to the degradation of the neighborhood, so he steadfastly refused to sell beer, wine or spirits of any kind. Tom's truly was a grocery store: milk, vegetables and fruits, sodas, and a number of cheap prepared foods that were popular among the street people and the residential hotel residents.

One of the prepared foods that Tom's sold was - you guessed it - mac and tuna, or Tuna Mac as Tom called it. I don't think it was more than $1.50 a dish, in cellophane-covered Styrofoam dishes in the fridge. Whenever I needed a hot and filling snack late at night, I'd go down to Tom's and get a Tuna Mac, then pop it in my microwave and add a dash of hot sauce.

I still think of those days when Rosa makes mac and tuna. It's funny how some things stick with you, years later.

I have another tale to tell about Tom's Groceries, if you're interested.

As I said, in those days I was a full time bike messenger. For a while I also drove a Yellow Cab on the weekends, doing the day shift that all rookies get, and I sometimes worked as a bouncer at the Bottom of the Hill club on Friday and Saturday nights. Jim, one of our dispatchers at Professional Messenger, got me that job. Mostly I would just patrol the club with an extra long flashlight in my hand, making sure no one made trouble or tried to sneak in. For a five hour shift - 8 pm to 1 am - they'd pay me $80, and when I swept the club after closing time there was often money on the floor. That's the bouncer's version of job perks.

Even with three jobs and occasional financial assistance from my mom, I was always looking for a way to earn a little more money, so I once asked Tom if he needed any else at his store. He hired me. I don't know if he really needed another person, since he already had his son Tom Jr., his Swedish wife, and three lesbians in boots and flannel shirts, or if he was just helping me out.

Tom's was halfway down the block on Sixth Street, a rough stretch in a rough neighborhood. Even though Tom didn't sell liquor, he still got plenty of junkies and street people coming into the store. When the junkies had no money for dope they'd buy candy, since sugar in large quantities mimics the action of heroin and provides some relief from the jones, apparently. Shoplifting was always a problem.

The first day I started at Tom's, one of the women showed me the layout of the store and the back room. Rather than teach me how to work the register or stock the shelves, she taught me the security procedures. She pointed out the locations of the mirrors, and how to use them to monitor the customers at all times. Then she walked me around the store and showed me all the hidden weapons that the staff used to beat up shoplifters: a crowbar, a baseball bat, and a hammer. In case all that wasn't enough, Tom kept a shotgun and a .357 magnum pistol behind the counter.

"But we don't shoot the shoplifters of course," the girl explained to me. "We beat them up with the ball bat. We don't bother reporting it to the police because it happens so often that we'd spend all our time filling out reports, and the cops would get sick of it too. Just give them a few good whacks with the bat so that they know not to try it again."

I did work there one day, but the second day I told Tom that it was not the right job for me. It's not that I was afraid for my safety. I'd spent a lot of years in rough environments. I just didn't want to be in a position of having to beat up homeless people, junkies and crazies. I didn't need that kind of karma or emotional energy.

Some time later I read an article about Tom in the newspaper. It was one of those community interest pieces, describing how Tom had stayed in the neighborhood for so many years, working with the local merchants to bring about positive change. The article listed some of the challenges that Tom faced in that neighborhood. I learned that he had been forced to use that shotgun behind the counter more than once. Between he and his son they had shot five people over the years, and killed two, all in self defense.

Even after I'd moved to Oakland, I used to go to San Francisco for business or to check my P.O. box, and I always made it a point to go to Tu-Lan for lunch. One day I saw that Tom's had closed down. Tom had once told me that his wife had land in the countryside back in Sweden, and his dream was to move back there and sit on the porch with his wife, drinking lemonade and listening to the birds. I hope he is doing that now, just as I am doing it here in the lovely town of El Valle de Anton, Panama.

Laura's Molas Have Arrived

Laura and Crystal recently started on a project to sell molas and other Panamanian handcrafts online. To that end, Laura has been building a store, PanamaArts.com, using Yahoo's small business tools. Last year I began buying up Panama related domain names, since it's a topic that I'm interested in, so I'm happy that one of them has come in so handy.

Last week Laura gave Cleo some money and sent him on a journey down to the San Blas islands, home of the Kuna people, to buy some top quality molas, so that she can begin stocking the online store. Cleo returned this morning, looking deeply weary.


Cleo opened the waterproof bag that Laura had loaned him and spread everything out on the table. He managed to secure 35 high quality molas. We gave him some coffee and cookies and he spent a long time explaining to Laura the cosmological significance of each mola. You see, the authentic mola patters all represent some aspect of Kuna belief regarding the origin of the universe and the meaning of the sun, moon and stars.

I loaned Cleo my camera for the trip. The Kuna people in general do not like having their pictures taken, believing that it steals the spirit, but Cleo managed to take a few candid shots of women working, excluding their faces:


Look for Laura to be adding these molas to the online store within about a week or so.