Verdict: Panama

I'll stay. :)

I'm not sure where to begin talking about Panama. I've been here for four days now and I've already seen too much to fit into one neat little packet of observations. The first thing that struck me when I arrived here, apart from the sticky heat in the jet way between the airplane and the gate, was how much America has seeped into this country. We signed the canal over to the Panamanians sometime in the late 70's and have been minimizing our government presence here ever since and still, there is America all over the place. The biggest sign? There is a KFC on almost every corner in the city. And where there isn't a KFC, there is a Popeye's or a McDonald's. You can't get away from them... well, you can't get away from them in the city.

You can get away from them where I live, in Ciudad del Saber, or the City of Knowledge. It's a part of the former U.S. canal zone where most of the housing has been turned into schools. In the middle is a giant park with lots of baseball diamonds, tennis courts, and a swimming pool. At night, there are more fireflies than I have ever seen in my life. We can see the boats going through the canal from our apartment (though they're easier to see from the upper floors). There are green parakeets in the palm trees outside that make me want to squeeee with delight (though I think Tim wishes they came with a "snooze" button).


This weekend we had two adventures: we went grocery shopping, and we went to the beach.

I love grocery shopping in foreign countries. It's wonderful to see what I take for granted that just isn't available, what is universal, and what is totally bizarre and new. For instance: potato chips=totally universal, everywhere I've ever gone on earth. In India they have different flavors, but they're still Lay's potato chips. However, super-pasteurized milk that doesn't need to be refrigerated? I thought they only had that in France, but they have it here too. I also love seeing the different varieties of beer (Balboa!) and drinking coke in bottles (made with real sugar!). Saturday, I made Arepas (sort of like a really thick corn tortilla) for lunch that were just amazing. I melted Oaxaca cheese on top and then piled on black beans and sprinkled on lime juice, salt and cayenne pepper. So good.

Yesterday we traveled a little way out of town on the Pan-American highway to the beach. Panama still hasn't embraced the tourism industry the way Costa Rica has so it can be a little hard to find the beaches sometimes (you're thinking, just go towards the horizon, right?). Well, that's sort of what we did, which meant parking in what I think was basically someone's yard and then walking along the beach until we entered a "resort" from the side. When we walked up to see where we were we got shooed away for not having ID bracelets, but they won't kick you off the beach because, well, it's a free country. The beach had beautiful sparkling black sand, but unfortunately it also had insane high tides, so we mostly just laid around and splashed in the tide-pool (which was deep enough to swim in but not as satisfying as the open ocean).

One of the benefits of Panama not realizing it's tourism potential quite yet is that underdevelopment means cheap dinner. Tim and I stopped at a road-side, open-air restaurant and had arepas with freshly grilled chorizo and pork, and I tried my first bowl of Sancocho, which is sort of Panama's national soup. It's basically a chicken soup with garlic and potatoes, that is amazingly hearty and satisfying. That might not sound good after a day sweating on the beach, but oh my word it was.


Luckily, this week we have a car which someone at the Embassy was kind enough to lend us and which we won't usually have, so hopefully I'll be able to explore some more and take more pictures of the buses, which are turning out to be one of my favorite things about Panama. I love DC's mostly-fast, mostly-efficient bus system, but I have to admit that the buses here deserve to be recognized for their artistic merit. They're almost shocking in their creativity.

Also--I'm hoping to work on my Thesis (sounds of the heavenly choir) while I'm hear and I'm writing it about boxing. If you know of any books or short stories about boxing, or hell, any good movies about boxing, let me know.