There was clearly to be no hope of getting to sleep on Tuesday night, after Panama qualified, for the first time ever, for the World Cup. After last Friday's 4-0 defeat to the USA the team was all but mathematically out of the competition. This was not a surprise to the Panamanians - after all, with a population of just 3.5 million, what hope did they ever have of reaching the World Cup? Tuesday night's game was really just a formality - of course it was possible that they would beat Costa Rica, but so what? I mean who could possibly have predicted that at the same time the USA would lose 2-1 to little Trinidad & Tobago?
I wasn't watching the game on TV. Why would I? But from the great cheers I heard from the street outside I knew Panama had won the game, and as the volume went up - the traffic gridlocked with horns blaring and music blasting out (above a photo looking down on what is normally an endless stream of traffic along the Panamerican Highway) - I wondered whether something unusual had happened, and checked in to the usually endless stream of pointless messages on the Panama Expats WhatsApp group to learn the exciting truth. Well, exciting for the multitudes that thronged the streets until 4am celebrating - to be honest, I cared more about the fact that I couldn't sleep through the noise, although at least I knew I didn't have to go to work in the morning, with the President having decided at midnight to declare a public holiday. Some didn't know, and turned up to locked offices in the morning, others sat at home cursing the cancellation of conferences, meetings and appointments they had made weeks before, bosses of companies that were obliged to open no doubt cursed the fact that the law requires them to pay 2.5 times the normal daily pay to staff working on a public holiday, as well as granting them a day off in lieu. & many, perhaps the majority, continued through their unexpected day off celebrating their country's achievement.
It highlights how detached I feel from this country that has been my home for 4.5 years that I really didn't feel anything about the qualification, merely annoyance at having my work plans for Wednesday mucked up. Looking back to my time in Senegal, I know I would have been celebrating with them, and I often ask myself why I have failed to 'bond' in the same way with my current home. It's not that I don't appreciate the wonderful bird life (this pic on the right taken just last week), or the 60Mbps download speed I get with my 'standard' home internet connection, or the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Casco Viejo that I can see from my balcony, or the variety of different activities on offer here (last weekend I went to a 'bat night' at the Smithsonian to hear all about bats and take a close look at a couple that flew into the mist net during the talk), or the local food (sweet potatoes and fried ripe plantain will forever be a part of my diet!) ... it's just, well, the place has no real local character. It may be different in a small farming community somewhere out in the hills, but Panama City is so much a hub, a transit place, with so many foreigners and international companies, that it doesn't seem to have any identity of its own. & I do appreciate that London could be described in the same way whilst being, to me, the best city in the world ... but it still has character. Which really Panama City doesn't. I think I've said this before, but it wants too much to be Miami (traffic, high-rise buildings, shopping malls, fast food joints), without celebrating what it has of its own.
To think that the old buildings like this:
have nearly all been knocked down to be replaced with these:
(and I do have some
much less flattering pictures of the skyscrapers here) is sad. In these tall buildings, no-one knows their neighbours - in fact many don't have neighbours as half the flats are empty, either victims of an over-ambitious construction sector or, more likely, money-laundering vehicles.
There is also the factor of Panama's short history. Colonised by Spain, then independent but as part of Colombia, then effectively colonised by the USA, its indigenous people seen as backward or at best as tourist draws, rather than as a source of cultural pride. Plus, as noted above, the country's role as a crossroads, with both the canal but also the 'hub of the Americas' airport with Copa being probably the main airline of the whole region.
In other, different countries, the history of the relationship with the US might have served as a uniting factor. The overarching point of dispute being the 5 mile US-controlled zone either side of the canal - which was an unincorporated territory of the USA from 1903 until 1979, and then jointly controlled until 1999 - with the Zonians having all the comforts of 'home' and Panamanians needing permission to enter it when they wanted to cross their own country - Martyrs Day is still celebrated on 9 January to commemorate the death of 28 people in 1964 when riots followed a bunch of Panamanian students trying to raise a Panamanian flag within the Zone.
Then of course there was the US invasion of Panama in 1989 to get rid of General Noriega. Not that many Panamanians supported Noriega, but his rise had been supported by the US, and the invasion destroyed property and the lives of civilians in the slum district of El Chorillo in Panama City. This bit of city-centre graffiti commemorates that day:
("National Hurt: on the 20th December 1989 the Yankee army invaded this country and killed innocent people. Until today it isn't known how many went. The wound is still open.") but I've never met anyone who seems to hold a grudge about it. I suppose it is countered by the money that the canal brings in, the number of people with some US blood from the canal zone days, and of course the cultural dominance of the USA generally in Central America.
I'm sure there are many things I will miss when I finally move on, but I'll always feel a little sad that I always felt like a visitor here, and never like it had become my home.
The first half of the proceedings took place on a stage, with an announcer at the side introducing the various different groups in their polleras (the Panamanian national dress for women) dancing in traditional style to the cumbia music played live by a group of musicians beside the stage, and reminding us repeatedly that this was Panamanian Culture. I don't really like the pollera - too frilly and fussy for me - nor do I like cumbia (an accordian and drums with the occasional seemingly random yodel thrown in), but it was fun to see everyone dressed up and enjoying themselves, and some of the young girls did look very pretty.
