Mexican Drug Wars Affecting Boquete?

[Lorenzo Miguel]

Greetings intrepid expats and locals. I am curious to know if the increased violence in Mexico associated with drug smuggling along the US border that has been in the US news lately has affected your lives in Boquete. Do you perceive increasing instability in Mexico as a threat to your way of life? Thank you.

[Judy Sacco]

Maybe I'm clueless, but exactly how could drug wars in Mexico affect our lives in Boquete?

[Joy Koopman]

That would be Guatemala, not Panama, where Mexican cartels are dropping down and causing problems. And Mexico has been unstable for a long time so that's not anything new. So to answer your question, what's going on in Mexico doesn't have anything to do with us in Panama. The US, yes, Panama no.

[Judy Sacco]

When I told someone I was moving to Panama, they asked, "Is that in Mexico?" Geographical confusion is rampant.

[Bob Wolfe]

On an 800 number call to a vendor in the US, she asked where I could possibly live that I didn't have an address. I replied, 'Central America'. She said, 'I live in Central America too, but I have an address'. I asked where, and she said, 'Kansas'. Perhaps it was a blond moment.

[Joy Koopman]

LMFAO - I'm posting a link for Jimmy Kimmels clip about Miss Teen from South Carolina "'maps, some people don't have maps' .http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR75L08SBHo This explains everything!

[Julio Santamaría]

We get it all the time... we ask new students where there from and they say America (we're like, yeah, but which country?)... it seems that the Monroe Doctrine never left the text books (from being actual I mean).

[Joy Koopman]

Julio, you hit the nail on the head. When I use the term "North Americans" a lot of times I'm looked at with a puzzled expression - that is when I explain, nicely of course, to US citizens that we're all Americans - there's North America, Central America and South America. I was at the Guari Guari one evening and referred to a fellow expat as a "North American" and after the person left, a Panamanian woman who had overheard the conversation told me I was the first person (I'm assuming gringa) she had ever heard make that distinction - and she thanked me. Think it is important to realize the Americas encompass a lot of different 'countries'.

[Pantah]

North America encompasses 4 different countries, if you include France's St. Pierre and Miquelon!

[Judy Sacco]

Yes, but in North, South, and Central America, there is only one country that is called America - the United States of - so it is totally legit and not politically incorrect to call yourself an American if you are from the USA.

[Linda McKee & Eric Carlson]

So right Joy. It is politically correct and that's important when we are always visitors.

[jim seltzer]

when we told people we were going to drive from Idaho to Panama, several asked us how we were going to get across the water!!

OLIVIA

[Joy Koopman]

Your story cracked me up LOL When I called my mom after I first got here she asked me again where I was living and I said Panama in Central America. Then she asked "so where again is Panama?" and I told her "where the famous Panama Canal is located" - still had to explain, "well you know there's North America, which is attached to Central America and Panama is the country right before you get to South America". In the words of our super intelligent Miss Teen, ' Maps, people need maps!!!' :)