When I walked up to the luggage carousel, the bags were already coming out and I was lucky, my bag was the fifth to appear. The customs and passport officers hardly gave me a look when I walked up to them and they waved me by.
When I walked out into the arrival hall an avalanche of sounds met me: children screaming or crying, adults crying and hugging family members who had just arrived, drivers calling out names of the people they were picking up, and a PA system making an announcement. My ears were shocked by all these sounds.
Gretchen had told me I would be met at the airport and I looked around for someone with my name written on a sign. When I saw it, I walked up to the short black man holding it and said, “I am Horst Shubert.”
“Ah, Mr. Shubert, welcome to Panama. Let me ta
