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Sunday, June 12, 2011

The Eye of the Beholder

People are very self-conscious of their appearance in the so-called developed countries. Men and women cannot walk by a mirror, it seems, without at least checking their faces and hair – or just to admire themselves. They consider with great care photographs of themselves before deciding which one they will allow others to see. Many choose to alter their natural appearance with props or even surgery, or employ subterfuges to cover up those qualities they consider to be less than fully appealing.

In Panamá, this self-consciousness is increasingly less apparent the farther down one is on the social scale. Gringo women here, as in the Northern Hemisphere, wouldn’t even think of going out into public without being perfectly dressed, coiffed, and made up. Panamanian women (that is those who claim Spanish ancestry) are far less concerned about these matters, though they generally choose outfits that they think make them look more attractive; they at least put on at least lipstick and often pluck their eyebrows. The Ngobe Bugle women, while their bodies are always washed and their hair carefully combed, while they invariably wear immaculately clean traditional dresses, never wear makeup nor in any way do they try to “improve” their appearance – and yet I have never seen a people with women (and men) so frequently beautiful as they.

This lack of self-consciousness is never so obvious as when these Native Americans see a photograph of themselves. They do show surprise, pleasure, and even pride when I present them with pictures of their children. But they are typically nonplussed or even merely uninterested in their own images. I am sure that in part it is because they rarely encounter themselves as an object – their homes don’t include mirrors, and when they wash their clothes in a stream they show about as much interest in their reflection as a cat.

The faces they see are the faces of nature: the ever-changing faces of the mountains that benignly look down on them, the faces of fields and forests in the

* * *

As they come to me to be written, new chapters will be added to this blog, so stay tuned! But the blogs up to a certain point are now chapters are now in a book.

So, to read more, you need the book A WRITER IN PANAMÁ.

The book is available in three formats:

HARDCOVER (large-size edition, photographs on nearly every page)
SOFTCOVER (large-size edition, photographs on nearly every page)
SOFTCOVER (smaller size edition, no interior photographs)
E-BOOK (all versions available, including Kindle and Nook, no photographs)

To browse or order, CLICK HERE!


The book is also available through Amazon (USA, Great Britain, and continental Europe) and other major book retailers.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

A Testament of Testicles

Up in the pre-dawn darkness, fumbling into clothes, joining friends outside. Within moments we are walking through a cold and silent Paso Ancho – groping our way, actually, since the night renders these dirt roads invisible – to the home of our friend Inéz. There, sweet lady that she is, we are treated to delicious cups of coffee; it is ubiquitous here, and far more superb than even the most “gourmet” brands available in the United States or France, since clearly travel and time quickly degrade the quality of the beans. As we sip the aromatic beverage, the sun outside Inéz’s windows gradually weaves his beams into the atmosphere from behind Barú. We see a field of yellow flowers, something like Keats’s daffodils, on the other side of which is the local Roman Catholic church. Soon we will be on our way to the top of the Florentina.

I was up this mountain once before to see the farm high on the Florentina run by Inéz’s estranged husband.

On the way, however, we took the wrong trail at one fork and wound up in territory new to us both. During the climb we encountered two very friendly Ngobe Bugle men, in heavy rain, hacking up a fallen tree with only their machetes. As we reached the top, all around us were wild steep slopes, nothing horizontal, and the constant, intense sound of the rain.

* * *

As they come to me to be written, new chapters will be added to this blog, so stay tuned! But the blogs up to a certain point are now chapters are now in a book.

So, to read more, you need the book A WRITER IN PANAMÁ.

The book is available in three formats:

HARDCOVER (large-size edition, photographs on nearly every page)
SOFTCOVER (large-size edition, photographs on nearly every page)
SOFTCOVER (smaller size edition, no interior photographs)
E-BOOK (all versions available, including Kindle and Nook, no photographs)

To browse or order, CLICK HERE!


The book is also available through Amazon (USA, Great Britain, and continental Europe) and other major book retailers.