dirty devils in Los Santos village

There are fairs and festivals around Panama all the time.  Looking in the newspaper, this week sees the Festival of the Mango in Rio Hato, the Flower Fair in Limon, the Fair of the Dairy Cattle in Monagrillo and the VI San Francisco of the Mountain Festival in Veraguas.  Whilst these are much more representative of the 'real Panama' than the shopping and fast food culture of the capital, I'm not really that tempted to spend hours on a bus to see a mango festival.

However there is a period of two weeks when the village of Los Santos holds various parades and dances involving quite impressive costumes, and I decided it might be worth travelling to check it out.  Mostly the parades start in the late afternoon, coinciding with the departure of the last bus back to Panama City, but on the Thursday of Corpus Christi they are around the middle of the day, following the Corpus Christi mass in the village church.  Well, the festivities actually start at 3am, with "buscando el torito".  This translates as 'looking for the little bull', which sounds for all the world to me like a game that married couples should play in the privacy of their bedroom, and with no accommodation in Los Santos in any case, I decided to give that a miss.  But I was up at 5:30 to get to the bus terminal for a bus that eventually got me to within walking distance of Los Santos by 11am.  & when I got to the village square, this is what I saw:

The streets were covered with leaves, rice husks and coloured little stones making colourful 'carpets' all around the main square.


This was where the parades were to take place, although when I arrived a set of speakers outside the church were still blasting out the service, so I had time to visit the little museum, and get myself a coffee.  There appeared to be only four other tourists in the place, but hundreds of locals, some in the red-and-black striped devil costume, holding their masks or hanging them on tree branches until the time was ready to start.

Then finally the procession came out of the church, firstly the priests and their assistants, but behind them were the devils.  The diablicos sucios (dirty devils) that the festival is known for, but also white devils, an angel, some transvestites, and various other costumes which I couldn't identify.  Although a little concerned by the number of macaw feathers in the masks, I was impressed.  Here are a few of them:

It was over pretty quickly, and by 13:15 I was queuing for a small local bus back to the long-distance bus terminal - finally getting home at 20:15.  So a very long day of travel - and no-one to explain to me what all the different costumes represented - but nevertheless a great day out.  I need to get out of the city more often!

which is the real Panama?

I continued my quest to find some 'normal' friends here in Panama, but have finally concluded that (amongst the expat community at least) there aren't any here.  That this is a kind of 'wild west' place that people come to when a normal, regular life is not exciting enough for them.  So I had best just enjoy the entertainment that they offer.  Although not the Ku Klux Klan supporter, nor the Trump supporter who recently shared a video suggesting that Prince died as a blood sacrifice of the illuminati ... really, I am not making any of this up.

I would certainly avoid the very nasty end of the spectrum of people who make themselves a new life here.  The paedophiles of whom I have been told there are plenty, but in Panama (at least in the poorer parts of the country) they can buy off the parents of the children they abuse, so even when their embassies know they are here, and know their history, they can do nothing as no-one is reporting any offence.  There are also expats who try to defraud other expats - largely over property; I understand that quite a few expats have paid over relatively large sums to buy properties off-plan, only to find later that the so-called developer never had proper title to the land so the development never had a chance.  Apparently the courts are very unwilling to take up 'expat-on-expat' crimes (probably because neither side will offer them a bribe - the legal system is very corrupt here), so the perpetrators tend to get away with it.

I was offered a financial product with a 16% return by an expat.  No way I would have gone for it, but I was curious as to what was going on so asked him how it was possible to pay such a high return (plus his commission for selling the investment), and he replied that they lend the money on at 30%.  so basically loan-sharking.  I must have hidden my cynicism quite well as he then offered me 1% if I could sell such an investment to any expats.  Don't call me...

I did see in the local newspaper that the Superintendent of Securities is investigating one financial group here, who are apparently offering a product which gives a 70% profit in 30 seconds.  As I said, a real wild west kind of place!

On the larger scale however, the Panama Papers, there is some impact on regular lives - mine at least.  The money I've saved since I've been in this job - effectively my pension - is mostly invested through a UK financial platform (and declared on my tax return!).  Two weeks ago I tried to pay in some more funds, and was told they would not accept any more money from me because of my residency in Panama, now considered a high risk jurisdiction.  I tried to explain that they had this the wrong way round, that the risk was in UK residents trying to invest offshore, not in non-residents trying to invest in the UK, but they weren't having any of it and I've had to go elsewhere.  Meaning another appointment at the British Embassy to get another certified copy of my passport and rental contract to prove my identity and address to a new institution.  All of which takes time, costs money, and is intensely frustrating.

There is now more than just the Panama Papers, however.  I'm not sure how much of this will have reached the international news, but the US just ten days ago named two Lebanese-Panamanian brothers as drug kingpins, and put them and their 68 companies on the Clinton List. These companies include a bank, a luxury shopping mall in Panama City, a Sheraton hotel, a chain of department stores, a chain of electronics stores, and the largest chain of duty free stores in Latin America.  The bank had to be taken over rapidly by the Panamanian banking authorities (although the US have now removed the bank from the list, having discovered that they were the ones to appoint the brothers when they locked up the previous owners...), the shopping mall is being wound up, and it seems that the other businesses will all have to close too, costing thousands of Panamanian jobs.  The American Embassy sent out notifications to all US citizens living in Panama that they are forbidden to shop in any of these places, on pain of a fine of over $1 million (!), and the companies are unable to accept US credit cards.  I didn't understand (apart from the bank and the duty free shops) how this would have much of an effect on them, but I went into one of the department stores yesterday morning just to see what was going on, and they told me they can no longer accept any credit cards, only cash, and I read that they are preparing fire sales of their stock prior to closure.  One of the brothers was on the board of Panama City's international airport, resulting in a $630 million bond sale  to fund its expansion having to be cancelled last week as Citibank pulled out.  The bond sale later went ahead after the brother was removed from the board, but then only for $575 million and they had to offer a higher interest rate.  So from being a real financial success story, Panama's fortunes seemed to have diminished almost overnight.

People are getting jittery too.  There was a bit of a panic last weekend when none of the ATMs were dispensing cash for a while, and Friday evening a newspaper article from Curaçao went viral here reporting that two of the largest Panamanian banks (including mine) had lost their US correspondent banks (meaning the end for them, given that Panama uses the US$) ... turned out that the story was a load of rubbish, but still we are all waiting to see what will be next.

So is the classic shot of the city above the real Panama (and is it sustainable)?  Or is that just one of these

hiding, some four streets away, the real Panama that looks like this?

more friends, and those papers...

Back in Panama after a couple of trips, the saga of strange Americans continues.  I haven't seen my two Trump-supporting 'friends' again, but have managed to meet some other Americans without such extreme views.  Well, if you are a Republican then maybe you think a Bernie supporter is extreme, but being well to the left myself  I feel in good company with these people. We've had a few conversations about social justice which have given me a nice warm feeling to know there are other people who see the world in the same way that I do.

But I had perhaps been lulled into a bit of a false sense of security.  Last night I was out at another of these expat social events and found myself in conversation with the two nice Bernie-supporting friends, and eventually, I'm not really sure how, the conversation turned to 9/11 - the terrorist attack on the twin towers.  Only I was the only one who thinks it was a terrorist attack. Apparently the towers collapsed through controlled demolitions set up by the US authorities working with the Jewish lobby, to cover up a loss by the Pentagon of $1 trillion and to justify an invasion of Afghanistan.  I asked about the aeroplanes which had been seen flying into the towers.  Holograms, apparently.

What can you say?  They are both nice people, and I hope that if they read this they will still want to be friends with me, but really!  I went into work this morning wanting to share this story with someone, and the natural target was my American-born staff member, until it occurred to me that she has a belief that I find even less credible than holograms of planes - that there is some guy up in the sky who created us all (and the world we live in), who loves us all and who has absolute power, but who does nothing to prevent wars, terrorists, painful diseases or offshore shell companies...

Well, how could a resident of Panama not mention the Panama papers?

Not that being resident here has given me any insight beyond that in all the international press.  I do though see the frustration here that the image of the country is being tarnished, many seeing it as unfair that the name of the country is used rather than just the name of the law firm concerned. However it is the extreme secrecy protected by law here that has facilitated the business of Mossack Fonseca, and members of both the Mossack and Fonseca families are amongst the government's ministers and advisors.  So I don't believe the country can legitimately wash its hands of responsibility.

Ironic then that it is so hard for regular expats like myself (ie not the 1%) to even open a bank account.  It took me six months and reams of paperwork to get mine, and some expat colleagues have never succeeded, resigning themselves to run their lives here on a cash basis.  I already feel like a bit of a pariah when I see the attitudes in the UK towards Buy-to-Let landlords - although I was a Buy-to-Live-in owner who just happened to go to work abroad and didn't want to leave my flat sitting empty for ten years (which surely would be worse in terms of social justice when there is such a housing shortage?).  Now I will not only be embarrassed to admit that I am a landlady, but also embarrassed to admit where I live.  Do I have to change the name of this blog to louisesomewhereincentralamerica?

choosing your friends carefully

One downside to my lifestyle, as I mentioned recently, is the loneliness that comes with it. Whilst I accept this as a trade-off worth making to enable me to do what I do, that doesn't mean I don't continue to make efforts to meet people, particularly through attending events organised for people like me, such as Internations and Meet-Up, and responding to messages on Internations or the Expats in Panama facebook group.

You quickly learn not to waste time trying to make friends with Panamanians.  Not that they are not nice people - they are - but they have very extensive families, and family friendships that go back decades, and they really have no space for foreigners to join their social circles.  So while they'll be friendly to you, they won't invite you in.

So you have to look for other foreigners.  Most of these are pretty closed groups (the Chinese, the Lebanese, the Venezuelans, for example), but the one group of people who are relatively welcoming to outsiders are the Americans.  Of whom there are a lot in Panama.  So my attempts to find friends in Panama involves me interacting with quite a few Americans.

Now I don't want to get all anti-American on here - I have met plenty of really nice American people over the years.  But Panama seems to attract a particular type of American.  You can see it on the facebook group, from this type of post: "I'm planning to retire to Panama and wonder if any of you kind folks can answer a few questions - (1) will I be able to avoid paying US taxes? (2) will I be able to bring my gun into the country? (3) are there any church groups I can join? (4) why don't the Panamanians working in restaurants provide the kind of service we're used to in the US?"  Not my type of people.  But beggars can't be choosers so I still make the effort to follow up with any American who makes overtures of friendship towards me.

But how far do you go in compromising?  I now have one American friend, a retired lady, who recently turned our conversation to the subject of politics.  OK, so she's a Trump supporter, well I almost suppressed my grimace and asked why.  It seemed to come down to her dislike of Obama - who she told me is a communist.  When I questioned that she assured me that it is true, "because he comes from Kenya".  Then she informed me that his government are trying to indoctrinate the children in communist views in schools up and down the country.  I changed the subject and have continued the friendship but avoiding the subject of politics.

Then recently another American took things further.  He started by telling me how he doesn't like Hispanics (so why does he live in Panama?), and maybe that should have rung alarm bells, but we continued the conversation.  He was also a Trump supporter - because of the proposed wall to keep Mexicans out.  He assured me that Obama is a Muslim, and explained how he is about to bring 30,000 refugees into the US from Africa.  "Really?  What part of Africa?" I asked.  "Yemen" he replied.

But it got a lot worse as he went on to give me his views on African-Americans.  Only he didn't use that term, he used a word beginning with N that I cannot even bring myself to write.  He then told me a bit about how big the Ku Klux Klan is in his part of the US (Alabama).  I couldn't really believe what I was hearing, but it was kind of fascinating in its awfulness - a bit like a big hairy spider that you want to get away from but at the same time are compelled to keep staring at just because it is so awful.  So whilst I made it clear that I didn't share his views, and told him how I used to live in Africa and loved it (he was briefly lost for words at that!), I kept it civil.  But then later wondered whether I had done the wrong thing - whether I should have expressed horror and disgust as soon as he started on the racism and walked away.

Now I've received a message that he wants us to meet again.  I've put off the decision by explaining that I'm currently on assignment in El Salvador, but am wondering what to do when I get home.  In some ways I am tempted to go back for more, to hear why he holds such views (and to find out if he was actually a Ku Klux Klan member - I couldn't bring myself to ask him last week) as it is probably (indeed hopefully) a once in a lifetime opportunity to hear first-hand why people like him hold the views they do.

But is that wrong?

I don't believe I am in a position to either encourage his views nor to change his mind, so in that sense it makes no difference whether we meet up again or not.  & if you can't find friends whose company you actually enjoy then why not spend a bit of time with a bigot whose company you find interesting?  If you had the chance to have anyone, dead or alive, as a dinner guest, would you just go for someone nice?  Or would you think about choosing someone like Adolf Hitler or Pol Pot so as to hear what they had to say?  Maybe in the end my decision will be driven not by what is morally correct but by practicalities - not wanting to invite someone like that into my home but being scared to meet him somewhere public in case anyone nearby can speak English and understand what he is saying. Any views gladly accepted but civilly, please - any abusive comments will just be deleted.

South American Jesuit missions

I had a weekend in Paraguay when I didn't need to work, and having read that the ruins of the Jesuit mission in Trinidad, in southern Paraguay, was the least visited UNESCO World Heritage Site in the world, I just had to go there.

It was a seven hour bus ride to Encarnación, and another hour from there on to Trinidad, but I left the capital early so still had plenty of time to look round when I finally arrived in Trinidad, even though the bus driver told me to get off at the wrong stop, adding a one-hour walk to my travel time.

The ruins were nice - not many visitors but I still can't believe fewer people come here than to UNESCO sites in, say, Iran or Burkina Faso.  One of the aspects of these ruins that stand out is the stone carvings - see here the angels around the inside of what must have been the nave.

The Jesuits became pretty powerful in South America.  They didn't work the locals to death but gave them a choice of either paying tribute and continuing their old way of life, or coming 'under the wing' of the Jesuit missionaries.  This involved the adoption of a pretty austere lifestyle, with early morning starts, hard work in the fields, adoption of Christianity and lots of prayers.  They were also allowed to raise and train militias, to defend the settlements against raids.  Their economic success and the success of their militias, however, started to be seen as a threat by the secular authorities, and in 1767, the Spanish King Carlos III expelled the Jesuits from the Spanish South American colonies.

Most, including the one in Trinidad, fell into ruins, but a number in the Chiquitanía province of what is now Bolivia were largely maintained by the indigenous Indians who continued to live in the settlements.  So two weeks after my visit to Trinidad, I went to take a look at three of the missions in Bolivia.

First I went to San Jose de Iquitos, the closest in style to Trinidad as this was built of stone.  It was impressive, and had some rather fine paintings on the walls along the interior corridors. Apparently these were saved from ruin because the local population stayed on, which is pretty surprising given that these had largely been nomadic people before the Jesuits arrived just twenty years earlier.

Then a week later I visited the missions at Concepción and San Javier, also preserved and still used, even though rather more fragile as built not of stone but of wood and adobe.  This is the interior of the mission at Concepción, showing the carved wooden pillars and the ornately painted walls.  Little obvious similarity to those I'd visited before, apart perhaps from the open interior design of the church.

I couldn't get to see inside San Javier, unfortunately, as it was still carnival weekend and the lady with the key was off partying.  But even on the outside I could see once again the spiral carved wooden pillars and ornate painted walls.  Although not religious, I still enjoyed visiting these buildings and wished I'd had time to go to the other half dozen in Bolivia.

carnival in Oruro

The carnival in Oruro, Bolivia, is one of the few events on UNESCO's list of "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" that it is feasible to visit.  Made easier for me by the two public holidays in Panama for our own carnival.  So I bought flights to and from Santa Cruz, in southern Bolivia, and booked myself a homestay with a Bolivian family in Oruro for this year's carnival.

However getting there was not to be as simple as I'd hoped, this being Bolivia.  The internal flight from Santa Cruz to Sucre was easy (and cheap, at $47!), despite the near riot from the people queuing at the next check-in desk when they heard their flight to Argentina had been delayed for two days... But getting from Sucre to Oruro required a bus.  & the heavy goods freight drivers had gone on strike, blockading all of the main intercity routes in the country with their vehicles.  Everyone assured me that the government and drivers would reach some kind of accommodation so as to enable the blockades to be lifted in time for carnival, but some of the drivers were holding out, and when I got on my bus at 20:30 the Thursday before carnival, I still wasn't 100% sure I would reach my destination.

Our route was via Potosí, and we were due to arrive in Oruro around 4am.  So when we pulled to a halt during the night and someone said we were in Potosí I was not concerned, and managed to drift in and out of sleep over the next few hours.  In fact for more hours than I expected, as it was 6am when I gave up the idea of more sleep and realised the time, and that we were clearly not in Oruro.  It turned out we were parked in the queue of vehicles waiting to get through the blockade into Potosí, where we had been for most of the night.  Our driver offered to take us back to Sucre, or to sit in the queue all day in the hope that the blockade would be lifted, but somehow the passengers persuaded him to take the bus along a small dirt track (in no way suitable for buses!) around the mountainside, to find an alternative route into Potosí.  We made it, but then coming out the other side on the Oruro road we hit another blockade.

At this point the only option was to get off the bus, take our luggage, and walk the length of the queue, through the blockade, and hope there was some onward transport the other side.  A stream of people were walking towards us having done the same thing in the other direction, and locals were making a Boliviano or two through renting out wheelbarrows to those with plenty of luggage.

Thankfully it was downhill all the way (a 2km walk with luggage at an altitude of 4,000m!), and was not raining, and I made it (without a wheelbarrow!) - finally getting into Oruro at 4pm, only 12 hours late.

& it was all worthwhile.  Add the Oruro carnival to your bucket list!!

Starting around 7am on the Saturday, the main parade lasts around twenty hours, apparently.  I stayed for twelve hours but was too tired following my night in the bus to stay until the end.  But what I saw was amazing.  Oruro carnival is not about wearing skimpy outfits to show off one's physique, but about ancient myths, fables and traditions intermingled with elements of Christianity, and this is reflected is the most incredible and colourful costumes and masks.

The most spectacular masks are those of the devils (diabladas) - in the title photo above but there is also this lighter female version here.  There are also dancers representing rheas (although multicoloured versions!), black slaves, inca chiefs, bulls, bears, condors, and other costumes and dances that recall specific battles (real or mythical) or stages in the country's history.

Specialists work all year to create the costumes and masks, which cost the dancers quite a lot of money, and to be honest the colour and spectacle of it all is quite overwhelming.  There are bands too, mostly brass bands with drummers, but a number of Andean pan pipes were also in evidence.  According to some local figures I read, some 35,000 dancers and 6,000 musicians take part, which is why it takes them twenty hours for all to cover the 3km route.  Apparently most are exhausted by the end, but on the Sunday they get to go into the Church of Virgin of the Grotto (to whom the carnival is dedicated) for a blessing and I was assured that devotion to the Virgin is as big a motivation for those taking part as the party element of the whole thing.

I suppose I would still happily seize the opportunity to see the Rio carnival, but I cannot see that it could possibly be any better than this one.

a final post on Antarctica

I don't feel that my posts on Antarctica and South Georgia were really that coherent, but they are places that assault the senses rather than the intellect, and that for me is quite difficult to capture in writing.  Many of the boat crew are of the opinion that visiting Antarctica changes your view of the world; it didn't do that for me - perhaps I'm just too well-travelled for any one place to have that strong an effect on me now - but it seems that it has left me lost for words.

If I had listened more attentively to the lectures on board and other information shared with us (or rather if I had retained the information, which seemed to go in one ear and out the other), I could write about Shackleton and other Antarctic explorers, or about the whaling and sealing industries, or the Antarctic Treaty, or the eradication of rats on South Georgia.  But all I can really add to my earlier posts is that Antarctica is a stunningly beautiful place - and add a couple more photos as no words I can write will do it justice.