Books: Don't Kill the Cow Too Quick

Don’t Kill the Cow Too Quick:
An Englishman’s Adventures Homesteading in Panama
by Malcolm Henderson
iUniverse, Inc., New York 2004
230 pp, $19.95 in paperback

Malcolm Henderson, a semi-retired ex-soldier of the former British Empire, has been living on the islands of Bocas del Toro for a little under a decade. That makes him a senior member of the growing community of foreign residents there, and this book is the narrative of how he settled here.

The title comes from a story about slot machines, not cattle.

Slot machines? Yes, slot machines and dominoes, dock accidents and snakes, land transactions and politicians, plane crashes and labor woes, domesticated animals and business owners, bocatoreño ethnology and dinner parties, and..., and.... It’s a personal tale that meanders through the Bocas archipelago and mingles with many strata of local society.

Being a Brit, Henderson doesn’t spell words like “cayuco” and “expatriate” like The Panama News does. He has a reasonable excuse. He hails from that older branch of the English-speaking peoples, the one in which individuals with notable accomplishments in the field of atrocious crime are given titles of nobility (e.g., “The Ripper”) and sent to “gaol.” So open your mind and set aside your American compulsion to require everyone to think, write and be like us. And suspend your Panamanian urge to correct the author’s Spanish usages or dispute his deviations from the approved legends that pass for our country’s history and sociology. This is one man’s honest narrative, and a very entertaining and instructive one at that.

For those who are thinking about moving to the Bocas islands Henderson’s book is invaluable because it gives a flavor of the expatriate life there without the saccharine taste of hype.

Who knows? Maybe at some point he WILL change his priorities in life and try to sell you a piece of the land he has acquired. But if you read this book and then sample some Bocas narratives from International Living or EscapeArtist.com, the difference will be striking, something akin to the contrast between a good TV movie and the commercials.

Even if a lot of people back in his old country might think Henderson a bit odd for moving to Panama, he’s not THAT different from so many of the other foreigners who have been attracted to Bocas as a retirement haven. And thus his experiences and thoughts about crucial issues like health care and the local real estate business will be most useful for others seeking to walk the path that the author has, notwithstanding that this is a collection of adventure stories rather than a guidebook to traveling through or living in the area.

Also in this section:
Books: Heckadon's "Naturalists on the Isthmus of Panama"
Cool Internet sites
Books: Henderson's "Don't Kill the Cow Too Quick"

review

A useful and entertaining narrative
that’s not about cows

review

A useful and entertaining narrative that’s not about cows

A useful and entertaining narrative
that’s not about cows