Quantuam of Solace

Its the biggest thing that has happened in Panama. There has not been this much excitement since "The Tailor of Panama" was filmed. Thats right. James Bond is coming to Panama.

And I get to be a part of it. A very minuscule part yes, but none the less.

Five locations in the City of Portobelo will be used for scenes in the next James Bond Film. Other scenes will be shot in Santa Ana and San Felipe, neighborhoods in Panama City. Also three mansions in Colon will be used to make the scene look as close to Haiti as possible. For the whole story, click here.

So will I get to met the actors? No. Will my name be on the credits? Probably not. But I still got to be a part of the the process. The hotel where all the actors will be staying is one of my company's clients. They needed to staff the hotel with bilingual people. So thats where I come in. My company paid for my partner and I to go to Colon to interview people and talk about their level of English. While its not the most important part, I will take comfort in knowing that Daniel Craig's receptionists can handle talking to him, and that the human resources manager that manages all the housekeeping and issues of the hotel where they are staying can handle themselves in English. And some of the people I interveiwed might end up being extras in the film, so we will see.

So when you see the movie and you think that those places look familiar, but think that you have never seen Haiti, dont be fooled. Its not Haiti. You have seen those places before. Here on my blog!

And I probably will go see some of the work during the filming. Maybe I will be an extra on the film!

Panamanian Protests

In her book, Almost French, Sarah Turnbull talks about the excitement she felt about seeing her first protest while she was living in Paris. It was something completely different from anything she has experienced. Anglo-Saxon Cultures don't seem so big on street manifestations, shutting down roads, anything like that. And as a friend said, "I'd love to see people actually doing something v. writing and writing and writing about something." However, she continues to wrap up my sentiments about protesting: "That's got to be exciting, but a pain in the ass too."

Up until now, Panamanian protests have been somewhat disappointing. I, like Turnbull, wanted to see the people raise up and get some changes done through whatever means. Democracy at work. Police and swat teams in all their gear. Dedicated enthusiasts being puled from the picket lines kicking and screaming. Yelling. Screaming. Hot.

Well, not really the way it works. In a culture and a city where apathy is kind of a norm, protests seem know nothing more than a constant headache. They just are unorganized, and even when they have a sense of togetherness, the lack of participation is overwhelming. The last major organized protest that was supposed to happen right in front of our offices, brouhgt out more police protection that protesters.

But then yesterday came about. To make this short, a construction worker, who in Panama are really known for being delinquents, was shot by a police officer. Hence the tension between the construction unions and the government escalated to the point of riots in the streets. This was the first time that the rage of the union workers overcame apathy. Almost all the major roads in the city were closed by the protester, including one of the main highways that connects the city with almost all the surrounding suburbs.

And pictures and news stories that night made it worse. The broadcasters talked about more manifestations for today, more concentrated, more action, more annihilation. I was slightly intrigued and even a little excited for the chaos that was about to be unleashed on the city.

Only to wake up today to find nothing developing! Another typical Panamanian protest. It just sort of dissipated. Sad! While I feel glad that I am safe and everything, a little riot might have added a little spice to the city. While I am thankful that police could get the situation under control, it would have been nice to know that what the construction unions were asking for and why there were protesting was important enough to validate the day long traffic jam they caused, that they believed in their cause so much that the would protest until something was changed.

But no. The tear gas was thrown, payday and the weekend are coming up, and other things more important and powerful than justice are presenting themselves. The excitement of justice is lost and only the headache of the protests remains, to the point that people want to start protesting protests. But that can wait. After all, this weekend we get Saturday off. And apathy takes over.

Carnavales Series, Part 4: My Carnival

So, amidst all the celebration, I had to do something. Last year I just stayed around the city and while relaxing, five days in a city that has been completly shut down was not exactly just a day in the field. It was boring as all get out! So I had to do something this year.

I made plans, and oh there were good. The long weekend started out with a crazy fishing trip. We left a little late and missed all the fish! However, we did go boating on the lake that was dammed up to make the canal, and it was surreal to be fishing, look up and see huge container ships pass by. We spent the whole day fishing with no avail and fruitlessly. After drinking quite a few beers on the boat, rowing, eating, waiting, waiting and no biting, we decided to go (row) back to shore. Upon arriving and having been laughed at by all the accomplished fishermen of the village, the owner took pity on us and gave us a few fish to take with us. Then one of the local fisherman said he would give us more fish if we simply took him to buy some beer at the local store (about a five mile ride). So more fish was added to the bounty. Then after taking the fisherman to the store and having made a new friend, he decided that we were cool enough to offer us a ride on his speed boat. We all got on, and he drove us right out into the canal, no more than about 20 feet from a huge container ship that was passing through. We were in the freaking canal, without permission! It was great.

Sunday night brought a fish fry at Milton's house, and we enjoyed all the fish we had "caught". This was supposed to happen Saturday night but we were all so tired and sun drenched that no one of was awake enough for a fish fry. And of course, there was the preferred carnaval beverage, beer. Milton cooked rice with guandú, fish and salad. Excellent.

Monday brought about the beginning of the tour of Panama. We left Panama early in the morning so that we could get to our first stop, the beach, before it got too crowded. After lathering up, Milton, Carissa and I (the crew) dove in and enjoyed the crystal waters for about an hour. We also spent time just hanging out on the beach and relaxing. At about 12:00, we left for stop number 2, Penenomé, a city about two hours from the city. Since Penenomé is one of the first cities that is considered the "interior", it also has some of the biggest parties for Carnavales. It is also where all the really ghetto people (and when I say ghetto, I mean fights that the cops have to break up ghetto) go because it is the only trip they can afford. So the combination of large parties with large quantities of alcohol, a little more than questionable people-age, it only lead to the inevitable. I was pick pocketed in the culecos. But how? Let me explain the culecos: you know those big gas tankers that transport our life supply, oil, across the country? Well, in Carnavales in Panama during the day, those are filled with water, and then sprayed upon hundred of scorched people. Sound like fun? Its basically like walking past a open fire hydrant. But, with the loud music, and the quantity of alcohol aforementioned, yes it is fun! But take at look at this video and you will understand how I got pick pocketed:

Carnavales Series, Part 3: The Improvised Panama

Rodrigo Miró, a famous Panamanian historian, journalist and literary critic, says in his "Theory of the Homeland" that "[Panama] constitutes a nation more or less uneducated, lacking traditions, where, because of this, the fundamental problems of the nation have arrived in the moment when their immediate resolution was required. Such circumstances barely left time to improvise. The history of our republic can be summarized in one word: improvisation."

Many hands have come to play in the presentation of those "fundamental moments of the nation" in Panama, and because of all these changing of hands, loosely defined as the imperialistic ventures and appetites of world powers both old and new, no traditions have become Panamanian. You might ask about all the traditions that I mention in this blog and all the things that I love about Panama. Yes, while there are dances and food and other "traditions", there is nothing singularly defining that Panamanians cling to. There is no one thing that everything Panamanian takes as his patria, his homeland. Some would say that the canal, the only thing that any average person knows about Panama, is what Panamanians call suyo (their own). Why you might ask? Because, as some would contend, Panama is an invented nation, a nation that has been invented for its use as a cross between the seas.

During the colonial period, Panama was much like all the rest of the new Spanish Empire. However, some exceptions set Panama apart. Visited on Columbus' fourth voyage and later incorporated into the Spanish Crown as "Castle of Gold" (Castilla de Oro), Panama became a population center, and after the discovery of the "South Sea", the launching point for all the future Spanish expeditions to the south. Subsequently, all the gold that was pillaged from the Incas and other tribes in the south (read "A Short History of the Destruction of the Indies" by Fray Bartolomé de las Casas for further information) was sailed back up to Panama, where it was counted, stored and prepared for an overland trip to the Atlantic to be shipped back to Spain. So, from its conception, Panama was related as a transport point and it comes as a shock to most people that the first studies for an inter-oceanic via were preformed by the Spanish crown in the 1580s. Thus, transport between the two seas became one of the very first aspects of Panamanian History. Being such, Panama was also one of the few ports that was allowed commerce between other ports within the Spanish Empire before the Bourbón Restauration brought about free trade among other economic reforms. However, all this was done by the "españoles", not necessarily the working class that might identify themselves more with their new home than with Spain.

Then, as independence ravage the western hemisphere, Panama voluntarily annexed it self to Columbia, becoming now more than a "state" in a country whose very centralized powers in Bogotá were too far removed and too occupied with other things to worry about the "istmeños", as the people who lived on the skinny isthmus were called. It wasn't until the Gold Rush of 49 when the Columbians realized the resource they had as Americans bidded for the rights to build an interoceanic railroad in Panama. Then the French, reviving the plan to build a inter-oceanic passage and glowing in the success of Ferdinand de Lesseps and his Suez Canal, that Columbia became interested in selling off the land that the hardly paid attention to years before. After a failure of the French Canal (a whole other story), The good ol' United States made a bid for the rights to continue the canal, and was sorely rejected.

Wanting "its" canal, but not willing to make diplomatic negotiations over the sovereignty of the canal, the United States only saw one option. As independence sentiments grew all over Panama and a movement was set up to break away from Columbia, Washington decided to get involved (as it often does when it can proclaim the triumph of democracy, raising the torch of Liberty, when really, all the torch of liberty does, as Ruben Dario puts is, is "lights the path to easy conquest.") Basically in 1904, the USA stopped the Columbian Navy from entering Panamanian territory to defend what it claimed was its land. All the sudden, there was a new country. Of course, the United States recognized Panama's sovereignty immediately, while Columbia wouldn't recognize Panama as a country until 1921.

THREE DAYS after Panama defeated the Columbian Navy, a delegation was formed to be sent to Washington to sign a treaty concerning the canal. One man that was appointed to the committee was the former owner of the French Canal Company, who after the bankrupcy of his company was eager to sell the rights that he heard. Actually, this man, not even a Panamanian, arrived early, signed the treaty unilaterally, and gave the US the rights to the canal that they thought nonnegotiable: among them, complete sovereignty over the canal and a 5 mile "buffer zone" on each side. (For those who cant imagine what this would be like: imagine France accepting a treaty signed by a British man, giving the French the right to own the Mississippi and everything around it for five miles, essentially dividing the country in two.)

Panama regained the canal in 1999, and since then, people have really said that the canal is theirs: actually, the Canal runs more effectively know than it did when it was run by Americans, and Panamanians are in the middle of a huge expansion of the canal which will increase the productivity of the canal. But still, even when Panamanians can think of the canal as theirs, there is still little that draws the Panamanian people together: no battle cry that has turned to ledgend, no export that the economy has become dependent on, no site that incites pride in the hearts of it viewers.

So is Panama invented then? Has the nation really been improvised? Because it lacks those legends, those stories, those feelings of overwhelming pride and thanks for those who have provided it, is it not a real nation? Or is maybe being an improvised nation better: the true sentiments, the real essence of who the Panamanian people are is expressed in their improvisation simply because it is all they know, or all they can think to do? After all they are patriotic, as Ruben Blades sings "When he asked me what Homeland means, I say to him: Homeland, so many wonderful things".

Some might say Panama is an improvised nation, but I would say that Panama, the nation, is an expression of what Panamanians really are: more than a canal, but realizing that their history and culture has been shaped by that canal, the hands it passed through, and the struggles and blessings it has brought to the country.

Carnavales Series, Part 2: Treatise on the Social Panamanian Linguistics"

After being in Panama for more than two years, I finally feel like I can understand "social" Spanish (or better said, Panamanian). Its not that hard to understand that we speak differently in a business or church setting (which just happens to be most of my experience in Panama) than we do when we are with our friends. It is equally easily comprehensible that, after all my chagrin of not understanding social Spanish, the way teens and "young adults" speak isn't all that different from English. After all, English is the language of the world, and here in Panama, its the cool thing to do, or at least to show how much money you have, you can speak English. So without further preamble, here is a list of Panamanian slang that comes from what, after a little investigation, is clearly English. Make your guess of what they mean.

1. ¡qué cul, man!
2. wachiman
3. güichi-güiper (pronounced wishy-wiper)
4. daim
5. cuara
6. mi fren
7. plees
8. ofi
9. flutch
10. güapin (pronounced whoppin)
11. cofi brek
12. fukup
13. chilin
14. camaron
15. "Arraijan" and "Perejil"
16. tinaco
17. meto
18. pritty

Any ideas? Make your best guesses. Answers are posted here.