front page

The rains are heavy now, so heavy that just about every work day I have to deploy the buckets to catch the rain that comes through the roof at the Edificio Muchachas Guias in Perejil, where The Panama News maintains its office and where I sleep most nights.

(The Muchachas Guias --- Girl Scouts to translate into English and its American affiliate's name --- have been raising money for some time to fix the problem. They still need more funds, and are also seeking in-kind donations of building materials and looking mainly to some of the parents of the girls in their programs who have construction jobs to donate some of the labor. The problem is that it's an old building and the soggy wood herein has been very delicious for the termites for some years now, so the new roof is just the necessary starting point for the much more comprehensive and expensive renovation job that's needed. The building is the national Muchachas Guias headquarters, and the rent paid by the tenants --- this publication, the Teachers of English as a Second Language, a psychologist who conducts group therapy sessions twice a week and SAMAAP, which conducts Saturday afternoon quadrille dancing lessons downstairs --- does help to defray their expenses. But I think that the Muchachas Guias would be on a much sounder financial footing if they could rent out their campground north of Penonome for a few weeks a year to Girl Scout groups from North America and Europe. It is, after all, an international movement.)

Do not misunderstand me. I am not complaining. In fact, the holidays are upon us and I am celebrating.

Maybe too much, looking at the bulging waistline. However, I will be celebrating Thanksgiving.

Then, on the evening of November 27, the bomberos will hold their annual torchlight parade up Via España from the banking district and down Avenida Central to Plaza Cinco de Mayo, which is named not after the Mexican holiday but for the martyred firefighters who died in the El Polvorin explosion. If you like the bombero bands --- and I have ever since I was a little kid --- this is the time to see them all in action. (For those North Americans unfamiliar with the concept, understand that Panama's fire departments have cores of full-time professional bomberos, augmented by much larger groups of volunteers. We do have an American football scene here, but it's a minor sport in Panama and we do not have college marching bands to put on halftime shows. The sorts of talented young men and women whom US universities recruit for their marching bands tend to be wooed by the various fire brigades, to sign up as volunteers and play in the bombero bands. I think that the Americans have an easier sell --- university scholarships in many cases, and no need to do scary things like run into burning buildings from which everybody else in their right minds would if possible flee. But then, that's why people in my neighborhood line the streets to cheer the bombero bands --- they not only put on a cool show in the November parades, but they are ready to risk their lives for us on a moment's notice.

November 28 is the anniversary of Panama's independence from Spain, after which this country quickly threw in its lot with South America's Great Liberator, Simón Bolívar, whose dream of a Gran Colombia encompassing Venezuela, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador was shattered by greedy politicians, aspiring tyrants and the never-ending violence the broke Bolívar's heart and continues in Colombia to this very day. On November 3, 4 and 5 we celebrated Panama's separation from Colombia's madness, and even if the occasional pronouncement from Washington suggests that this country really needs to plunge back into that mess and back the side that the Pentagon supports, every November we remind ourselves of why that's not a good idea.

Then comes what's arguably the most sacred of Panamanian holidays, our version of Mothers' Day, which happens every December 8th on the Catholic Day of the Immaculate Conception. ("Conception," you guys --- only a relatively tiny fringe of isthmian society remembers, let alone celebrates, that amazing pass that Franco Harris caught to give the Pittsburgh Steelers the win way back when.) Anyway, on December 8 Panama City will be something of a ghost town as just about everyone will be headed to the Interior to be with Mom, at the beach, or in many cases both.

Then, of course, there is Christmas (which, unlike the ignorant statement made recently on CNN, we celebrate here on December 25 rather than January 6). Increasingly, Embera baskets like the one shown above are showing up under Christmas trees around the world. Go to the arts section for our cover story to see more examples of this ancient indigenous art form.

Hard on the heels of Christmas come New Year's, the January 9 Day of the Martyrs that honors those who died so that Panama would be master of its own house, and Carnival, which is February 5-8 in the coming year. (Those Panamanians who argue that Mothers' Day is not our most sacred holiday generally give that honor to Carnival Tuesday, a phenomenon which the Catholic Church to which most Panamanians belong finds most appalling.) If history is any guide, however, a lot of you who are right now reading this words in a chillier latitude will be down here for the party.

The Panama News will also have reason to celebrate, as the end of this year marks our 10th birthday. I need to look at available resources, both human and material, and come up with a fitting observance. Our September fundraiser, which was sabotaged by somebody who got us screened out by many filter programs as if we were a pornographic or neo-Nazi website, didn't generate the income that would allow us to resume regular print publication. That is, however, this newspaper's 10th anniversary goal, even if just for a special issue.

So is everything Panamanian a tale of joy and celebration at the moment?

Not at all, and the leaky roof is at most a minor annoyance compared with the continuing and deepening scandals associated with the former government, some very unjust prison sentences handed down to two hospital workers because cancer patients received radiation overdoses due to faulty software supplied by a malpracticing American corporation, an obnoxious Colon bus syndicate action that threatens our very important tourism industry and the resurfacing and aggravation of irritants in US-Panamanian relations during Donald Rumsfeld's visit here.

In the neighborhood where our office is located, we has a robbery and shooting --- very rare for Perejil --- and subsequent neighborhood mobilization. As this issue was uploaded Luis Chan, who along with his wife and daughters runs the Mini-Super Sol Dorado, is not out of the hospital but it does seem that he will survive. The sensationalist tabloids concentrated on the bloody violence, but in the community section of The Panama News I look at the neighborhood's response, which is in many ways instructive about several aspects of Panamanian society.

We have a larger than usual opinion section this time, mainly because since the previous issue Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat passed on to the hereafter and the likes of Fox News and AOL/Time/Warner/CNN ranged from shallow to downright creepy in both their reporting on Arafat's legacy and the breadth of opinions that they allowed to be stated. We can't and don't give space to the full range of opinions --- if you want Likudnik racism then go to Fox, or if you are an anti-Semite you can get those kind of views from various neo-Nazi websites --- but give space to important voices that are ignored by the corporate mainstream. For example, the Israeli Peace Bloc (Gush Shalom) has one opinion and the leftist American Rabbi Michael Lerner a different one, while the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee weighs in on US media coverage (much of which we can see down here) and I --- a supporter of Palestinian statehood for all of my adult life --- consider the sort of leader Arafat was and the sort of person George W. Bush seems to be demanding as his replacement.

The Palestinians, of course, are not the only people who persevere despite being deprived of their home. It was neither an act of war nor of political repression that brought the government wrecking crew to Calidonia's Casa de Mimbre, but there, too, we see an uplifting tale of small-time business artisans tenaciously holding onto their little businesses and hoping for better times.

Better times definitely are coming. This time next month, for example, the rains ought to be letting up. And as surely as dry season comes, I know that some of you readers abroad will take the occasion to come down here and drink of the Rio Chagres.

Enjoy.

Eric Jackson
the editor

PS: Yep, parts of this issue are late, as usual. Most of this edition is finished, however, so read what's up, understand why some of the links don't work, and then come back to see the things that were uploaded.

Back to top