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From the Field: A day in the life in Panama

Soizic Zeigler recounts her days as a student in SIT Study Abroad's Panama: Development and Conservation program

Written by Soizic Zeigler
Panama: Develpment and Conservation

September 26, 2007
Panama: My Feet are Black

"oogs...sabes? Como botas...de piel...para llevar...en Maine se llevan los oogs?"

oogs? oh. Uggs.

Such was the subject of a conversation had with a few Panamanian acquaintances Nolan and I made at the beach at el Palmar this past Sunday. After spending some time laughing at the thought of Panamanians wearing leather boots in their hot, humid, tropical climate (only at night, to go out, they told us), we were also informed that Britney Spears was cool until she shaved her head, and were shown some magazine pictures of a singer who looked amazingly like Kirsten Dunst, but wasn’t her.

There are two sides to this story. The first is that a citizen of the United States may have a hard time getting away from home. Panamanians put processed cultured cheese food, aka American cheese o queso amarillo, on their sandwiches. Their cars, which they leave parked in front of homes and bars with the doors wide open and the stereo on, are blasting Akon. And apparently, some Panamanians will spend between 80 to 100 dollars on a pair of leather Uggs to wear out in tropical weather.

The other side is a bit more light-hearted. We finally made some Panamanian friends! Not only that, but we were able to spend time with them all day and communicate- even laugh, and humor in a foreign language is probably one of the trickiest things to handle. I went home in a completely new form of happy that day- besides new friends, el Palmar had something else to offer: the isthmus of Panama was formed from volcanic rock, and the sand at el Palmar is black.

The colors here in Panama are particularly striking. I have seen more colors of fruit and fruit juice than I would have thought possible, and the Diablos Rojos, or Red Devils, which are the city’s public buses, are the most decorated vehicles I have seen in my life. Their drivers are also their owners, and obviously consecrate a lot of time to personalities of their buses. They have stripes, cartoons, beautiful artwork, accents in every shade of red and orange, sayings, and even flashing different color lights on every possible surface of the buses. Every time one goes by on the road I have to stop and look at what that particular driver wants to share with the world.

The other important color here in Panama is green, especially due to the theme of this particular SIT program. Last Thursday, we were the first SIT Panama students to have a truly unique experience: after driving for about two and half hours on the road to Colon, we arrived at the Parque de San Lorenzo, where we were put into a little metal cage and raised 43 meters into the air- to see one of the most beautiful sights there is. We were suspended above the wet tropical rainforest by the coast, and from our vantage point we could see the ocean and the Rio Chagres cutting through the trees like the path of C.S. Lewis’s Dawn Treader through the ocean of lilies at the end of the world. More importantly, we could see greens in such a multitude of shades that Monet’s impressionism could never aspire to capture and the pictures we took can never convey the overwhelming beauty of that field of green floating beneath our feet. They can only remind us of the feeling.

October 07, 2007
Panama: Simplify, simplify.

You don´t need it.

"Wow, kid, your bag is heavy" I remember my dad saying when he lifted my pack into the car for the trip to the airport that would eventually get me to Panamá. And I remember reminding him of the difference between that bag and what we would normally be putting into the car for a normal semester at school. I remember how much time it took to carefully sort out what I did and didn't need, what I could or could not bring. I remember removing things, "thinning" the luggage. I was rather proud of the final results. I had already spent the summer living out of that same pack, and I thought I had been even more efficient packing for this set of three months than I had for the three months of summer. I was proud of myself.

Now, we are packing for our 6 week trip through Panamá's interior, and I found myself once again sorting, thinning. I found myself wondering how on earth I had brought this much stuff to begin with, I found myself trying to figure out what I could leave here when I finally go home. I found myself trying to figure out what I could do when I got home to simplify what had there. And I just spent a week this summer cleaning out my room and getting rid of what I thought was unneeded. Those norms are being redefined every passing day here in Panamá.

I do not need my mp3 player- there is noise and music and life everywhere we go here. I do not need conditioner, after-sun, hair goo, and disinfectant. Just put some aloe vera (sábila) gel on it. Yes, even the hair. I do not need six pairs of pants or shorts. It's called soap. Speaking of soap, I do not need shampoo, bodywash, face soap, clothes soap, antibacterial soap. There´s all-purpose, biodegradable soap out there. And frankly, it´s probably better for your skin. Find some Dr. Bronner´s and read the ingredient list. Note that unlike your specially formulated bodywash, you can pronounce and identify everything on that list. Fancy that.

Tomorrow I am leaving for the first 3 week half of traveling through Panamá, and I am bringing a duffel bag. I used to bring a duffel bag about that size with me for one night sleep overs at a friend's.

sencillamente.


October 27, 2007
Panama: Not Just Hot Air

Every country has its own local superstitions and traditions, and one of the first ones we heard about in Panamá was the phenomenon of pasmos. A pasmo happens when you go from an area that is really hot, such as outside, to an area that is really cold, such as a super air-conditioned department store.  The blood vessels in your face constrict and your face twists; people need to get physical therapy to get rid of them. The other local belief is that if you are out in the rain, you will automatically get sick. One Panamanian explained to us that they were physically more susceptible to it than us, that we could stand to get wet while they really couldn’t. susceptible to it than us, that we could stand to get wet while they really couldn’t.

While we were learning about these local beliefs, we were also traveling around the country, and we finally got to see what, in my mind, was a tropical rain forest. Yes, we had been seeing all sorts of rain forests here in Panamá- from wet tropical to semi-dry to dry tropical- and they all certainly looked green and leafy and humid- but the forest that truly fulfilled my mental vision of a tropical rain forest was in Chiriquí, in the mountains, and it was a tropical cloud forest. It had it all- moss on all of the trees, vines, vines, and more vines, the colorful flowers; (It’s the wrong season right now to see many flowers in the lower altitude forests.) we even got to see a quetzal.

The key word in all of the above is cloud. For a forest to be a cloud forest, it usually has to be at a higher altitude, one where clouds and mist easily form. The other thing associated with high altitude, which seems oxymoronic here in Panamá, is cold weather. Thus, we arrived at our hotel in Chiriquí on a cold, grey, rainy afternoon, and realized to which point we had become accustomed to hot and humid Panamá. Luckily, there was a woman conveniently located near the hotel selling second-hand sweaters and jackets, from whom I bought an oversized hoodie for two dollars. And still felt cold.

The next morning when we woke up, it was 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was cold. And rainy. I quailed at the thought of returning to Pennsylvania in December. What has this country done to me? I used to love this temperature weather! In the mountains in Chiriquí, I should have felt en mi propia salsa, especially at this time of year.

Luckily for us, the cold did not last long, as we descended to Boquete for a day, and then returned to hot Panamá city. Thank goodness, it was warm again. I then proceeded to go in and out from hot city to cold internet café, to rain to hot house to wet hair to cool bed, without the least bit of worry. I can handle this weather.

Which is why when I woke up this morning and my mother looked at me and asked ¿Tienes refriado?, I could only smile as I reached for a tissue. Yet another little piece of Panamá’s culture has become a part of me- I have a cold in a hot country.


November 26, 2007
Panama: There is no fork...but thanks for the parasol

We are always meeting people with different definitions of what is correct and what is incorrect; sometimes those people re-adjust our norms and sometimes they harden us into our ways of thinking, and these re-definitions can come disguised as anything.  I met a few yesterday.

Panama has a rather variegated population, and part of that population is an interesting sub-set of citizens of the U.S. whom were born here in Panamá, and some of whom have never even been "state-side".  They have a very interesting view of patriotism, and yesterday I found myself in a situation that might have been defined as upside-down.  One usually thinks of foreigners and tourists as those who come into a country and pollute it, and that the local populations are those which must clean up their environment after them.  But yesterday saw a French girl on vacation here in Panamá admonishing a set of Panamanians in English for littering their own beach; not for her sake as a tourist, but for their sake and for the sake of their children, who should be able to enjoy the same beach as them.  Later, when the Panamanians-USians heard of the debacle, they too were upset.  They regularly organize beach clean-ups with the local children.

Yesterday also saw a Dutch girl cook Indian curry, and insisting that we eat it Indian-style: without utensils. At first, everyone simply sat around the table, looking at the food.  The rice was simple enough: it was sticky and could be neatly picked up in clumps.  The curry, however, was a bit more daunting, and two people gave in and got a serving spoon.

But the rest persevered... we poured the curry.  We then tried to go about eating it with tortillas, but the supply of food greatly outlasted the supply of tortillas, so that in the end, we gave in and ate with our fingers... and found freedom.  At least, some of us.  Some found it too strange a concept, and found forks instead.  We discussed this a little:  we touch everything with our hands, we even touch our food with our hands before we eat it, so why should it be wrong to touch it while you eat it?  It's rather liberating.

The tourist cleaned up after the locals, and the Dutch girl ate her curry without utensils.   The litterers left behind their parasol, and we didn't have as many dishes to wash. All I had been expecting was a day on the beach.