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opinion

Also in this section:
Meneses, Blacks excluded from Panama's Caribbean culture presentation
Jackson, Even the miserable Henry Ford...
Henderson, The bochinche culture
Hassan, Panamanians don't burn their flag
Gutman, Telling kids about the bogeyman
Morrow, Multinational drug company loses a battle in Brazil
Greenpeace, Shutting down coal exports
Schaffer, Tarker & Morrow, New US subsidy to Cuban-American right wingers
Bernal, The university demiurge
Leis, Illiteracy's facets and effects

Bochinche

by Malcolm Henderson

"Nobody will keep the thing he hears to himself, and nobody will repeat just what he hears and no more."

Lucius Annaeus Seneca 4 BC - 65 AD

"Have you heard the latest" she asks moments after her deliberately late arrival at the social gathering. "Wait till you have heard this. You won't believe it but I know it is true. Martin has a next woman." Everyone crowds around.

Bochinche (gossip) is typical of any small town. On a par with jockeys, ball players and boxers, Panama produces some the world's top class bochinche players.

These players are semi-professionals because the skilled bochinchero is rewarded in the form of free meals. Few hostesses fail to include a talented bochinchero amongst their guests and a player with the reputation of never failing to titillate the imagination is seldom without an engagement.

To maintain the flow of new information, a skilled bochinchero employs a number of "sapos" (spies), who report any happening that could possibly have implications worth amplifying. The first line spies are regulars; others are recruited on a temporary basis as required by a particular case, for example the neighbors of a house that needs to be kept under observation.

A bochinche happening should originate from a true incident. Let us imagine A stopping to talk to B (preferably one is male and the other female) on the main street of town and a few days later the two of them being observed sitting next to each on the bus to Panama (the city).  

"Have you heard the latest? A has a next woman and guess who she is?"

By sundown, everyone has heard that A and B have something hot going on between them. In reality, A was going to the city for a cataract operation and B was meeting her mother arriving from Mexico City. The fact that they took the same bus was chance. Fortunate chance they thought at the time but as it turned out not so good for their reputations. Before either returns to town, the assumption has become fact in most peoples' minds and is further confirmed when A returns wearing dark glasses.   

Given the starting point, it is remarkable how past incidences take on heightened significance,

"I always knew A is "caliente." From the first time I felt his eyes on me, I said to myself, "there is one to keep at a distance."

"Well, I assure you B is only after his money. She put her hand on my thigh once and I said, (to myself) "Not me baby. Go try someone else."

Bochinche is the spice of social conversation; without a pinch of bochinche, conversation would be bland. Furthermore, it is not limited to matters of relationships and serves a useful political purpose when an official is suspected of selling municipal land and putting the proceeds in his pocket.

Bochinche is as old as history and will always be with us for better or worse.