The Small Differences

There are differences between Panama and the United States that make my days more enjoyable, drive me nuts, or I've been here so long I've stopped paying attention to them. This is a random list of things I thought would be interesting to know is different here in Panama. It's hard coming up with the list because a lot of differences fall into “I've stopped paying attention to them” category. If I remember more, I'll follow up with another post.

Checking bags: This was the original inspiration for this post and will probably continue to drive me nuts until the very end. When visiting shops, anything larger than a convenience store, you're generally required to check all your bags. This would be fine if I was just carrying groceries but more often than not, I'm carrying my life with me including clothes for a few days, my laptop, and other expensive stuff. More than once I've walked away from a store not wanting to risk having my bag get stolen.

American currency: Surprisingly, Panama's currency is the US dollar. This isn't like Cambodia where people prefer American money to Cambodian money, Panamanian bills just don't exist. However, there are Panamanian equivalents of each of the 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, and $1 coins.

Fruit trees: Fruit trees are everywhere! I've had oranges, mangoes, bananas, and several other fruits I cannot remember their names directly off the trees. It will be a sad day when I have to buy fruits from the store again.

Speaker mode: It's not uncommon to walk around blasting your music through your phone speaker instead of using headphones. This is quite enjoyable on my walks in and out of site as well as around site.

Non-refrigerated foods: You'd be surprised how long stuff will last even though it says “refrigerate after opening.” I'm slowly pushing the boundaries on this and so far I've realized American cheese, BBQ sauce, mustard, and hot sauce don't need to be refrigerated. The cheese only lasts a few days but it's still edible. Eggs are pretty awesome in that you don't actually have to refrigerate them. And milk, if you buy it in small cartons, can be used individually for macaroni and cheese and cereal!