*Written on Thursday, February 19.*
Yesterday was probably the most productive day I’ve had yet this year. Carnival was over, so everything slowly opened back up around noon. It was high time for Eric and I to schedule wifi installation, open a bank account, and buy some necessities for the new apartment like more dishes, towels, and kitchen supplies. Although I still had/have not completely recovered, we had to make the trip to Albrook Mall, the biggest mall in Panama City, and in my mind, the world. It’s huge. See?
Our new place is still just a few blocks from metro, so we hopped on and rode the few stops to the mall. Luckily, the cable place was right in the middle of the food court – you know, right by the carousel – so it was easy to find and shockingly empty. Within about 20 minutes of talking to a very nice woman and giving her a copy of our apartment lease (strange, right?), we had an appointment scheduled for the cable company to come out within 48 hours to install the Internets. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high for the actual installation to happen on time and go smoothly, but I was really grateful that the first step wasn’t painful. Amazing.
We next went to the bank. Now, as you know from older posts, this is not the first attempt at getting a bank account. We researched this heavily before we left the US, and everyone told us it was nearly impossible to open an account as an Estadounidense (American…but as I might have mentioned before, some people down here don’t love us using that term b/c this whole hemisphere is full of “Americans”! North Americans, Central Americans, South Americans…why does the USA get to claim it? We don’t have another word for it in English though, do we?). Eric boldly tried a few different banks while I was sick and worked really hard to overcome the language barrier. Unfortunately, each bank has a slightly different set of requirements for opening an account, and he was never able to make it happen. I can’t tell you how proud I was of him for trying without me, but as he said, it needed to be done and I was too sick to make it happen. You do what you have to do.
So this time we were trying a bank that has several more convenient locations – both of ATMs and branches – than did the banks we’d been told to try. We walked in and it was a complete madhouse. Maybe 40 customers in a tiny location. The line system was not immediately discernible, other than for the main counter. After asking the security guard where to go, we stood in line by an empty desk for several minutes waiting for someone to appear to help us. Eventually Eric’s passport info was taken and we were told to have a seat…when one became available. By this time, I was feeling a little weak and my still-water logged cankles needed relief, so Eric was gracious in staking out and giving me a seat.
We were asked to fill out an application while we waited, and in doing so we gave them home (US and Panamá) and work addresses, personal and bank references, passport info, marital status, eye color (well, maybe not that), and every phone number we’ve ever had. We had also finally come prepared with the appropriate reference letters – one from Bank of America saying that Eric has been a customer for over 3 years, listing the date he opened his account and balances from several dates, and the other from Red Hat (Eric’s work) saying that he was receiving steady income.
After another 45 min or so of waiting and boxing out when a new old lady would come in and try to skip ahead of us in “line,” we were finally called to a desk to speak to a bank employee. She had to call Bank of America to verify that the letter we had was legit. She asked for Eric’s passport, driver’s license, and debit card from BoA. She asked for his former employer. She asked for two references in the US, but for some reason only wanted the phone number of one and the address of the other. She asked for two references in Panamá. She asked for his beneficiary. She asked how we decided to move to Panama and when we first visited the country. Social security number, pants size, favorite color, and on and on. In short, if you are reading this, Banistmo bank of Panamá probably knows you and your family, and may have custody of your first born. Sorry about that. We really needed to open this account.
The good news is that after two hours of figuring out the waiting system, waiting, filling out paperwork, and generally trying to convince this woman that we had more than $500 to our names, we had a bank account! No waiting for weeks as we had been told we would have to do. We made a deposit – with a US check, no less – and our account was ready to go! I can’t tell you how exciting it was.
I was exhausted when we left the bank, but since we’d been sitting for most of that time, I still had some energy left to shop for new apartment necessities. We managed to find a set of dishes, silverware, spatula (which is surprisingly hard to find down here! We can’t figure that one out. How do they flip pancakes? What do they do about scrambled eggs?!), hot pads, glasses, hand towels, and measuring cups all in one store. It was at that point we decided that a cab ride was in order. Once the lady put nearly all of the heavy things mentioned above in one bag and handed it to Eric, we decided metro was no longer a feasible option.
The cab ride home was worth the cost. We haggled a bit with the very old man driver (I wanted to use the word octogenarian b/c it’s a great word, but would’ve call myself pretentious for using it) who couldn’t talk – an interesting ordeal in and of itself – then hopped in. This guy was perhaps the best cab driver I’ve had since I’ve been here. He was hilarious. Again, he had no voice, for one reason or another, but he was very animated and clearly enjoyed what he did. About halfway home, we came to a point where the left turn is blocked, and you are supposed to go down the road a ways, do a U-turn, then make the right hand turn. He was not having any of this. He stopped short of the blocked off part of the road and floored it around the barrier. It was a great move, and he knew it! He made this hand signal that was part snap and part shaking off his hand like it was wet***…hard to describe, but just precious…and cracked up. He was so proud of himself! He then made a bunch of hand motions indicating that he would have had to go all the way around, but he totally pulled off cheating the system. So cute.
We were just a few blocks from home when the cab slowed. I looked around, positive that he couldn’t be slowing to let another car out in front of him b/c that just plain doesn’t happen here, but couldn’t figure out what he was doing. Suddenly, he did the snapping motion again, laughed, and sped up. After he let us out, Eric explained to me that he had been checking out a lady on the sidewalk! Too funny.
All in all, a very successful trip. Hardly any Panama-isms had befallen us and slowed us down; we had actually accomplished that which we had set out to do! Incredible.
***Eric just came into the room and explained to me that a better way to describe the hand motion was part snap and part what you do to pack a can of dip or chew. Wow. So proud of that boy. Then again, I’m guessing that at least half of you completely understand the motion now.
