A Writer in Panama

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Where It Goes From Here

If so, then here is the book for you!

Several hundred people around the world have been regularly reading this blog. It has served as a rough draft for a book that is now in publication!

The text is considerably built up from what appears in this blog, and it includes some concluding chapters that do NOT appear in the blog. So even faithful readers of the blog have lots more to read. Plus, the Deluxe Edition has a huge selection of beautifully reproduced photographs.

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.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

The Center of the World

Over these Tierras Altas (Highlands) stands the imposing presence of the tallest mountain in Panamá, Volcán Barú, or, as I think of him, Abuelo (Grandfather). By the Ngäbe Buglé inhabitants he is called Kdi, meaning “Big” or “Great”. The name “Barú”, I have been told, is how the Spanish mispronounced Marú, which in the Ngäbe Buglé language refers to the fuerza or fuego del Sol, the power or fire of the Sun. What is more, the valley over which he rules, the valley in which I live, is called in the same language Charaqué (my spelling of the word after listening to my oral sources), which means “The

Valley of the Moon”, and which, mispronounced by the Spanish, gives this province of Chiriquí its name.

These names are appropriate, calling to mind the complementary glories of the sun rising from behind the mountain in the chilly morning and sending its light down into the deeper alpine valleys, and the limpid moon floating over Barú and firing the crags with an invisible sheen of silver. And at sunset, when red and orange beams from the west strike fire upon the rocky

monolith.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

The More the Marry Her

In North America and Western Europe individuals marry each other, and then they put up with their in-laws as best as they can, ignoring them if necessary. However, in Panamá the extended family is still very much in evidence. It was clear to me that I was not going to be able to marry Andrea unless her family entirely approved of me – which, fortunately, they did after each of them met with me, often several times, probing, though always politely, to see what stuff I am made of.

Simply put, I didn’t merely marry an individual, I married a family. Moreover, I did not become through marriage just that eccentric foreigner who wedded the matriarch of the family, a tolerated presence at gatherings of relatives, best ignored. No, I am henceforth a full member of a large Panamanian family, and in fact much more than that: I am the paterfamilias. Already the grandchildren are calling me Abuelo, Grandfather, and when they arrive at the house they run to throw their arms around not just Andrea, but me as well. I often am called upon to guide wisely, to console, and to teach.

In Panamá, at least here in the Tierras Altas, the extended family survives – though I cannot say for how long it will continue to do so as the corrosive arrogating influence of consumeristic “America” laps upward like a flood ever higher on the isthmus. It is marked by much togetherness and much love. My bride Andrea’s children all live in greater Panamá City, putting up with the pollution and traffic and stress because there they can earn more money to support their families. She regularly travels seven or eight hours on the public bus to spend a few days in the city – a couple nights with this child’s family, a couple nights with another, and so on – and she does so joyfully, not complaining as a North American surely would about the lengthy travel and the humidity and heat in the capital.

What is more, every chance these children get, they take some vacation days, pack the children into their cars, and drive the same long highways here to Paso Ancho. Here they bask in the sunny but cool climate, such a relief from la ciudad de Panamá, going fishing or swimming hiking, visiting with friends, or simply lying back in the sunshine with a can of suds. Andrea’s sons look for things they can fix in the house, and her daughters help her with her various cottage industries, making tortillas or duros or knitting.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Village and City

Early in the morning and again at about dusk, pickup trucks rattle down the road near our house. The cargo areas, fitted with rails, are crammed tight with Ngäbe Buglé men or women. They stand upright, silent and unmoving, facing outward. I watch them go by, looking out impassively at the world, in which I am apparently no more or less to be observed than a tree or a rock. Early on I tried waving to them, but they never react; now I content myself with observing them, not staring, just seeing them in as part of the world around me, just as they see me as part of the world around them. They are teaching me how to observe.

They do not complain about being trundled up to the big farms where they work, like so much machinery, which is just about all they are. From the moment they arrive in some rich man’s

fields they start in at breaking their backs through the day, setting out new onions or tearing potatoes from the earth or picking coffee beans from the bushes, either baked raw by the unrelenting sun or soaked to sodden shivers by the rainy season, all for – if they are fortunate – a maximum of about eight dollars a day. So poor are these people that in the rainy season their raincoats consist of black garbage bags, through which they poke their heads and arms.

In the rainy season it never gets particularly warm in this mountain land. Only in the morning is there usually a bit of sunlight – but it hasn’t quite dispelled the cold of night when the afternoon clouds steal across the sky, then hugging each other close until they pour forth the rain. But even in the dry season the relatively thin air here does not retain much heat. For most of the day in that part of the year, only excepting perhaps the height of the afternoon, the sunlight is warm but the air itself is cold – the light feels good on your face, but the sudden breeze reminds you that it’s hardly more than an illusion. Sometimes too, even in the dry season, the breeze bears that weather phenomenon unknown to me in my previous life – the bajareque, the rain blown down from the mountain heights. More often in the dry season it carries dust or sand; through those months I can sweep the floor two or three times a day to keep it reasonably clean. All year round one scents wood smoke in the air, especially in the morning and evening as people cook their meals.

Saturday, March 31, 2012

The Merry Wife of Paso Ancho

In his book The Bloody Tenent (1644) Roger Williams condemned clergy who act as “hirelings of the state” by signing legal documents such as marriage certificates. I have always agreed with his view that our spirituality is a private thing, and government has no business condoning (for instance) who may or may not marry.

Despite Williams, clergy in the United States officiate at a ceremony that is both official and religious, a fact that caused me constant discomfort during my thirty-five years as a pastor. In France, where I attended one wedding, like here in Panamá, there are two separate wedding ceremonies: civil magistrates in their offices see to the formal signing and filing of official legal documents, usually in their offices, and then the bridal party (if this is desired) hies itself to its house of worship for the religious ceremony.

Andrea and I had the pleasure of attending a wedding at the Roman Catholic church in Paso Ancho – a couple who have been living together for about half a century and have a considerable progeny finally decided to get married. The wedding was performed by an affable young priest in the castle-like church whose windows look out on the lovely hills surrounding the village. A rather good guitarist led several hymns, including one set to Paul Simon’s “The Sounds of Silence” (I wonder ifhe knows). There was a huge crowd of Panamanians, plus a handful of gringos, to witness the ceremony. They chitter-chattered, with toddlers wandering at will, nobody paying much attention to the priest – possibly because not many were observant Catholics; only a third or so took communion. But the priest had baskets passed to everyone take a collection – the Empire of Rome still exacts its tribute.

Our own day began early in the morning with my dressing myself in a suit and tie that I had bought at the Roman Catholic mission. By agreement, Andrea and I stayed apart so I would not see the bride beforehand .Friends John and Carmen drove me down to the notary’s office in the city of Davíd. On the way we stopped to buy a dozen roses, white and red, for me to present to the bride as grooms do in Panamá.

As always, it was hot and humid in Davíd. We waited in the waiting room and, in short order, Andrea arrived with family. Her gorgeous wedding dress (handmade by her sister) being saved for later, she was in a lovely gown. We were escorted into the small office of a pretty young notaría, with friends and family members crowding in as well as they could. The notaría began by reading various passages from Panamanian law about the sanctity of marriage. Then she had the couple recite vows – and Andrea and I both burst into tears, much to the amusement of those with us.

Friday, March 30, 2012

A Farmer Ploughed Under by Debt

In Santa Rosa, a quiet village well away from the highways and cities, I visited a farm specializing in milk, rice, and platanos. It is a lovely, quiet place, owned and operated by the same family for generations, is spread out over vividly green hills as full of life a new mother’s breasts, with occasional copses of trees.

I was introduced to the owner, a man in his sixties. His sharply observant eyes were set in a face hardened and lined by weather. His feet stood on the earth the way trees do. He showed us around not with pride but with an unspoken confidence: he didn’t have to convince me that the farm was well-managed because he knew this as well as he knew his own name. He felt no need to hear the polite pompous approbation of a foreigner who probably knows nothing about farming, but like all gringos thinks he knows everything about everything, better than these ignorant Panamanians.

So I was ignored. He went on to discuss with family members the high cost of milking machines, which he said he needs to purchase somehow if he’s going to stay in business. The conversation, in rapid Spanish, was rather technical, with a lot of facts and figures. These people knew their subject; these weren’t ignorant, foolish farm folk, as some people from the urbanized United States might think but sharp-thinking, well-informed agriculturalists. I followed the conversation going on around me as if I weren’t there, and then I offered my own comments.

“It’s similar in the United States,” I told the farmer in Spanish. “Gigantic megafarms, run by huge corporations, are dumping huge amounts of cheap rice and milk on the market in the Northeast and other states. As a result, small farmers in those states are going bankrupt, and their farms being turned into suburban developments or shopping malls. And then, just as soon as these corporations have all the customers to themselves, the prices go up again.”

His eyes widened at my words. I had surprised him, and he was surprised, moreover, that a gringo could surprise him.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Los Aves y las Abejas

Romance, for the Panamanians, begins early in life. Even little girls here are amazingly proficient at the art of coquetry. As they enter their teens the object of their fluttering eyes and big smiles is less their fathers or grandfathers and more the boys their own age. Overwhelmed with rapidly awakening sexual desire, the boys chase the girls for sex. The girls do too, but also for children – if a boy gets a girl pregnant, it’s still traditional here that they will get married. That doesn’t slow down the sexual romps of adolescents, nor does the frighteningly increasing risk of serious venereal disease, including AIDS, succeed in slowing down the quick change of partners.

The traditional Latin chauvinism is very much the way of the game here, as it has been for centuries, from before the Conquistadores set out in their ships. The young men are always quick to flirt with any reasonably attractive young women. Even the younger bus conductors and the stock boys in the grocery store are quick to whisper sweet nothings in the ear of a pretty female, putting their hand just past the girls neck and leaning into the wall behind the girl, their faces just about touching.

It’s all lies, it’s all posturing, and it’s all designed simply (for the males) to maximize the number of sexual partners and (for the females) to select the best future mate; I am reminded of many species of fowl and wild bird and monkey in this land, all doing pretty much the same thing. As they get older, marriage seems to be mainly a practical consideration, with love not really a factor, but for the females stability and income; for the males, it’s about looks and status. (Thus, only occasionally do they even consider a Ngäbe Buglé partner, even though these people are often astonishingly attractive.)

Get James David Audlin's Current Book from Amazon!