The Opposite

If you had to press me to answer the question “what is my favorite Seinfeld episode,” first I would ramble on about for about 15 minutes about nothing then realize that this question is the equivalent to “who’s your favorite child”. Since I don’t have any kids, I tackle these questions and eventually, I would reach some sort of decision. The answer on most days is “The Opposite”.

This particular episode is based around George’s decision to say and do the complete opposite of what he normally would do in that situation. It works wonders for him as he meets a lady friend, gets hired by the Yankees and rubs everything in Elaine’s face. It’s a great half hour of tv.

Over my time here, I have come to realize that a number of things have become the opposite of what my life was like in the States. Some examples are the following:

I would be pasty white during winter, now I have a nice tan.

I lived in a place with four seasons, now two (rainy and dry).

I used to have water anytime, now I have it from 9:30 at night till 5:30 in the morning.

My favorite shower used to be the morning one, now it is the late night one.

I used to be surrounded by hills and mountains, now my surroundings are completely flat.

I used to eat fast food a few times a week, now none.

I was rarely reading books, now I am reading them constantly.

I used to have a tv, now I don’t.

I used to lounge on a couch, now it’s a hammock.

My soon to be brother-in-law cut my hair, now I do it. (yikes!)

I used to think getting up before 8am was tough, now I am always up before 8am.

Oh yeah, I used to speak English, now it’s Spanish, well sort of.

So now with my life flipped upside down, I am on my way back to the States tomorrow for my sister’s wedding.

Does anybody if Arby’s still has the 5 for 5 deal?

The Mosquitoes

Over the past three months, the weather here has been spectacular. Each day is the same - 85 degrees, sunny to mostly sunny with a nice breeze to keep it cool. You can’t beat it. I'll let that sink in for a few seconds...


(no snow)



(no cold weather)



(no shoviling snow)


However, not all is perfect. With the warm weather comes another problem: bugs. Namely mosquitoes. Now you know the critters as the occasional bug that bothers you during a summer day in the forest. I know them as the bane of my exsitence, especially when the sun comes up and the sun comes down.

When I first got to site back in late October, the mosquitoes were pretty brutal. Often times around 6:30 in the evening I would have to go and hid under my mosquito net to avoid the attacks. Slowly as the wind picked up as summer came, the mosquitoes lessened. But that’s not to say they went away. In fact, over the past couple of weeks, the wind has slowly faded and as a result more and more are coming back.

So that sets up some interesting moments in the early evening, especially if I had played baseball earlier. Let’s just say the sweat on my legs is more inviting to the those pesky bugs. That’s when I usually reenact Will Ferrell’s “Get off my Shed” skit.

First, I politely ask the mosquito to be a good little boy and leave me alone. After a couple more times of bothering me, that’s when I usually snap at them and warm them “IF YOU DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE, I WILL COVER YOU WITH RAID AND YOU WILL CEASE TO EXISIT.”

Of course, they don’t listen and things don’t end so well for them. But they usually get a few shots in before all is said and done.

And, yes, I have plenty of bug spray that helps keep the varmints away, but I am not a big fan of putting the stuff on. It just feels gross. So instead I fight my battles with these lowlifes. Sure I lose some of them, but I always win the war.

Speaking of which, a couple have been bothering me while typing this. Time to go find the Raid...

Beisbol Part II

As I discussed last week, my late afternoons have been filled with baseball. It has been a lot of fun for a couple different reasons. One, I have gotten to know some people better through the games. Two, I’ve learned a bunch more names! Third, and finally, I’ve gotten to make a fool of myself a few times, which they love.

When I first started playing, because I was of decent size, it was believed that I could hit the ball real far. As I walked to the plate, the little kids would say “Dilan, homerun”. I guess even Panamanian kids love the long ball. However, I could never fulfill the wishes of the kids. Between the t-ball size bat and years of swinging a golf club, my swing was all out of sorts and I could only manage some weak grounds to either third or shortstop. Yes, I realize I am making excuses, because the other players my size have no problem launching rocket shots. I am not very good. I am comfortable with that. On the bright side, though, I have been making steady progress.

While I am not the best, there are some pretty good players in my community. My province, Herrera, has won recently dominated the Panamanian Baseball League. So baseball is in their blood. You can tell, too. Some of the hand eye coordination on a couple of the players leaves me astounded. Whether it is plucking a late errant hop on a groundball or throwing up a bat at the exact time to stop a foul ball, I
feel at times we are playing a different game.


With the talent there, this makes for some pretty good, interesting games. Between the hops and the stiff breeze that usually blows, craziness often ensues. Because the games are so short (3-4 innings), they are usually close which leads to a lot of yelling and arguing. And they really enjoy this. My favorite wrinkle is when you want to make a point one usually finishes it with a “jo” for added emphasis. Needless to say when the game is tight there are a lot more “jo’s” and everybody becomes like Lou Piniella. I usually just sit back and with the madness unfold while wishing I could talk that fast. At least I can do a good “jo”.

All of this is in the spirit of the game so you have a lot of instances where people give each other a hard time. My favorite moment for me was after I couldn’t take an opposite field shot over the right fielder’s head. As I was trotting back to the rest of my team, one observant bystander remarked to me “Dilan, mas fuerza”. Or more strength. I just kinda laughed and nodded my head. He was right. I could use a bit more strength.

But in my defense, I was hitting into a pretty good breeze.

Beisbol

When I was younger, I used to really like baseball. Somewhere around the age of 14, I started to lose interest. Maybe it was I stared to like track (talk about a difference in sports – One you always run, the other hardly), or maybe everybody around me was getting bigger and stronger and I was, well, skinny. Nothing showcased this better than me trying to be a catcher. I stared to catch at 11 and by 14 it was the only position that I enjoyed playing. One problem – I had a noodle arm. A walk or a single was pretty much a double unless you moved like my old Ford Festiva.

Anyhow, I quit playing at 15 and other than playing a year of intramural softball my senior year in college, baseball was restricted to seeing a couple MLB games a year and fantasy baseball. That has all changed over the past couple weeks.

When I first got to my site, I gravitated to the basketball court. After a couple weeks the games became pretty good and fun. That came to an abrupt halt one day when a water tank started to be built adjacent to the court and in the process cluttering the court with junk and making it unplayable.

Without basketball, I turned my attention to the baseball field. One problem. It appeared that the field hadn’t been touched in a couple years as evidenced by the weeds that had run rampant on the field. A few weeks back a group of people got together to clear the field. Using machetes, half the field was knocked down. However, that process became tedious and eventually it was decided to just burn down the rest of field. Well it worked. Kinda. Now the infield has more bad hops than a can of Schlitz. (I wish I was good enough to come up with that line, but I stole it from Joe Posnanski) While the outfield is in even worse shape as my last week my face was nearly mangled by an errant hop.


The view from home plate.


The outfield. I guess it is in better shape than old Yankee Stadium.

But you know what? The games have been a ton of fun. Each day around 5:00 a game starts. They last four innings and the winner stay on to face the next team. All ages plays which leads, in the long run, to a lot of yelling and complaining. This usually occurs over a botched play where the old player will get on the case of a young one. Of course, I have seen plenty of evidence that demonstrates they would not have likely made the play either. But that’s not here not there. And of course there are a ton of arguments over the score and the number of outs.

Next week I will go more into detail about some of the interesting moments that have occurred thus far. First, though, I got to track down and read up on baseball field up keeping.

After all, I can’t afford to have my livelihood in danger of another errant hop.

Honking the Horn

One of the things that I have really noticed during my time in Panama is people really like to honk their car horn. I mean really like to honk their horn. It doesn’t matter the situation. For instance, a car could be slowly approaching a stop sign at an intersection and appears in no way it will be cutting the driver off in the flow lane the car with the right away will be honking their horn. It’s a sure thing.

But it is just not situations like that. Say a person is walking along the road and has their back turned towards oncoming traffic. That person has nothing to fear, because the driver will surely give the person a courtesy beep that they are coming soon. The constant honking extends to passing by a pretty girl, seeing an old friend and pretty much any other imaginable situation where one can think a good honk is necessary. And some you can’t even think of.

Some people have even taken the whole honking thing to the next level by getting special horns. While I haven’t heard someone yet with a Dixie horn from the Dukes of Hazard (truly a shame), the most popular alternative horn is a siren like sound that wanes for a few seconds. These are the serious honkers.

Trust me, I enjoy a good honk, but with my last car in the States, my horn was pretty weak, therefore I rarely used the thing; opting instead for a well timed middle finger to a lousy driver. OK, that’s not true, but having not driven for over six months the whole horn thing reminds me of the days when I had the power to drive anywhere I wanted.

Now that I can’t drive, I get to experience situations like the following when I was riding in a truck with a representative from a government agency on our way to a meeting in Panama City. Having been taught the standard “10-2” driving position, I watched as the driver have his left hand at the 10 position, but instead of having his right hand at 2, he had his hand resting on the center part with his thumb placed right over the sweet spot of the horn (somewhere I imagine my driver education teacher Mr. White is shaking his head in disgust).

And he took full advantage of his well placed thumb. Over the 6 hours of driving to and from the city, I lost count of the number of times he gave the horn a toot, but I am pretty sure he honked the horn more times over that time period than I have honked a horn during my 10+ years of driving. To pass the time, I would try to guess when the honking situation would come and what it would look like and would it get the person's attention.

Of course, it would have been a lot more fun if every time he honked the horn, he would play the sounds of Dixie. Now that would have really gotten people’s attention.