Why I Love Panama

I love Panamá. I love the diversity of its people, its sounds and smells. I especially love waking up to all kinds of noises such as birds, the ocean and howler monkeys in the distance. I fall asleep to frogs and insects chirping and when I am really lucky, the battering of intense tropical rain on the roof. Though I have been living in Panama for almost 5 years now, it has not been until recently that I truly feel like Panama is my real home. I now find that I miss Panama and the small island I call home tremendously when I am gone for long periods of time.  

Pinpointing exactly what it is that I miss when I am away from Panama is more of a feeling and way of being rather than one specific reason. When people in the US ask me why I live in Panamá, many of whom cannot locate this small, Central American country on a map, I now find myself reversing the question and asking, why do you live in the US? Let’s be real. There is much that I miss and love about the US, my family and friends being what I cherish and value the most, however, living in Panamá has forced me to question my values in a way in which I previously could not.

The most important lesson I have learned while living in Panamá is that nothing is promised, and it is the greatest gift I have ever received. Life here is a daily experiment in survival for many in the region where I live. Money is valued differently; some days you have it, some days you do not, and many people do not have bank accounts. Access to water is highly dependent on the weather; there are those who can afford rain tanks and those who cannot and depend on intermittent water pulses from the public works. Liking what you do takes precedence over living just to work or striving to be what society considers successful. People on the island tell you the truth even if you are not ready for it. I cannot tell you how many times taxi drivers comment on my weight, my marital status and why I am single (okay, perhaps that is just good ole machismo?). On the street you hear people yell to one another, “Oye, negrito!”, “Que xopa gorda?”, “Hola moreno”, “Mira esa vaina, wappin’ mop”. There is an openness here, based on appearance, that simply would never be accepted in the US without serious offense taken. Additionally, concepts of family, relationships and time are in complete opposition to the US values I grew up with which I have been forced to let go of over the past several years.

Panama as a whole is a collectivistic society which is readily observed in the value of family. Everything revolves around the family unit. The individualistic society that I was born and raised in, whereby I can do whatever I want because I have been taught to have full autonomy over my life and whereby I have been provided with an education to support my individualism, is truly a foreign concept where I live. For women, particularly, the idea that you could run off and travel the world and have full control over your life is simply not an option when you are taught that your family is to be the epicenter of your world. I sometimes wonder if our individualistic US value system has caused more chaos than happiness when I think about the sacrifices I have made in order to live in Panama and see the world; missing my nieces violin performances, not being home for Thanksgiving or being able to maintain deep relationships with my friends in the US. In essence, existing in a somewhat detached state and feeling disconnected from my family unit. I also wonder how our individualistic US culture has led to environmental and cultural degradation in our quest to “find ourselves” in various parts of the world. I see this exhibited here in Panama when well-meaning ex-pats move here in search of their retirement Shangri-La with no intention of giving back to the community, learning the language or getting to know the people or culture of this wonderful island. How is my voyeurism, wanderlust and individualism influencing and impacting the people and places I visit?

In thinking about the two systems I must traverse on a regular basis, that of the US (individualistic) and of Panama (collectivistic), I am learning to value parts of the collectivistic mindset whereby there is a deep understanding that you are not here for yourself, rather, you are here to contribute to the well-being of members within the group you are part of. Though I feel very embraced by the local community and participate in activities, I often feel at odds sometimes because I know that I will never fully be accepted due to my engrained US cultural value system and perhaps my socio-economic status.

When I first arrived in Panama from New York City, I wondered what planet I had beamed down to and whether or not I had made a good move. As an extremely type A, somewhat anxious, analytical person, moving to a town where everything moves quite slowly and responses come over a set of days, weeks or months, not seconds over text, I had some serious wake-up calls. One such example is when my smart phone died randomly. I had purchased it at the local Movistar locale on main street so in my US mind, I thought that I would go back to the store and get a new phone. After all, I had nothing to do with the phone dying. It just died. I walked in and asked if it was possible to receive a new phone. At home, this made sense to me. You walk in, say the phone is not working and voila, new phone (in most cases). The woman in the store looked at me sideways, said that I would need to fill out a form, send the phone to Panama City and wait about two months for it to be reviewed. What? Like seriously, WHAT??!?!?!  I could not believe that this was even a process and I even had the audacity to say, “This is crazy, at home we would just get a new phone.” To which the woman said, “Well, you are not at home, you are in Panama and this is how it works.” There I was with no phone, forced to buy another phone while I waited for my broken phone to be fixed. When my phone did arrive, it had not actually been fixed, and it was an entirely different phone that was not mine. While it seemed like an ordeal at the time, in retrospect, how lucky was I to be able to actually purchase another phone! After this experience, I quickly realized that I was going to need to readjust my expectations whether I felt it was just or not. As someone told me early on when I moved here, “Cinda, you have to dance to the rhythm of the music that’s playing. Sometimes it’s reggaetón, sometimes it’s salsa, sometimes it’s bachata.” That was likely the best advice I have ever received, and it has helped me navigate some seriously suspect situations.

I often find myself butting heads with systems of order that I have come to expect and systems of what I perceive as organized chaos. Whenever I go to the US, I am overwhelmed by systems of hyper-organization. Take for example the lines we wait in at Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods. There are people with flags or flat screen T.V.s telling us how to proceed and what number cashier to approach for payment. Where I live in Panama, you are lucky if you can get to the register without someone cutting in front, cash in hand disrupting the entire line and the supposed system of order. As each person cuts in line, you suddenly realize that this is the “order”.

Have our lives become so orderly in the US that we can no longer handle when disorder happens? I often ask this when confronted with frustrating scenarios in Panama. Take any given sales transaction in the US. We expect our payment cards to work, we expect a please and a thank you, we expect somehow to be treated as kings and queens because we have buying power and because we have even bothered to set foot into a store. In Panama, all of this nonsense is thrown to the wind. Expecting an orderly process is just not realistic. For example, while standing in line at the DMV, all sorts of catastrophes can ensue, particularly my favorite, “Atención, atención, el sistema no funciona!” (Attention! The system is down!). Firstly, what is this so-called “system” that seems to be down all over the country at any given time? Secondly, how long should I wait in this line? Thirdly, I will need another shirt because I have just sweat through this one while standing here in a sea of humanity and heat.

After contemplating jumping the line and cutting everyone, I am jolted back to my senses and realize that being first would also be doomed because everyone behind me would start yelling and telling me that I need to wait my turn. By the way, never cut a line in Panama unless you are prepared to deal with the consequences. This is what I love about Panama and Panamanians. There is a shared sense of strife in certain circumstances that can unite an entire room of strangers. When you hear people in line say, “Ayala vida”, you better be prepared to know that a verbal onslaught, complete with full dissection of the problem, from blaming technology to ultimately cursing the head person in charge, is about to ensue. What I find interesting however, is even through all of the “Ayala vidas” and “Chuletas” and under the breath swearing and physical stammering, people remain patient. They remain in line and wait their turn until “the system” magically returns. There is a tipping point, however. Here, children and adults alike take to the streets to demand action and gain the attention of the government when systems go awry. Watching hundreds of school children go on strike is quite a sight to behold. In the US, we would likely not know what to do. We would run around demanding to see a manager and then threaten to sue. After all, we are customers and we are very very important people. I’ve seen this sort of US attitude go down in spectacular flames over and over again in Panama. I must say it brings a certain joy to me now that it did not when I first moved here. Suerte!

In the five years living here, I’ve learned to shed a lot of my US expectations and to live a more tranquil, go with the flow kind of existence. It is to the point that when I go home and hear what people’s “problems” are, I now get agitated that they even think their “problems” are actual problems. I too have realized that I now agitate some of my friends when I show up late or forget seemingly important details that I no longer find important. What is important is trying to earn enough capital to feed your kids while maintaining your health when you have a 6th grade education and earn less than $20 per day as many of my neighbors here. What is a problem is only being able to purchase 4 slices of Kraft singles cheese and a few hotdogs because you can’t afford to buy the entire package, thereby continuously being gouged by the relentless greed of shop keepers who have complete economic control over your health. These are the problems I see in my neighborhood. It remains challenging to be sensitive to complaints I hear back at home about not having things or not being able to do something when there is relatively every opportunity in the world to make change.  

The individualistic idea that one should have more or that one deserves more simply because of their economic status or education can result in severe unhappiness. I witness this often in working with students from the US who are told that if they achieve a certain level of education and attainment that they will be guaranteed success. I too was caught in this delusional scheme when I was unemployed and living at home in New York City at age 31 after completing my Ph.D. in 2009 at the height of the financial crisis. Somehow, I felt like a failure because I did not have my own apartment and I did not have enough money to be financially independent. How is it possible that I felt like a failure when I had just completed a Ph.D. in marine molecular evolutionary genomics?! I look back at that time and wonder what went wrong. I had to have a serious reality check. I joined a dance company, danced my heart out, and found a group of extremely supportive friends in all sectors of the workforce and at all levels of education. I was able to re-adjust my lens through the art of dance, recognize and reduce the amount of pressure I had put on myself and find greater happiness even without having what I perceived at the time as success.

Ten years later, I still have much to learn about living with less, valuing what is truly important (relationships), and finding balance, but what I absolutely do know is that nothing is promised. In Panama, I have grown accustomed to what I refer to as a “beautiful chaos” in which everyone seems to operate the best they can under systems that to an outsider might appear unruly. Though I write this from a position of extreme privilege, if I had to describe in one word the feeling I have living in Panamá it would be, rapture. Relationships here run deep and are all consuming. There is so much life here and the energy of nature that surrounds me and fills my senses instills a continuous sense of wonder and strength.

(Note: After completing my edits to this post, I read a David Brooks Opinion piece in the NY Times entitled, “The Moral Peril of Meritocracy” published April 6, 2019, in which he describes a moral and spiritual crisis in the US based in what he refers to as ‘individualistic first-mountain culture’. At the end he explains, “Joy involves the transcendence of self…We compete to get near a little sunlamp, but if we lived differently, we could feel the glow of real sunshine. On the second mountain you see that happiness is good, but joy is better.” The key words here are “lived differently”. Some of us are fortunate enough to make choices to live differently and some of us find that we are under serious systems of oppression that greatly limit social mobility. A take away is the power we must find within ourselves to control the ego in order to achieve transcendence and find joy even under the most adverse conditions. The thousands of people currently fleeing Venezuela on foot over hundreds of miles of terrain to reach safety should remind us all that the human spirit is incredibly strong and that what we might consider adversity fails in comparison to the realities of thousands of people across the globe who must walk under dangerous and life-threatening conditions to find even a sliver of happiness. Choose to live differently and positively impact the people and organisms you meet along the way 🦋.)