It's amazing what an emergency room visit can do to help you get to know a place.
I was on my way back there today when I had the most amazing feeling of sinking down beyond the surface layer of Bocas.
When we first arrived, all we saw were the tourist things. The restaurants, hotels and hostels, the surfers, the late night bar hopping and tour operators hawking their boat rides. Then you go deeper. There are the people who've been here for three years or five years. They have children in school. Work. They plan to be here for a while. Then you have the people who arrived in Bocas before it was considered an attractive place to visit. There's a feeling that they are the real Bocadeltoreans.
Well, except for the actual Panamanians who grew up here, know the area. Perhaps used to fish, but now no one fishes anymore because it's easier and more lucrative to pick up tourists and take them to Isla Zapatilla, Dolphin Bay or any of the other endless places to visit.
When you're just a tourist, it's difficult to meet people. At least, all the citizens we met were very, very strange. Most you meet want you to buy something or to take you somewhere and may well overcharge if you don't know what you're doing.
But now, we're actually meeting others.
This afternoon was the baby shower for Keren, the owner of Lila's school. She's Israeli, from Beer Sheva and a really lovely person. So were many of the other parents we met, none of whom I've ever seen before. Which is odd, considering in a small town like this, you tend to run into everyone eventually,
We saw Sandi, a woman whose apartment we looked into renting. She knows Cheryl, the woman who owns the place we're currently renting where Osi, an instructor from Starfleet Scuba lived for six months when she first arrived in Bocas. Vicki, one of teachers, used to date Eduardo who tends bar at Mondo's Taitu, a hostel and bar about ten steps from Casa Amarilla which I passed on my way from the shower to the hospital.
Now, I know where to get the 50 cent boat rides to town instead of the dollar or more rides. (It's the dock tucked away between Cable and Wireless and Barco Hundido). The drivers will give you change for a dollar without your having to ask (Although, I get the sense they are more lenient with women than men). I know the guy who owns the Lemongrass restaurant found above the Starfleet Scuba place owned by the parents of Sam, a boy in Lila's school. I see people on the street who wave and say hi. Like Miguel, the tour operator we met our first day, actually first few minutes, in town. Or the woman in the emergency room who gave me my shots last night. And as we sink deeper into Bocas, I don't notice the tourists as much.
I also learned that there is a different price for everyone. If you go to the town pharmacy to buy your antibiotics, you'll pay full gringo prices. Forty dollars for a seven day supply of Cipro as well as an antiinflamatory. At the hospital, though, it's not so cut and dry.
I walked in, said hello to the nurse from last night as well another hello to a woman who was there yesterday. She said she was feeling mucho mejor, gracias.
The nurse who gave today's shot was hilarious. Of course, today I was in a better frame of mind to ask what they were giving me, why, for how long and also ask what to do since we'll be leaving for Costa Rica before my five days of shots are up.
Yes, we have to go to Costa Rica to renew our visas. Can you believe we've been in Panama almost three months now? I can't. Our three months in Europe seem to sprawl on in a wonderous and leisurely manner. Time here is different, somehow.
I also asked if many women tend to get UTI's here. She said yes. Why? Because Americans come down here, they swim in the water, wear their bikinis for the rest of the day and BAM. She also did the funniest show of showering and where needs to be washed. The more I laughed, the more she hammed it up.
"Llave aqui," she said motioning to her crotch. "Y aqui," hand moves to her behind. Hair and underarms. It actually reminded me of the signs in the bath houses in Iceland. I wish I'd taken a picture. A stick figure of a body with red zones circled of where YOU MUST WASH before entering the baths. Armpits. Head. Genitals. Ass. And the Icelandic are very very serious about such things. You can be thrown out for noncompliance. Thank God they are, too. Who would want to sit in a festering warm pit of everyone else's bacteria.
Ahem. Yes. It also helps that Iceland is significantly cooler than Panama, and it is also not a third world country with somewhat questionable waste management practices.
Before I said goodbye, I asked about paying. "No." The nurse shrugged her shoulders. "Manana." Alright then, "Hasta manana." And I waved goodbye.
Apparently, I belong here now. At least a little bit.
