A little bored...

So, you can moniter my every shifting workload by my frequency of blogging. The weeks (like this one) where there has been a verboise new entry almost every day of the week indicates the nothing-ness of my work load. (And this week is even more special, I had so much free time I actually uploaded vidoes and pictures. wow.) For every entry where I pointlessly write and mumble, there is an emptied-out in-box just sitting on my desk.

Conversely, the days I have seventy translation in my box merit blog-silence.

Needless to say, I am bored...

To distract myself, I am not only writing, but also posting a link for pictures of the road trip we took this weekend. My friend's nephew had his first birthday party, so we went to Chiriqui and were there during the International Flower Fair. Here are some pictures of the festivities!

Women...I figured them out

So, I have been asked by many people why I don't have a Panamanian girlfriend. My guy friends say that they can't beleive it becuase these girls are latinas, and all that piel canela and that long hair and big hips would be something they swear they would have already fallen victim to. My girl friends can't understand it because not any other place in the world, they claim, are you going to find women who, they beleive, are prepared to submit themselves to a life a housewifery, and no other place will I find someone who will eagerly put my food on the table when I walk in the door from a hard days work providing the bacon. And my panamanian friends are just so accustomed to marrying, or matching up, thier own women that it would just seem normal that after two years, some Panamanian mama would have swept me off my feet.

You can imagine my frustration when I came down with some of the same conceptions, and the befuttlement of all the people who ask me when I am going to get married to a Panamanian (which usually comes up in conversations about visas and work permits), and I simply reply "Don't know yet." And maybe their bewildered look is actually a little bit of offense ("what, so this gringo thinks hes too good for our women") or just plain caught-off-guard-ness ("wow, he really doenst know.") I would say that even I felt the stupor of "what happened" that my interrigators often convey.

Until this last weekend. I figured it out. I don't think there has been any Panamanian wowzers that have taken my breath away becuase they are all TOO delicate.

A little confused? Being an american, this is the woman that I have grown up to know as the embodiment of the feminine spirit:

With Willa Cather writing about Antonia and Alexandra in her books, Rosie the Riveter and many other not so June Cleaver-ish example of the American woman, I think I understand why I haven't fallen into the throngs of Panamanian woman.

Don't get me wrong: I like chivalry. I like the idea of protecting a woman and her looking out for me. (Not machismo, just chivalry.) But to a point. And the point that gets me is when Panamanian women are just too delicate. When they wont open doors for themselves. When they wont lift suitcases or anything more than 3 pounds. When they talk so quiantly that I have to ask "WHAT?" like I am going deaf every time I am speaking.

I thought I liked delicacy, but now I think it is just abuse. I want to open the door for my wife, I want to carry her heavy things for her. But I don't want her to wait by the door if I can't open it for her. I don't want her to not do things in her job or at the house or wherever she is becuase it might break her nails. I don't want her to not do fun things like go to the beach because she might get sun-burnt, or go to the park becuase she might sweat. (All real life events that have happened to me in Panama.)

Maybe thats the epitome of women: strength. The American woman shows her strength outwardly, fighting for the rights she deserves, and making sure that she can do whatever is required of her to show her family, her friends and anyone who might need it that they are cared for. The Panamanina woman shows her strength in being patient with the overly childish men in her life, bearing the well being of everyone knows upon herself. But that inward strength, and outward delicacy, is the reason that I feel I haven't been swept off my feet. I feel my way of showing her I love her would turn to a feeling that I feel taken advantage of, because the reason that I want to do those things for her became simply the expectation of a good suitor.

Some jumbled thoughts, but I think it figured it out. DAMN DELICACY!!!

Impressed

So, this has long been the venue of bitching and complaining about the frustrations that I sometimes face living in a new culture. Today, that is going to change. I just had one of the most pleasant experiences in my life. And it just happened to be at a governmental entity that up until two days ago, was my worst nightmare. I have to share.

So my visa expired on Friday. In the rush of getting together paperwork to ask for my renewal, I mentally prepared myself for sitting in long lines, explaining my visa situation to at least 50 different people who would consequently send me down the line of the endless number of little windows where immigration workers decide your fate or just continue to pass you along like some sick game of immigration muscial chairs. I was prepared to treat everyone really nice and NOT get mad so that some offended immigration worker wouldn't just "lose" my file. I was prepared to pay for these stupid timbres ("official stamps") that you have to put on any kind of paper for the government to accept that it actually is a piece of paper, and I was ready to pay for a new birth certificate since they are only valid for three months, as if standing in front of them living, breathing, and exisiting wasn't enough proof that at some point in my life (the beginning) I WAS actually born. I was then prepared to pay for said stamps to be put on said birth certificate (so a process of getting a $2 document turns into a $7 document, only received after going to three different government buildings, located on opposite ends of the city, so count taxi fare, and a birth certificate turns into a $15 process).

But, Chris, I thought you said you weren't going to bitch.

Well, I go to immigration. I got there at about 12:15 and went to the first window that was available. After waiting a whole 2 seconds, and being actually greeted by the worker ("Hello, how can I help you?" is not yet a part of the Panamanian government worker's linguistic disposition) I was directed to another window. Accepting the inevitable, I made my way to the next little window, defeated by what I thought would be the start of another immigration down spirial worthy of gaining, for myself, automatic deportation.

But alas. Assumeth thy not! I was attended at the second window (and even with a smile, another rarity here among business people) and given the receipt to pay for my new carnét (ID Card). I didn't even have to explain my situation or fight and say that I had already paid that fee or filed that form. The lady simply looked up my case in the computer (another first for immigration, there was no digging through thousands of paper files trying to find mine) and knew exactly what I needed. When I got my receipt I went to the cashier to pay: and like mercy straight from heaven, there was no line. The lady attended me (this time not so good, but at least she didn't try to charge me extra) and I paid, and went on my way. I was immieaditly whisked away to a new office to get my picture taken, (and actually had a decent conversation with the lady that took me picture: before that, I though immigration workers weren't capable of conversation), and two minutes later, my newly laminated carnét was handed to me and I was kindly shown where the building's newly constructed exit was.

I renewed my carnét in a total of 15 minutes. This is a process that three months I took a whole half day off of work to complete.

And while you might say, well you got lucky, I have to say that the addition of technology was a lie saver. The computer system cut down on the time that I had to wait in line, so I was in a better mood when I got to the window. I wasn't angry, so the government worker wasn't defensive. They were actually friendly. And while getting a new ID Card may seem like something trivial, it is often those small trivial moments that can bring us the most joy or threating to ruin our entire day.

Walking out of immigration, holding my shiny new carnét, and basking in the fact that I was now able to travel this weekend (story coming in the next blog) without the thought of being pulled over and suddenly deported, and realizing that I still had 30 minutes of my lunch break left, I realized it was the first time in my two years here I walked away from that building and I wasn't inclined to strangle somebody. What a difference! I am very impressed.

¡Hoy es Navidad!

One of the more fastidious Christmas traditions in Panama is that Jingle Bells is actually a hymn. Not that "Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way" is classic musical writing, the Spanish version ranks up there as one of the most annoying songs every.

NAVIDAD
NAVIDAD
HOY ES NAVIDAD.
ES UN DÍA DE ALEGRIA
Y FELICIDAD.

Annoying. And the fact that it is played in church, and the aforementioned chorus is repeated about 100 gazillion times, well, that just adds to the horror. (If you are brave enough to face both a bad Christmas Carol and David Bisbal--the one man Spanish equivalent of the Backstreet Boys--check it out.)

Yet today, toting a large package under my arms and returning from Lunch break, I couldn't help but sing it.

My Christmas Package from my family arrived today. YEAH! Today was finally Christmas! I was excited. The package only took one month exactly to get here. (Lesson learned: DONT SEND PACKAGES EXPRESS! They arrive in the same amount of time, and you are out $30.) I ripped open the package to find baked goods (molded. Lesson learned: food hardly makes it through a four week transit, most of which I am sure was spent sitting on the Panamanian post office floor) and three secrects awating all wrapped in Christmas-y goodness. Hardly containing my excitement (I didn't have to open the package at the customs check point, so this was almost like actually opening REAL christmas presents by the tree), I ripped the packages open one by one.

SHEET MUSIC! My fingers are itching to go home and play the Debussy, Bach, Beethoven, Gershwin, and Joplin that my parents sent along.

DVD: The Bourne Ultimatum, which was actually just in theaters here last month but I did not see.

Literary Magazine: More a consolation prize than a present, I requested an article online for the paper I finished writting three months ago, and was unable to download it. As compensation, the University Compultense de Madrid sent me an entire copy of the Anual. Literary Heaven for my reading pleasure the next few weeks.

Some salvagable bakes good: Seven Layer Cookies, Peppermint Almond Bark and Sugar Cookies: its kind of ironic, being diabetic and all, all the sugar in these salvagable items preserved them, and all the somewhat healthy things perished. Darn!

Anyways, Today is Christmas! ¡Hoy es Navidad! YEAH!!!! Finally the Christmas season is over for me!

Who Benefits?

My friend read me an email: it was meant to be tongue-and-cheek, but still. Being highly inappropriate, I found it highly indicative of most American's perspective of world affiars, or more accurately, their perspective of America's position in the world.

After hearing the email, I was inclined to make it my life goal to irradicate cultural ignorance from America. After thinking about the possibilities this might bring about, I was soon crushed to think that this would not be a job just for me. My anger burned.

The matter came down to how the United States has given benefits all over the world. And in the email, was a list of the all the dictators that the world would still be dealing with if the good ole' US of A hadn't gotten involved. A movie clip came to mind (check out minute 5:22-37).

Noriega happened to be on the list. That was a hit just a little below the belt. Among claims that "Panamanians were happy that we got rid of Noriega for them", I had to question it. While I can't claim that I know many people who aren't happy that Noriega is gone, I will claim that I know few Panamanians that are extremely grateful for the invasion. The destruction of an invasion that could have been a simple material operation but was rather used as a testing ground for the new Stealth Fighter outshadowed the benefits of a Noriega-less Panama. And may I mention that we, the Great United States, trained Noriega, had him on our CIA payroll, and ignored all the human right violations he was commiting as long as he was feeding us info that we felt necesary? Not until he started to turn left did he start to get bad press from Washington, and the world started to hear about all the atrocities he was commiting. And Noriega is just the icing on the cake. Do any Americans know that the US helped create an entire nation, Panama, becuase it was the only option for getting rights to a canal, (I might add, not in the hopes of increasing global commerce, but rather in consolidating a center of military power that would allow the US to exhert its early nineteenth-century imperialistic power to the South Pole) since the Columbian government at the time refused giving up its sovergnty over the Panamanian Isthumus. And BAM! There was Panama, a country whose sovergnty was "given" to them by US miltary support (completely disregarding the already strong independendistic movement underway in Panama) just to be taken away in the agreement that made Panama a US Protectorate (One of the most famous Panamanian poets, Ricardo Miró, wrote his most famous work, Patria, being in Spain, exiled from his country, not wanting the worlds to see how Panama had become a US protectorate obtained by money and a canal.) I won't even get started with the sordid history the US has in Latin America outside of Panama, and the mess that our foreign relations have made. Who benefits from the mess we have made of the Western Hemisphere which we define as the Monroe Doctrine? (well, we have.)

And who is benefiting by our continual denial of the Kyoto Protocols? (Our big companies are)And who is benefiting from free trade agreements with developing countries? (Certianly not them.) And who is benefiting from our disregard of Venezuela? (the American consumer) And who is benefiting from disregarding AIDS in Africa (We wouldnt benefit from it, so that is whay we are disregarding it. Amidst presidential promises it would happen, have you honestly heard anything about it?)

So where is good ole' United States in all this? Where is the beacon of hope and light that most Americans claim is their country. I can't help but be reminded of Ruben Dario, a famous Latin American Modernist Poet, and what he said of the United States: "illuminating the road of easy conquest, Liberty raises its torch in New York." (read the whole English version here) Who benefits from the United States involvement in world affairs? I won't go all off and claim that there have been no benefits in the places our government has served, but the fact is our government has chosen only areas and regions to serve (better said: take advantage of) that it deems necessary, on its terms, and by its means.

Actually learning about history, actually knowing people who have suffered on behalf of the United States, and actually being in a place where the Stars and the Stripes dont wave on every building, I have come to see that what I thought of the United States is not what the United States is. And I am proud to be an American, but hate to be considered one when the preaching of the closed-minded reach the world, and becomes the overwhelming message the world hears from us. When that happens, I am ashamed of my country. No wonder the rest of the world is ashamed of it as well. If only we could get others to see that, then maybe cultural ignorance wouldn't stand a chance.

But I doubt that will happen. I am sure just talking about history in a true way has marked me as unpatriotic and un-American. Who benefits from that kind of thinking? Only those who don't want to think that maybe our background is less than pristine, and our actions less than perfect. Only those who aren't secure enough to live with the fact that their nation might not be a beacon to world, might not be the final authority. But then again, those are the people who are making the decisions for us.

We need some change...

The Divine Woman

You might think that this blog should be a chapter in some Dan Brown novel, it is just a mere reflection about my life. Amidst reading and talking with friends this week, I came to a revelation that helps explain alot about the people I live among.


When I first came to Panama, I was really surprised by what I thought was the existence of simple chivalry: men always open doors for women, when you are with a woman (excluding if her signifcant other is present) it is your responsability, simply for having a penis, to "look out" for her, etc. (insert here every other statement that might offend today's modern feminist.) Even in my English classes, I quickly learned that I need to pass out any kind of paper to the women in the class first. I liked it. But after a few months, the honeymoon was over. Suddenly, chivalry became a burden: women wouldn't go through a door unless you opened it for them, they would push and shove their way to the front as if it were their divine right. How they won't wait to get onto an evelvator, even if that means stomping you into the ground, or least stepping on your toes while you try to push past divinity entering in all its glory. When walking down the catwalk that is the aisle on the bus (think Next Panamanian Supermodel here, as everyone really does stare at you like they are the fasion world ready to verbally assimulate your outfit to some fashion magazine journalist,) women will walk down the aisle straight head-and-hips-on (and latin women are known for their unequivacally large hips), not turning their waist in one direction or politley accomodating their body between the bus riders who are already sitting, rather taking off heads with their overstuffed purses and riping of any extremities that might get in the way of the gem-studded belts.

"Marianismo" is the feminine equivalent of the "machismo" and it is not hard to put the symnatics of the words together: Maria is highly reveered in most of the Hispanic World, as a symbol of divinity, the veritable Mother of God (don't quote me on all this: growing up Lutheran strictly meant no Mary education, so I can't claim to know much about it), and the symbol of all women. So "Marianismo" (-ismo being the equivalent of -ism) is the cult of women's divinity. Women don't fit into the realm of machismo (the idea of infidelity, supreme power, nondissentable leadership and right to be "the head"), becuase their qualities are those that Mary perfected: complete patience, devotion, and love for those within her realm. Now a days, these lines are blurring, but women are still revered as more spritual, more endearing: a mother in Latin America is seen as the head of her children's wellbeing, both physical (being a stay at home mom) and spritual (being the one who teaches them about religion.) (And don't even get me started on Latin men's overdependence on their mothers.) This cult of women's semi-divinity (becuase men exhibit uttterly "human" charactoristics") is shown in the fact that Mother's day is still a national holday (women are to be rewarding not only for carrying their children through childbirth, but carrying them as a pillar of strength through their children's entire life, as well as many times "carrying" or "bearing" the more humanistic problems of their father: infedelity, drunkeness, unproductivity), and that women suffer from what I have so convienently dubbed "Latin Princess Complex".

(And here I would make a long parenthetical thought about the interesting relation between Marianismo and pagenism: not by any stretch calling Catholics paegans, or Latin Americans uncivilized, as I know some of you will take it mean, but rather drawing attention to another way the Christian church "adopted" certain practices to make it easier for paegans to integrate themselves into the Christian life and religion. Christmas, Religious Festivals, and the Worship of Mary all have equivalents that have subsequently been converted into "Christian" practice, tradition and beleif.)

So while I will never be able to get over the fact that even though the idea of evactuating an elevator for others to subsequently fill it seems correct (it just seems logical that everyone should get off before anyone else gets on), I will wait for the women to board. I will look over my shoulder twice before entering a door myself and letting it close behind me. I will contort my body in order to avoid death by purse. I will pick up the dust a women brustles up when she sets things on her desk. Hopefully one day, I will understand how the women is divine and needs that recognition. Hopefully, the generation of women that are now the age of our mothers teach their daughters all about this, so that this divinity is not abused (aka, stepping on my toes after I let you in the elevator without any kind of apology.)

And as I will never understand machismo, how people get of thinking that they have complete dominion over their realm without really caring for anyone but themselves, I guess I will never understand Marianismo and how being a woman gives you some irrevocable divine rights.

I will keep learning (and not always understanding) about the culture that I live among.

Middle Class Fears

So, after living in Panama for a little over two years and having really learned what it means to live within your "means", a possible move back to the United States seems nothing more than a financial nightmare.

Firmly "planted" in middle class ideology--upward mobility, the basic security that I can live a decent life, not living paycheck to paycheck--I came to Panama and learned what it means to live simply. While my salary is somewhat high compared to most Panamanians', it ranks just above the American poverty line. And in Panama, I have been able to continue in the middle class lifestyle the generation that I grew in gifted to my family and that most middle class Americans are now wishing for: I take vacations every year, dont hesitate to go out with friends, roadtrips on long weekends, and still put (a little) money away for savings every month.

You will understand my fear, then, when reading (admittedly, sometime sensationalist) headlines about the cost of living in America, the middle class crunch, and the idea that single family homes now sell for an average half a million dollars , the notion that a small remodel ranges from 15 to 30 THOUSAND dollars (the equivalent of almost two years of my salary), and the fact that in the last twenty years, wealth distrubution inequality has grown from 10 to 25%.

However, like I siad, living in Panama has taught me to live simply, and maybe thats why I have a little confidence for living in the middle class someday. In all the articles I read, American middle class is equated with over the top CONSUMERISM. And I qoute from a video interviewing people struggling with the "middle class crunch": "Our lifestlyes are wonderful, you know, we take nice vacations, we go out to eat alot, you know, do all the normal middle class stuff, you know, shop at whole foods, do the Price Club runs all that." (Like saying "you know" a bazillion times makes us want to identify with her and her all-consuming consumerism: or simply that so many people struggle with this that you really do know!)

It goes back to the fact that when you do buy a house you have to have Raplh Lauren Paint on the walls, Tommy Hilfiger Sheets on your beds, and shelves full of designer clothes in your closet, and plasmas and ipods out the wazoo. Maybe American middle class crunch is exasperated when you have the Joneses to keep up with, and not saying that somethings, like home-ownership, aren't challenges for hard-working middle-classers, but if the middle class is crunching down on me, I would consider laying off on the home entertainment system, raffling off the Eddie Buaer Edition Hummer, and trying to make a vacation to the local museum suffice. In effect that is what I have done in Panama (lived off beans and rice, reseigned to taking the bus and walking instead of taking a taxi, not buying the $150 Kenneth Cole Shoes that I wanted, and other simple things that have added up to the more than 50% of my paycheck that I now save in preparation for financial shipwreck when I go to the states), and maybe that is why my definition of Middle class may not be so American. Some would say that to take away the idea of Consumerism would be to take away the essence of the middle class itself, but I would say that middle classes in other countries exist without the rat-pack-y-ness greed of American consumption. While in America, middle class mobility is often gained and portrayed through exorbant consumerism, foreing middle class is not underpinned, obtained, or demonstration by or through this idea of consumption.

So, who knows what will happen when I move back to the state. But all this theorizing. I am planning to be back in the states as a grad student (keep your fingers crossed on this one), so aruging about the middle class is probably just moot. As a grad student, I am sure I will be shackled in the depths of self-inflicted poverty.

Keep struggling...

My many accomplishments

So, I, being one of the million Chris Carters in the world, have been asked if I do alot of differente things. Among them:

1. Write the X-Files
2. Play in the National Football League

So, I am somewhat used to being asked about my rather common name.

But now I have people asking me if I do certain things becuase of my looks. Apparently, I am the lead guitarist for the Fray now too.

Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpiEEl_5pmA. Look at minute 2.06 and 2.59. Wow

It beginning to smell alot like Christmas

In the tropics, Christmas Spirit (as I have grown up to know it as: the frost, the snow, the chilling wind, and that tingling feeling in your hands when you come in from the cold, et al) is kind of non existent in the tropics. It is kind of wierd walking around and hearing jingle bells and sleigh ride when I am thinking about walking around the city at night in just my t shirt. Santa sure has rosy cheecks here, but they are rosy becuase he suffers from heat stroke having that beard and wool suit in the hiegth of summer. And there are not chesnuts roasting, rather my skin scorching in the tropic sun. We are passing into summer, so it is getting hotter and dryer. At least there is a breeze to blow away some of the humidity. And the kids all out of school for summer vacation. Add that to the already crazy adult "muchedumbre" running around the un-airconditioned malls, the persipration rate has gone up quite a bit here in Panama. Its beginning to smell alot like Christmas. Ahh, Christmas Musk.

It doesnt look like Christmas, the decorations just seem a little out of place. But walk past any grocery store and there is another smelll of Christmas...Pine Trees. And since they are cheap, I was tempted to buy on to get my apartment to smell nice and Christmas-y.

They say that smell is your stongest sense, and it actually makes up 90% of your sense of taste, and that smells are the easiest memories we make: a smell with stick with us for years. I even tried in college to smell my cologne while I was studying, hoping that I would somehow magically recall all the information I crammed into my brian by simply smelling my cologne during the test.
The smell of trees make me feel like it actually is Christmas when my sweat glands are doubting it. The "Christmas Air" Floor disenfectant makes me almost feel that I am little kid again waiting anxiously at the base of the tree to open presents and eat cherry mash and brownies. And the smell of fresh plastic from all the bags just sitting around holding treasures and gifts make me remember bundling up in my sweaters and wrapping presents.

Its beginning to smell like Christmas. Thank God I have a functioning nose...I would go holiday-less without it.

Evangelical Bull

So, there seems to be a theme emerging here: Chris hears bad sermon, Chris angst-fully rages on blog.

Maybe I am oversensitive to whole word "service" since it was abused and grained into my brain in Seward (Explanation for non Concordians in three, two, one: On Concordia's mission to "serve the church and world", all the students are forced to take pointless, curriculum-less class that give people like Julie Johnson a job, and force them to beleive that "servant leadership" is the only proper way to serve, and that, at Concordia, the only way to serve the church and world is serving the church. Maybe not blatently stated, but the fact that those in the education program are looked down upon for choosing the public school certification).

Anyways, I heard a sermon that made the cliam that it is a Christian's "obligation" to serve the poor. I dont know why this seemed so offensive to me. I mean, I was a missionary, I did serve in the church, and mostly to people of lower classes. My youthful ideas were to live in voluntary poverty, serve and help people less fortunate than me. Have I given up my ideals? Why did this little statement offend me so much?

I guess it just was the word "obligation" that got me. I am tired of Evangelicals forcing their interpretation of what a good Christian should be or should do down my throat. And the fact that "service" is so abused. Does the baker not serve all his clients that need to eat? Does the janitor not serve the people in the building who dont clean up after themselves? No, the only way to serve is to give money to the church's minsitry programs and only then are you being a good Christian.

I am sick of being obligated to do something, when everything that I already do is not valued as God possibly working through me. I think God is bigger than our "obligations" and our intrepretations and our hypocritical money-mongering.