With U.S. politics, our experience has been it’s a topic hotly debated on Facebook and mostly avoided in person. But after working for 32 years at a news organization, I haven’t been able to ignore Washington entirely.
U.S. citizens living abroad may vote in federal elections through the last state in which they lived. Our state of Maryland delivers absentee ballots electronically, but they must be printed out and mailed back.
This is a problem, because Panama’s mail service is extremely poor and private carriers like FedEx charge exorbitant rates. Fortunately, the U.S. embassy in Panama allows citizens to drop off election ballots in prepaid envelopes for delivery to the U.S.
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| Panama's flag |
Speaking of mail, we’ve been pleased with the service from US Global Mail, a company based in Houston, Texas, that we authorized to handle our paper mail in the U.S. The company uploads a scan of our mail to a secure online site and will ship anything we need.
We have a separate account with MBE (Mail Boxes Etc.) in Miami that will ship packages to the MBE facility of our choice in Panama. We can get flat mail and boxes shipped from the U.S., but it’s not cheap, especially for bulky or heavy items.
Having electronic copies of all our documents was particularly helpful this year when filing taxes, which our U.S. accountant handled for us completely online. For foreign residents, Panama does not tax income earned abroad, so we don’t have to file tax returns in Panama.
To keep up with the news in the U.S., we have digital subscriptions to the New York Times, Washington Post, and The Atlantic. I’m also active on Twitter.
In addition to hosting political battles, Facebook groups are the overwhelming favorite among expats for sharing information, organizing happy hours and hikes, and getting recommendations. David keeps up, but I’ve never had a presence on Facebook and I’m not starting now.
The missing piece is local news, which we get in bits and pieces. Panama’s President Laurentino "Nito" Cortizo received visits this year from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and First Lady Jill Biden, ahead of the 9th Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles in early June.
More interesting is Panama’s diplomatic history. John Feeley, the longtime U.S. ambassador to Panama, resigned in March 2018 to protest President Trump’s failure to condemn the neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, and the position has been vacant since.
President Biden first nominated Mari Carmen Aponte, a former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, in October 2021 to serve in Panama, but she has not yet been confirmed by the Senate.
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| Moving to Chiriquí |
Looking ahead, our plan is to pack up our few belongings and move to the Chiriquí province in western Panama, which is mountainous and much cooler than the city. A lot of U.S. expats live in the valley town of Boquete, so that’s likely where we’ll end up.
Helping us move will be Miguel Samaniego, a Panamanian tour guide we met last year who owns a fleet of vans. We’ve hired him frequently for runs to the airport and for tours with friends, and communicate with him often as we navigate the country’s culture.
Like this year, we plan on renting a furnished apartment, and it’s likely we’ll continue to rent for the next few years until we’re absolutely sure where we want to live. It’s easy to buy property in Panama, but much harder to sell.
Another benefit, living in the mountains comes with lower average rents and electric bills, so we’ll be in an even better position to keep our costs down moving forward.
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