"They Are Just Stupid, Lazy Animals"

Panamanians have mostly learned about life in the United States from watching its films and television shows. Hollywood movies and situation comedies are a major staple on Panamian television – in fact, other than the local news programs, a few telenovelas (soap operas), and the occasional nature show, there’s precious little produced in Latin America.

As a result, a lot of Panamanians believe, rightly or wrongly, that most United States citizens are incredibly wealthy, have one meaningless sexual affair after another, and shoot each other simply all the time. I also find it unpleasantly amusing to see how much swearing and cursing and sexually charged language there is in Hollywood’s offerings – I don’t think I have ever heard a local person utter even the mildest of epithets; only gringos.

This barrage of imagery, it seems to me, makes it hard for many folks here to accept that I’m not terribly different from them: they are so sure that people with my color eyes and skin are incredibly rich. I have to work hard to assure them that I have barely enough money to get by, that my life in the States was reasonably ordinary, and that I wish for no drama here, but just to live peacefully.

Sadly, a lot of expatriates living here do very little to dispel the image promoted on television. The financial assets held by many of these

people would be a pretty ordinary amount north of México. But here the U.S. dollar goes so much farther that these gringos think their money somehow justifies their turning into greedy monsters. They hire local people as workers, treating them like dirt, to put up gaudily ugly McMansions. They scream at these workers, usually in English because they can’t be bothered to learn Spanish, treating them like dirt, and spewing racist epithets like you wouldn't believe.

* * *

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.

Hospitals and Healers

Where I lived in the United States and France, most people were unwell most of the time. They weren’t necessarily outright sick terribly often, but they never really felt the way people should feel; they were constantly tired (even when they got up in the morning), and burdened with indigestion, backaches, migraines, and breathing difficulties. They were often trying to work at their jobs while wishing they could just stay in bed, but, when they could rest, they found themselves unable to sleep. They would see the doctor, who would prescribe something, but they never really got better.

Here in las Tierras Altas (the Highlands) of Panamá there seems to

be a far lower incidence of low-grade illnesses such as colds and flus and chronic fatigue and allergies. I think a big reason for this is the relatively clean environment: the air here has very little if any industrial/vehicular pollution in it, the water is pure and full of healthy minerals, and the locally grown produce is healthy and nutritious. Also, people (except for the rich gringos and their big SUVs) get a lot more exercise here. Except for those rich gringos, most people don’t own cars; they walk to the grocery store, they walk to the bus stop, they walk to visit friends. The bus stop for me is a walk of several minutes, up a long incline, and I walk it quickly on purpose to increase the exercise potential.

But the most important health-inducing factor here is, without question, the lack of stress. The local people – Panamanians (Latinos) and Ngobe Bugle (Native Americans) alike – are a very easygoing, laid-back people. It frustrates a lot of gringos that they’ll say, “I’ll come by to do your landscaping tomorrow,” and then not show up for two or three days, but that’s the way they are: they will get to everything, but they feel no anxiety to rush through things; instead, they do it when the time comes.

If anxiety and stress are what you want, I recommend the big seacoast cities – the city of Panamá, Davíd, Colón – where you’ll find plenty of tension and pollution

* * *

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.

Spirits are Walking Abroad

This morning the silence is not empty but full. There are presences out there, around my little house; I can sense them. I look through the windows and see the cold mist breathing in and among the trees like ghosts. I step outside, wanting to take photographs of it, but my poor little camera is not up to the task, since it has no settings that can be adjusted. But it would be hard to record an image of these wandering spirits with even a good camera; perhaps it is their wish not to be photographed, and their nature to prevent it. Back inside I return.

And then unexpectedly, with the appearance of the sun over the great

Mount Barú, there is light everywhere, chasing the last vestiges of these mist-ghosts back into their shadowy lairs. Dawn arrives in splendor, with intense azure above the lower horizon, deepening over the mountains, and, high up in the firmament, a few thin cirrus glowing in saffron and pink, caught in the rays of the Sun yet below the horizon, for here on the earth below, all is still dark, still dark.

* * *

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.

Real People

By now I’ve gotten pretty used to the reality that nothing can be taken for granted.

No matter whether a Panamanian service provider says “Tomorrow” or “A week from next Tuesday”, it invariably translates into “When I have nothing I’d rather be doing, and need the money.”

Nothing works dependably, human or otherwise. The electricity and the internet go out at least once a day, sometimes for just moments, and sometimes for hours.

The public water system is also doomed to frequent failure. Mountain

water – it is clear and delicious – flows by gravity down plastic PVC pipes. The system is such a hodgepodge that even Rube Goldberg would shudder. The pipes are sometimes buried, and sometimes simply laid across the surface of the land. There are unexplainable L joints zigging the pipes into unnecessary detours, incomprehensible junctures, dead-ends, and my favorite – frequent breaks that send geysers of water spurting into the air, and which remain unrepaired for weeks on end.

When the water system fails, most residents, even the gringos, rely on barrels they’ve had under their roof runoff downspouts to collect rainwater. Curious, I asked what they if the water system fails in the Dry Season, and the rainbarrels are empty. “Oh,” I was told, “we just go down to the river with a couple buckets.”

* * *

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.

The Frontier Land

What does it mean when we say this is a frontier land?

A friend suggested to me that the term carries an unpleasant implication of prejudice against the Native people who live here, who once were the only human residents. But I think it’s an appropriate way to speak of this land.

The seacoast cities, and some of the more gringified inland communities, are certainly laden with all the unpleasant trappings of Western civilization. But even there you see Ngobe Bugle people dressed in their traditional raiment – about the only concession they make is to wear shoes in the cities, because of the invaders’ penchant for letting broken glass and dirty needles accumulate in the streets. These Ngobe Bugle pass through like the wind, like ghosts and spirits. They do not tap their feet to the loud Latin music blaring from loudspeakers on the public buses and in the shops.

They say not a word. Their faces, carved from the same stone that their ancestors immortalized, show no expression. The Panamanians and the gringos pay them absolutely no attention unless they stand directly in front of them and take some of the invaders’ money out of their pouches to buy something.

But I look at them; I am again and again struck by the similarity of what I am seeing to photographs of the American West in the 1880s or so. I see a proud people learning to turn invisible before they are made to disappear by the advancing flood of, ahem, civilization. I love especially to watch

the Ngobe Bugle women passing through the Panamanian world in their colorful dresses; they are eternally unhurried and unruffled, simply visitors from another world, not participating in this one; they are more like wild animals in their utter separateness. Sometimes I surprise them when I greet them in their language – their expressions do not change, but you can see in their eyes the thought, “What, you see me? You, a foreigner, can speak words in our language?”

* * *

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.

Where the Wind Blows

I learned the other day that my little house back in the Catskill Mountain region of upstate New York was destroyed in a hurricane. Apparently the combination of wind and water pulled down a tree, which crashed through the roof into what had been my bedroom. If I had been in it at the time, I might well have been killed. At minimum, I would now be homeless and destitute. But, instead, I am alive and well and very happy in las Tierras Altas (Highlands) of Panamá.

One friend walked through it, talking to me on the telephone and describing the damage. I learned that thieves had come in, in my absence, and stolen pretty much everything – furniture, dishes and silverware, and precious family heirlooms like my great-grandmother’s handmade coverlet from the 1880s. Later, a neighbor came by and, with my permission, took what little was left to give to the poor. Since a lot of people, including families I knew, had lost everything in the hurricane, I was glad to do what little I could in this way.

What are things? Just things! All my life I have preached and taught that we must not allow ourselves to become possessed by our possessions. As one medicine man taught me, “Walk lightly upon this Earth.” For many years that little house with my few belongings was all I had. So it’s gone. In any case, I have had no plans to return to it; I couldn’t afford a return even if I wanted to. All I have lost is the option of going back, which I have never intended to exercise. In any case, I have had no plans to return to it; I couldn’t afford a return even if I wanted to. So, whether it exists or not is all the same to me. So, let the mortgage people, the insurance people, the tax collectors, and the lawyers fight over the bones. For, whether it exists or not, I have

what’s most precious: my memories. And look how Creator has looked out for me: Rather than losing everything, I’m safe here in another country.

Another country? I’m in another world!

* * *

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.

Taking Life as it Comes

Coming home in the darkness the other night was a wonderful experience for

me that most people in the Northern Hemisphere will never experience. If and when residents of the “developed” countries must go somewhere in pitch dark, without the incandescent lighting they completely expect and rely on, they are confused and frightened.

Here in Paso Ancho, even when there’s electricity, there are long stretches of the calles that after the sun has set are unlit by any artificial light – neither streetlamps nor houses with electricity are nearby, for these parts of town are mostly inhabited by Ngobe Bugle people. But, when the electricity goes out, as often happens, then the entire town is completely black. The only exceptions are the houses off in the gringo part of town; there the big gringo generators are fired up, generating an alien effulgence that seems to be from another world; you have to be careful not to look their way or you lose your night vision.

These nights, as I find my way home after having dinner and a pleasant evening with friends, are for me a fine adventure indeed. I don’t have a flashlight as I negotiate the calles (what pass for streets in this village, basically dirt paths), and I don’t need one. I let the darkness teach me: it is a Grandfather, a wise master who reminds me to slow down and become acutely aware of my surroundings through the senses, other than sight, yet available to me. This wisdom I am learning to invoke as well during the day.

On either side of the road are deep ditches, and often there are dangerous

deep ragged ruts right down the middle of it, erosion from the runoff from the heavy downpours of Rainy Season. There are, besides, large rocks here and there that can upset the unwary. And I never know if another section of the road has been washed away since the last time I came this way. So, if I’m not extremely careful, I could break an ankle or leg, or even fall and hit my head. And nobody would know about me until sometime the following day. So I must carefully use my senses of touch and hearing and what information sight does afford me.

* * *

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.