Sunday Cinco

1) Cooking Panamanian Food -- just like in Cameroon, I tried to learn how to cook the local food. Here, my counterpart is teaching me a Panamanian recipe with lentils:

The only thing I always change after learning a local recipe is to make sure to not add MSG.  In Cameroon, the locals are always shocked when I don't add MSG (aka maggi cube).  Here, they also have maggi, but they're more like a bar instead of a cube.  My "cooking teacher" used a broth type powder in a packet, but it was essentially MSG. 

2)  Deforestation -- there's been a lot of deforestation in the region where I'm posted.  My boss says the current forest is 10% of what it once was.  I can only imagine how forested this place used to be:

Slightly askew

3)  Current music in my head -- Sherry Darling by Bruce Springsteen, George Michael's cover of I Can't Make You Love Me and Herbie Hancock's Gentle Thoughts.

4)  El Lagarto en el Lago -- the lake next to the office where I work is rumored to have alligators, but I've never seen any.  Until now:

Pretty cool.

5)  SNAFU -- on a serious note, hostages kidnapped in Cameroon were recently released by Boko Haram  .  Especially telling is this sentence: "No details were given on the circumstances of the release or whether a ransom was paid."  That sounds like a ransom was paid.  If so, then that would just make things worse, according to this NY Times article.  An effed up situation all around.