avoiding the noise

Before writing what belongs under this title, I wanted to add a follow-on to my last post, about feeling unsafe in Brazil.  Purely coincidentally, at the start of the assignment in Colombia that followed Brazil, the security briefing included a sharing of the list of the world's most violent cities (those with the highest murder rates).  I was very surprised to see that Sao Luis, where our country office is located in northern Brazil, is officially the tenth most violent city in the world.  & that Brazil has more cities in the top fifty than any other country.  So my feelings about the place were right.

So, onto today's post - on the left are some pre-Colombian petroglyphs, on a small group of rocks in an unmarked field about an hour's walk along country roads and muddy trails outside of the small village of La Pintada.  My old guidebook had said the petroglyphs were "2km from the cemetery and well-signposted from the plaza" but when I found the plaza there were no signposts and the local policeman had no idea what I was talking about when I asked for directions.  OK, I hadn't done my preparation properly so didn't know the Spanish for "pre-Colombian petroglyphs" but "rocks with drawings on" should have given him a fair idea, surely. But eventually I found someone who thought there was something round the corner and along the turning to the left ... well that got me to the cemetery so I knew I was on the right track, but there the road forked.  Thankfully the guy standing nearby understood immediately, knew which road I should take and said that they were about a twenty minute walk away.

So I walked.  & walked.  In the hot Panamanian sun and 90% humidity.  Clearly not many foreigners walk along that road as one vehicle full of farm workers even stopped to ask if I was okay.  I walked for twenty minutes, and for another ten, and another ten.  People looked at me blankly when I asked about rocks with drawings on, and I was close to giving up and turning back - fifty minutes into the walk - when I saw two people up ahead and decided to ask them as my final shot.  Clearly they knew exactly what I was talking about - there was conversation between them as to which ones to direct me to, and having decided that the ones in the river behind the field were too hard to get to and find, they offered to show me some if only I didn't mind waiting for twenty minutes while they went off and did what they were there for.

Of course I agreed, and sat on a log to read today's Guardian that I had downloaded on my phone whilst in a wifi zone.  When they returned exactly twenty minutes later I felt even more confident. They walked me to their car and we drove back part of the way I had walked then off along a side track, and then a muddy side-track of that.  Then walked through a well-hidden gate and through waist high vegetation in a muddy field - to a pile of nondescript-looking rocks.  With a number of petroglyphs on!  Turns out - would you believe my luck - they were archaeologist/anthropologist consultants!!  I should write to the guidebook company as there is NO WAY anyone without this stroke of luck would have a hope of finding any petroglyphs.

This was the church in the main plaza by the way, which was a pretty little village as you can see.

So why did I get up before 6am this morning and spend a total of seven hours on buses in order to see a few old carvings on some rocks?  Well it was to avoid more of this:

The patriotism holidays - which had started yesterday with fireworks from the government palace at 5am (the sound of the explosions echoing off the buildings around me woke me up and I got up to see what was going on), continued with more fireworks from the same place half an hour after the first lot finished, then with the parades - see above - of endless groups of people sweating in the humid air as they marched through the city banging drums and blowing trumpets.  At an extremely slow pace such that it took the parade five hours to pass my building.  Before the fireworks started again.  I wouldn't have minded at all had this been African-style drumming, that you want to move your hips to, but no this was the American marching band style that Panama now considers its heritage.  I should say that they actually started at 1am, but fortunately not near enough to my building for me to hear them.

These holidays continue on and off through the month - when I got back at 4pm today the parades were still going past, and there were more fireworks this evening.  & from the bus I glimpsed four other parades in the interior of the country.  Yesterday was the celebration of independence from Colombia, today was flag day, tomorrow celebrates the confirmation of independence when the Colombian forces in Colón agreed not to resist (on payment of a $8,000 bribe, apparently!), then on 28 November is the celebration of the first call for independence and then on 10 December the independence from Spain.  Panamanians get very upset if foreigners say anything negative about the celebrations (eg complaining at being woken at 1am by drummers), even though many of them escape to a beach somewhere for the long weekend, so I hope none of my colleagues are reading this.

Independence Day

05:45, and fireworks in the old city signal the start of Independence Day in Panama.  Or rather, the start of the first of five independence-related days.  This, the first, celebrates independence (or separation) from Colombia in 1903, tomorrow the secret manufacture of the country's first flag and the day after that the successful prevention of a fight back by Colombian soldiers.  Then we get a few days back at work, before next week we celebrate the first cry of the fight for independence from Spain, and then finally at the end of the month the actual independence from Spain in 1821.  I hope they don't all start off with a 'wake-up call' at 5:45 in the morning.

After the fireworks we had a flypast of three jets, then another of seven helicopters.  I was wondering how many people get up to watch this, but by the time it finished the sky was flushed pink with the first light of the morning so I didn't go back to bed but made myself an early breakfast.

With my boxes having arrived from Senegal just before my last trip, I had borrowed a drill for the weekend from a colleague, so prepared myself for a day of putting up hooks for pictures and masks.  Only - the first obstacle - the flex of the drill was not long enough, so I went out to the DIY store to buy an extension cable.

On the way back I could hear drumming coming from the streets behind my building, so the DIY had to wait as I went to take a look at the Independence Day parades.  To Panamanians all this is of huge significance.  Apparently a few years ago the government made some noises about reducing the number of independence-related public holidays and there was uproar all over the country - not because they didn't want to lose a public holiday but because they didn't want to lose opportunities to express their patriotic fervour.

On that basis you might expect a lot of pomp and ceremony, or at least a lot of cheering and celebration, but really the only demonstration of patriotism is the proliferation of Panamanian flags at this time: flying from all the buildings, sticking out of car windows, hanging from backpacks...  The parade itself was quite dull, I thought.  Lots of drumming, but not in the African way that makes you want to sway your hips and tap your feet, but rather columns of school and college students in uniform banging out military style rhythms.  Between the drummers were girls dressed like cheerleaders, twirling batons, and with each group at least one woman dressed in the frilly white national dress, the pollera.

A couple of Panamanian colleagues have told me how beautiful their national costume is, but I'm afraid frilly white dresses don't do it for me.  I'm also disappointed at how much it seems to draw on their Spanish colonial heritage, resembling to my inexpert eye a white version of a flamenco dress - they also wear peinetas in their hair and many were using Spanish-style fans.  & the marching bands and cheerleaders draw so heavily on US culture.  There was no hint of local instruments or rhythms, nor anything I could see in the dress that drew on the customs of the various indigenous groups in Panama.

So I went home again, and back to my DIY.  I must say the flat is starting to look much more homely!