Menudo Is Back
The Puerto Rican teen sensation group of the '80s, Menudo, is back together and on the road with a tour called "El Reencuetro" (The Reunion). Panama's music fans are all 'a buzz' about the tour's stop here in Panama City. For those of you who may recognize the name, but are struggling to recall why you remember Menudo (people like me), you may be more familiar with the one member of the original group who is not making the reunion tour - a fellow named Ricky Martin.
Thought For The Day
Think about it. If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and doing 'Greatest Hits' concerts tours, and all the impersonators would be dead.
A Sincere Apology
I received an email from a Mr. Imel Ashsta in Beirut regarding my recent posting about the Muslin Ramadan celebration. In my efforts to educate my readers about Ramadan, Mr. Ashta felt I was disrespectfully of Islam. I apologized to Mr. Ashta (as you will see below) and also told him, that to show how serious I was about this, I would make my apology public by posting it here. Our exchange of emails follows (this is Not a joke!):
Sep. 11, 2008
Mr. Larry
My name was Imel Ashta who lifes in Beruit. I am great offensive when you make funny of Islam. The holy time of celebrate is not of comedey. You become in danger like some others have find when write bad of Islam. You family be as well. You must stop and be sorry to me and all of Islam. You have be warn.
------------------
Sep. 15, 2008
Mr Ashta
I am very sorry that you took offensive of my efforts to experience my blog readers with Ramadan. I insure you that from the future, I will tend to incline in increments more aligned with frivolous-ness of areas at totally..
I thank you for warn me and have tell my wifes to be on cautiousness, except for wife #7 who I not found still. I would wish that you know that I tried also too reaching out to the Muslim peoples hear in my city. But both of them are at some type meeting in the area of Afghan border, but I promulgate that I will tell them when there been returning.
I insure you that I take this mistaken extreme serious. In the futures I will regress to my previous likeness of payment of no interest for Islam, something I could be greatly successment with if exception for suicided bombers. Then which my hopes be you to stop so i can understand bettering.
The Making Of A Video or Is This Panawood?
You guys are going to love this story. Unbelievable! And I am sure most of you will find this story as amusing as everyone else does - except me.
About a month ago, I was in 'my place', the Bar Orly (that is not the surprise part), and was talking with Dezi, the owner's wife. While we were talking, a friend of hers, a beautiful middle aged woman, came in to talk to her. After her friend left, Dezi commented on the woman's beauty and one thing led to another, until Dezi was kidding me about the fact that I had made a video featuring the women of Panama's indigenous tribes, but not a similar video on Panama's other beautiful women. I responded that I had only a few pictures of Panamanian women, most collected from sources that were news related. And added, only partly in jest, that I could not run around town photographing good looking women for fear of getting slapped, or arrested, or worse. I never thought much more about that conversation. but ... Well, I should have kept my mouth shut.
Dezi is very active in this town - her family has strong roots in David, and she and Jorge own, in 
addition to the Restaurante Orly, a hotel, a disco and a car wash. Because of her 'doings', I suddenly found out that a lot of people were interested in 'my project', before I even knew I had a project! The first time I realized something 'was up', was when Dezi's friend (who triggered this whole thing), walked into the Orly on the following Friday night (on the arm of her beaming husband, by the way) to tell me that Dezi had showed her one of my other videos, and she then expressed how flattered she was that I wanted to include her in 'my latest project'. As she handed me a photo I did my best dooofuss impersonation, complete with a 'duh, huh?' "Oh yeah, my project."
A couple of days later, two of the young women who work in the cafeteria downstairs came to work with photos in hand. (Dezi gets around). The shocker here for me was 
what I was seeing in the photos, or more precisely what I had not been seeing on a day-to-day basis. The 'uniform' for the female employees in the cafeteria is a smock similar to the 'doctor's coat' in our U.S. hospitals. I had noticed that all female employees had their hair pulled back in a bun, and topped off with a hairnet (hard to miss). But, the fact that there is a workplace restriction on makeup and jewelry I had not picked up by my radar. The two photos I was holding screamed, "This is not your Daddy's cafeteria worker." Ha!
In the next couple of days, one of the regulars in the Orly came in with a picture of his niece ( a senior at the U. of Panama), another guy wanted the picture of his wife included. Then, another shocker - a cashier at the supermarket around the corner (who I had never even checked out through her line before), smiled mischievously when she handed me my change and included a photo of herself. (The supermarket, I now realize, has similar workplace dress restrictions, although their uniform consist of a non-descript navy blue pants suit.). I am now thinking, 'This is getting out of hand'. But, I hadn't seen anything yet. Two more incidents really blew me away.
I had to go to the Fed Ex office on the other side of town for only the second time in the year that I have been here. I wanted to include a photo copy of my ID in the package, so I asked the young lady behind the counter if she would make me a copy. She looked at my ID and said with a big smile, "Oh, Senor Larry Matthews, Room 201, Hotel Occidental." I am standing there with that slack-jawed look as she continued with, "I told my regional manager that I was going to have to personally deliver your mail next time just to see who our good customer, Senor Matthews, is." Then it dawns on me. Of course, h
er office delivers my mail to the hotel - mail that has been forwarded from the U.S. at least once a month for the last year. Anyway as I left I said, "Well, I'm sorry I messed up your plans." Good laugh had by all, including a couple of customers.
Two days later, guess who shows up at the Occidental with my mail? And, she has a photographer in tow so she could show the delivery to her manager, and expressed the possibility of their using the picture in their advertising. More laughs.
But, she must have talked to the people at the front desk or someone in the cafeteria while she was here. The next day she drops off her picture at the front desk, with a nice note imploring me to include her in my project. Oh boy!
That same night when the police made one of their 'Pepsi stops' at the Orly, the lieutenant jumps out of the car (the one I call 'Comandante', and he calls me 'General') and starts animatedly talking my ear off. (He speaks even less English than I do Spanish, and his regular side kick Sargent, who usually plays interpreter, was off). After a couple of frustrating minutes, when I couldn't even figure out what the subject was, he gets on his radio. And, after repeating something a time or two (something I couldn't understand), he starts hollering in the radio something I did understand. He was repeating, "No, now! Right now!. Hurry up!" When a second police car screeches to a stop, I am trying to figure out what I 
am being arrested for. What the ..?? His radio crackles and he replies, "No, venga aquí." (Come here). Out of the car comes a police Sargent, in full swat team gear, complete with flack vest and AK-47. She salutes the lieutenant, smiles at me and says, "Senor, para su proyecto," (for your project) and hands me a photo. Turns out Sgt. Alicia Lopez's day job is with the National Security Police, Swat Division, but her hobby (or avocation) is with a dance troop that travels the country on the weekends during the festival season. YGBSM!
Jorge showed up during the police exchange and everyone thought this whole thing with the police was hilarious. Ha, ha? And, an hour or so later he was really getting a kick out of my project, and how funny it was that his wife, Dezi had inadvertently "gotten me in so much trouble." "Huh, so much trouble?", I asked.
"Yes, didn't you understand what the lieutenant was saying as he left?"
"No, what was he saying?"
He was saying, "Don't worry about her husband, I'll keep an eye on him."
SAY WHAT? Jorge explained that Sgt. Lopez's very jealous husband hates that she works with all those policemen every day and just goes nuts about her dance troop gigs. Oh, no. NOT funny! I don't do irate husbands, period! "Oh well," Jorge continued, "he is not near as bad as the Fed Ex lady's boy friend. He is known all over town as a real crazy! He doesn't want her to work at all. He sometimes just goes over and hangs around her (one-person) office so he can keep tabs on her!" This is so, SO Not funny now. Terminal not funny.
So enjoy my latest video, and my last on this (or any closely related) subject. Matthews' Productions will now return to subjects that are less dangerous. Maybe an 'Up Close and Personal with Venomous Snakes', or possibly an expose on drug cartel king pins. Turn on your sound and enjoy.
From The YGBSM Files - Is This The 21st Century?
The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales has solved another of the country's major problems with a stroke of genius. Keep in mind that Morales is the guy who rode into office in 2006 to save his country with a laundry list of recycled communist programs, while getting encouragement from his buddy and supporter 'Nikita' Chavez (Venezuela) - the only two people in the universe, other than Castro, who did not get the email about the total collapse of communism worldwide.
Morales' first reality check was when his re-write of the country's constitution that included not only a president-for-life provision, but massive give-away programs for the country's indigenous population (of which he is a member) was rejected by the electorate, even though the indigenous population is a 60%+ majority. When he tried to then implement many of these same measure by presidential decree, he triggered a near revolution. When he then decided that he would nationalize the income from the country's oil and gas industry, the three major energy provinces of the country (about 50% of the country's population and 80% of the national income) started serious measures to break off and become separate countries. Oops. And his land reform measures have resulted in looming starvation for his countrymen. The ingenious idea of taking land away from about 25% of the nation's big farmers, and giving it to peasants in parcels ignored some harsh realities. The most important oversight was that in an environment where the big farmers just barely managed to feed the country using modern farming techniques, the 25% was a big hit. The fact that the peasants who received there farm parcels could not even feed their own families on what they raised became a killer.
So the latest stroke of genius? The nation's health care system is abysmal, bordering on non-existent. There are doctors, nurses and hospitals but there is no health insurance and most people can not afford to pay for care. How do you fix that? You don't, you ignore it and go around it! So Morales established a new government agency, a Vice Minister of Traditional Healing and Medicine. A minister of what? Yes, a real 'head witch doctor' with credentials! The new minister, Emiliano Cusi, has been an 'indigenous healer' for more than 20 years, and runs his practice with a partner, Antonio Condorichi on weekends only. During the week, he is busy with his day job running an auto repair shop.
Upon being introduced to his countrymen, in a nationally televised press conference, Cusi explained just how complex indigenous healing could be when he described how he treated a man who came to him with a broken foot. He said, "We started by adding something from the jar of curing dead snakes, took some lizard, some dog's blood, and mixed it with herbs. We then ground it into a pomade and placed it on the patient's foot." Got that folks?
Cusi also added that the best thing for an upset stomach is a tea made from the leaves of the coca plant (yea, the cocaine plant). That's OK, Dr. Eduardo Moreno, a general practitioner in La Paz, says that, although it is controversial, he uses the same treatment. Yahoo! I'll have what they are having!
P.S. I did not make this up or even embellish it (accept for my snide remarks). This may not be the 21st century, but, it is real world.
Understanding Mañana Revisited
I mention sometime back that just understanding that mañana translates to tomorrow, does not convey the reality of the concept as it applies in Latin America. The example I used before was about the time a guy told me once that he would come by and pick me up the next day. I asked what time and he looked at me like - what? All he did was repeat mañana like I didn't understand him. The idea of tying a time of day to that was beyond his comprehension. Mañana, mañana.
I just saw a report in the paper that really highlights the concept of mañana. The report said that in one of the big housing projects "over 50% of the expat buyers are waiting impatiently for occupancy permits for their new houses that were originally promised to be ready in August - that's August 2007." Oh boy!
Another man talked of the washer/dryer that was not delivered as promised on Wednesday, which caused him to assume that it would therefore be delivered on Thursday. Then, well maybe Friday. The delivery people did arrive on Monday all smiles and obviously confused by the customer's questions about delivery. One of those, "What's the problem, Senor?" things.
Mañana is much more figurative; meaning something vaguely close to sometime soon. So, in this world down here, you either get on 'mañana time' or you go nuts. And no one around you will be able to figure out why you are such a loon.
Till Next Time. Pura Vida!
Click on this and then tell me you care wheter the lifeguard is on duty!
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