Yo no soy conga!

In my constant housing move here in Panama, I took a cab a couple of days ago to move to the Hospedaje Casco Viejo. What at first seemed like a nice cab driver who was very interested in learning about the work that I and my fellow co teacher were doing this summer…. turned out to be quite different.

When we arrived to the hotel in Casco Viejo, he asked us if we knew they had openings or not. Of course we did not know for sure, so he said you go and see and I’ll wait here (in the event that we needed driving to a new place). Thinking oh what a thoughtful cab driver, let me go and check and see, I left the driver with my bags to talk to the lady who worked at the desk. They had a room and all was happy!

He carried our bags inside for us and left. Later that evening we get a call at our lodgings asking us if either of us had lost a cell phone. We immediately checked our pockets and we’re like no, we did not. The lady who answered the call and was talking to us and the man on the phone said, I think one of you has a red phone and dropped it in the cab. “The guy says it’s an expensive looking phone and will return it to you for $10. He says it would sell for a lot here.”

Oh no! I have a red cell phone from the U.S. How did it hop out of my bag which was completely zipped up? Interesting…

Though I wouldn’t call my cell phone expensive, I do want it back because it has every single number of everyone I know from back home, and I don’t want to buy another phone when I return home. A new phone would cost way more than $10 I think, so I begrudgingly agree.

When the cab driver returned the next day, the price suddenly went up to $20 on the grounds that he had driven out to Casco Viejo (which is a short drive from the center of town, normally a $3-5 cab ride) several times and I was not around to receive him and the cell phone. How could inflation sky rocket like this over night, I think.

In my best broken Spanish I tell him that there was no way my cell phone could have fallen out of my bag and attempted to explain that I’m volunteering this summer here, as in NOT making money. I offered a wrinkled ten dollar bill and said “solo tengo diez” He insisted he could sale it for 100 or more (who would pay this much for a phone that is not a palm pilot or a razor or anything fancy, I don’t really know…) He then also said that he wasn’t lying and pulled out a police badge to prove to me that I guess he’s a cab driver and policeman? I’m not sure, but I wonder if that police badge “fell” in the cab as well. Some poor policeman is probably walking around badgeless.

The cabbie was not thrilled about his sale of ten dollars of an object to which I already owned in the first place, however, he took the 10 bucks and left. I closed the door and immediately started thinking of things I should have said to him in Spanish. How things might have gone differently if I would have flat out called him a liar, but then I thought oh, let me turn this cell phone and see if it still works.

There were over 10 attempted calls made locally and to the U.S.! My service was temporarily cut off before I left, so luckily the guy was not able to scam me anymore than the 10 dollars, but still – how awful! Plus he somehow locked me out of viewing my contact numbers, which was my entire reasoning for rebuying the stupid phone in the first place.

There is a saying here in Panama that goes, “Yo no soy conga,” which loosely translates into I’m not an idiot. You can’t scam me. I would say that I’m probably not quite there, an easy target, a foreigner learning a language in another country that probably looks like she has more money than she has. But, if I ever see this cab driver again I’m going straight up to him and telling him “Yo no soy conga!!!”

Be careful and watch your cell phones.