Well, we have started 2011 off with a bang here in Panama. New Year's Eve is quite the event here. We had been warned that there were a lot of fireworks. However, it was more than we expected. We began hearing them around 8:00 pm or so. Then at midnight. . . WOW! Aivlyn was awakened because the "fireworkers" scared her so I got to hold her on my lap for 30 minutes or so. Because we live in a crater of an extinct volcano, the massive amount of fireworks seemed even more massive with their continuous ECHO, ECHo, ECho, Echo, echo. . . well, you get the picture. The fireworks continued until 2:00 am, but slightly less than at midnight.
We also rang in the new year without a working fridge. If you recall (or maybe you hadn't even heard), this is already a replacement fridge for the one that burned from the inside of the freezer out. The second one wasn't brand new, but it worked well for a month. Anyway, we came home from taking the Encalades back to the airport to find a mildly cool fridge. Slowly, over the next couple of days, it got warmer and warmer. Not good when you're talking about a fridge.
Because of the holiday, we weren't able to get an electrician out here until early this week. Due to all of his work, we had to have our electricity off for 2 days. Let me just say, "It gets VERY dark here at night." When the sun goes down, you can't see your own hand. And without electricity to run our hot water heater, the showers were VERY cold. Invigorating!!! Normally, we would have skipped showers, but we had been to the beach that day. No way we could skip showers. So, we all endured icy showers!
We have now lived for 9 days without a working fridge. My pantry is completely empty and I'm getting tired of "being creative" for every meal. We typically don't buy meat in El Valle (due to the lack of freshness), but we have bought chicken a couple of times now. And we haven't gotten salmonella poisoning. . . yet. We've also eaten out more than usual due to the extreme circumstances. Yummy, but starting to get tired of it as well. I think I'm ready to be able to cook my own meaty meals from my fridge or freezer.
I am told that "manana" the electrician will have the copper pipes and other materials to repair the fridge. I'm hoping that turns out to be true and that our fridge will be back in commission by tomorrow evening. Then, just a trip down the mountain to restock it. . . again!
