Sylvain Duford's Panama Blog

Lost a dear friend and business partner on Wednesday

sduford on Dec 19 2008 | Filed under: Building in Panama, Panama, Travel

My friend Michel Lafontaine, who was also my business partner in Panama, died in a tragic accident in the San Blas islands on Wednesday. He fell off a roof and banged his head. He passed out for a short while but came back. He complained of not feeling well and went to his room to rest. They found him dead the next morning. He probably died from internal bleeding which could have been avoided had he gone to the hospital, but the closest hospital was several hours away. Michel was a great guy who truly enjoyed life to the fullest.

Michel and I were co-owners of Palmex Panama and he was running all operations on the ground there. I now need to head down to Panama for a few weeks so I can sort out the business and find someone else to run it with.

Almost exactly a year ago I had come down to Panama to help him get our business started and we spent Christmas eve on his deck eating a wonderful meal we had prepared together. We drank lots of wine and rum while telling each other stories from our respective past and speculating on what lay ahead of us with our business venture in Panama. We laughed hard while enjoying the beautiful air of Altos del Maria and we felt like we were on top of the world. Needless to say, our Panama adventure will never be the same without him, and this Christmas will not be so joyous.

I am very sad that I will never see his smiley face or feel his famous bear hug again. I miss him dearly already.

Here he is with his wife Patricia and my wife Diane, at his place in Panama.

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Tags: Palmex, Panama

Construction Update

sduford on Dec 10 2008 | Filed under: Building in Panama

Drywall work is done. Here’s a view of the kitchen from the living room:

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And a view of the vaulted ceiling in the upper bedroom, which I will also use as my office:

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Adding a layer of stone to finish the exterior of the guesthouse:

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Building up the BBQ in the bohio:

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Stairs going up to the upper bedroom:

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Tags: Altos del Maria, Panama, Tropical House

We found a solution to the jacuzzzi problem

sduford on Dec 04 2008 | Filed under: Building in Panama

Looks like we found a satisfactory solution to the jacuzzi problem. We will move the jacuzzi to the edge of the pool where it will overflow into the pool. This means the pool will be a bit smaller, but we will have a much nicer view fromt he jacuzzi and we will eliminate the little bridge that would have gone over the pool to the bohio. This has the side-effect of giving us more patio space.

This changes the whole “look & feel” of the orginal design, but it gives us some nice advantages in exchange, so overall not a bad outcome.

Tags: Altos del Maria, Construction, Panama, Tropical House

First Major Construction Mistake

sduford on Nov 27 2008 | Filed under: Building in Panama

I got some bad news today. My builder built the bohio (palapas) too close to the kitchen module, not leaving enough space in-between for the outdoor jacuzzi at the end of the pool. I’m upset because not only did the builder make a mistake, but my architect didn’t catch it, and my project watcher didn’t catch it. On top of that, I have a strong suspicion that my builder has known about this for months and waited until now to say anything so it would be too late to fix the problem. As far as I can tell, he had to have figured this out when they were laying the footings for the pool several months ago. But at that point the bohio foundation was already in place, and he would have had to tear it out and start over.

I learned about this from my architect today, because the builder asked him last week to come over to look at the problem and suggest a solution. My architect is suggesting that we simply move the jacuzzi to the other side of the little bridge, where there would normally have been a sitting area in the shallow end of the pool. This has the advantage of giving us a better view from the jacuzzi, but it changes the whole flow of the design and I’m not clear on how it will look.

This is not the end of the world but it is very disappointing and I feel let down. I had three levels of checks, and still such a big mistake slipped through. I also kick myself because I noticed that things looked tight during our May visit, and again in September, but I let it go because I assumed it was just an optical illusion.

Back in September my builder warned me that he was going to present me with an extra invoice because of the extra difficulties he had with the terrain and the inaccurate topo. I was more than willing to accomodate him but now I have a feeling I will be negotiating hard as he owes me compensation for this mistake.

Tags: Altos del Maria, Building, Panama, Tropical House

Obama already losing his sheen

sduford on Nov 26 2008 | Filed under: Politics

As I predicted, despite Obama’s best intentions he would still have to contend with a deeply corrupt political system that is run by industry. He hasn’t even taken power and he’s already showing weakness and reneging on his promise of change. His appointments fo far are very telling as much of the old guard is coming back. His solution to the credit and economic crisis? Put the foxes in charge of the hen house.

Tags: Corruption, Obama, US Politics

6th Annual Panama Jazz Festival

sduford on Nov 18 2008 | Filed under: Music, Panama

6th Annual Panama Jazz Festival
Set for January 12-17, 2009,
Founder/Artistic Director
Danilo Perez Announces

American jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter’s acclaimed quartet with Danilo Perez, John Patitucci, and Brian Blade, and the legendary Cuban pianist Chucho Valdes are among the headliners at the 6th annual Panama Jazz Festival, which will take place in Panama City January 12 through 17, 2009. The Boston-based Panamanian pianist Danilo Perez, who founded the festival in 2003 and whose Danilo Perez Foundation coordinates its educational component, anticipates more than 16,000 attendees.

“The Panama Jazz Festival has been a magical journey to a dream we’ve had for years in Panama,” says Perez. “We, as a country, see the entire world pass through the Panama Canal every day, and we are honored to be the bridge of the Americas. But today, we are proud to say that every year — for the past six years — the Panama Jazz Festival has been the national event where the world does not pass by, but makes a stop in our wonderful land. The world’s best jazz artists, as well as students and volunteers from all over the globe, unite in Panama with one goal in mind: to celebrate the world’s diversity through jazz.”

The 2009 festival will be dedicated to the late bassist, composer, and arranger Clarence Martin Sr., whose contributions to Panamanian jazz date from the 1940s and have influenced several generations of musicians from many genres such as jazz, classical, and Caribbean music.

The festival will open with a gala concert at the Teatro Nacional by a flamenco jazz group from Spain, sponsored by the Spanish Embassy. Other artists scheduled to perform at the festival are the Puerto Rican saxophonist Marco Pignataro and his quintet, featuring Eddie Gomez and Billy Drummond; American singer Luba Mason, whose quintet includes flute master Hubert Laws, bassist Jimmy Haslip, and vocalist Ruben Blades (Mason’s husband, and Panama’s Minister of Culture); and the young Panamanian saxophonist Jahaziel Arrocha, who won a Berklee College of Music scholarship at the 4th annual Panama Jazz Festival and currently attends Berklee as a Presidential Scholar.

Tags: Jazz, Panama

Hope

sduford on Nov 05 2008 | Filed under: Politics

Did you hear it? The whole planet let out a huge sigh of relief last night. Electing Obama has more or less erased 8 years of damage to America’s reputation and prestige, and restored some respect in the hearts of 85% of the population of the planet as well as hope in the hearts of all visible minorities, the oppressed, and the needy the world over.

Will Obama live up to those huge expectations? I doubt it. He couldn’t do it even if he really wanted to. He is still strapped with the huge mess left behind by Bush: the foreign policy fiascoes, the crushing debt, the financial crisis, the environmental crisis, as well as the self-serving members of the Establishment, the powerful lobbyists, the rising fundamentalist Christian movement, the deeply divided American people and the institutionalized corruption of the American political system. I think his heart is in the right place, but the financial, social and political reality of America will greatly limit what he will be able to accomplish. Don’t get me wrong, I’m ecstatic that Obama won, I’m just not sure he will be able to accomplish that much given the circumstances. It’s at least a move in the right direction.

Still, the alternative would have been worst, although I was glad to see the real John McCain resurface last night; he had disappeared a few months ago to cater to the ugliest and scariest factions of his party.

I will leave you with some thoughts from P.Z.Myers that very much reflect my own:

The world is a somewhat more hopeful place today than it was yesterday, but let’s get real.

Obama is a conservative/centrist Democrat who will at best implement a small shift in American policies — he hasn’t promised any strong change in Iraq, and his health care plans are an incremental improvement over the existing situation. And the opposition is shrieking “socialist!” at every suggestion, so don’t expect an easy road to accomplishing even the centrist plans of President Obama…especially since he’s inheriting the wreckage of 8 years of Bush misrule.

He still has to work with a self-interested, triangulating congress made up of many of the same Democrats and Republicans who have collaborated with Bush in screwing over America for the last eight years.

We’re still afflicted with the curse of religiosity as a political prerequisite, and Obama has strengthened it. That is a poison that will harm us over the long term; we may have made the more rational choice in this one election, but reinforcing the potency of irrationality will come back to bite us over and over again.

The media isn’t helping. The news this morning was all a-babble over a “post-racial America”. Nonsense. A significant minority still hates people over the color of their skin, and you know the skinheads are cleaning their rifles right now. This self-congratulatory nonsense distracts us from the real problems that still exist.

We still have the rot of ignorance and hatred in the American electorate. Proposition 8 won. Saxby Chambliss won. Michele Bachmann won. Norm Coleman might yet win.

I’m not dancing in the street yet. I’m anticipating many years of struggle ahead.

Tags: American Politics

Construction Update

sduford on Nov 02 2008 | Filed under: Building in Panama

There’s been more progress on the bohio, the pool, the pathway, and the roofs. Things are now obviously behind schedule though. The guest house was supposed to be ready in September, then October, and now looks like it is at least a month away from completion. The whole project was supposed to be done by January, but I’m guessing it will be at least 3 months later than that.

But I was fully expecting such delays. When we built our custom lake house here in Canada it was finished three months late, so I could only imagine what it would be like to build in a developping country, and one with a very slow pace at that!

The following picture shows the roof over the kitchen. This piece of roof has a gentle slope toward the back. The roof over the living room on the left is much higher and “cathedral style”. The two were designed differently to help differentiate the two spaces.

This shows some of the column work for the pergola above the patio and pathway going up to the bedrooms. You can also see the beginning work on the stairs going into the pool.

This next picture shows the relationship between the pool, living room on the right, and the pathway leading up to the bedrooms.

This next one shows the relationship between the living-room/kitchen on the left, the bohio on the right, and the pool in the middle. The picture was taken from the pool-deck above the guest house.

This one shows the two story bohio structure and the infinity edge wall of the pool on the left. This wall will become a waterfall once the pool is functional. The lower level of the bohio will serve as a carport, laundry room, and pump house. The top level is the outdoor kitchen.