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photo by Eric Jackson

If you can't get passionate about Panama's flowers...

Maybe you'll like the passionfruit --- maracuyá in Panamanian Spanish --- that will be ripening on this vine shortly. A lot of newcomers don't recognize the tropical fruit or know what to do with it, but if given a taste of maracuya drink they like it. You can make a wonderful jam with passionfruit, either by themselves or in combination with mangos. If you have an ice cream maker you can make some good maracuya creations with that, too.

(To get a taste of one of the simplest but best recipes for maracuya ice cream, check out the ice cream freezer at one of the Riba Smith grocery stores in Panama City.)

When I consider my waistline, I have to allow the possibility that my passion for such things is not entirely healthy.

In recent days, however, darker, uglier, more clearly unhealthy passions have been out and about in the land.

An American woman was murdered and her body cut up and burned. The one suspect in custody is another American woman. The most irresponsible media in the United States (and some people who have been feeding them information from here) have been using the occasion to present a distorted and fairly ugly picture of Panama.

It was an awful crime and the more that comes out about the circumstances surrounding it, the more sordid the story gets. It need not be exaggerated.

The remains were found on a field in Rio Abajo that boys use for soccer games, and white Americans who never go to that neighborhood and warn others not to do so have managed to inject their slurs against that most identifiably West Indian of Panama City's corregimientos into the US press. Yes, all of Panama has too much crime, but Rio Abajo isn't a high crime area and it's certainly not ruled by violent youth gangs like a few other parts of our sprawling capital city tend to be. In fact Rio Abajo has one of Panama City's highest concentrations of American citizens --- but then, a certain minority of the American community down here and the worst of the media up there have always had a hard time recognizing black Americans as citizens.

Many of the older people in Rio Abajo were the kids of Panamanians who worked for the Panama Canal or on the US military bases, took the opportunity to join the US Armed Forces and earned their American citizenship that way, then, frequently after working lives spent in places like the Crown Heights area of Brooklyn, the Baltimore - DC area or Sacramento, California, came back to retire, attracted by old ties to the isthmus and a lower cost of living. Rio Abajo tends to be a bit cleaner, a bit more orderly and a bit more supportive of local churches than most other Panama City neighborhoods.

The people of Rio Abajo don't deserve the insult.

Since the one suspect in custody is a white American woman, there is a limit to the race baiting hysteria in this case. But since a couple of Colombian suspects are wanted, there's all this speculation about a cocaine crazed killer. It should have been possible to test both the suspect's blood or urine and the victim's blood found at the crime scene for cocaine traces, but even in the event of positive results there are likely more rational explanations for this most unreasonable crime. If drugs or alcohol were involved they were probably just factors that enhanced a rage about something else.

I expect that if it ever comes to pass that all the relevant facts in this case are established with reasonable certainty, none of those involved are going to look very good. But then, not looking good, or not being entirely innocent, is a very long stretch from deserving to die. Nobody deserved to die and nobody deserves to die in this tragedy, and furthermore anyone who is accused should be presumed innocent unless proven guilty. There is no good reason for a rush to judgment here.

This incident is bound to affect the carefully cultivated perception that Panama's wonderful place to come and get rich quick in real estate speculation. Toni Grossi-Abrams tried that and encountered troubles, and it will be all the worse if reports that she and her alleged killer were introduced by one of the companies most responsible for the gold rush mentality turn out to be true.

The American community here can do quite well without all the dizzy and often dishonest characters coming here in search of easy fortunes. It's just as well that we don't pick up more fools who believe in silly stereotypes either. Let those kinds of people be scared off and Panama still retains much of its appeal as a place for the American middle class to retire.

Ah, but the government may be out to ruin that as well.

They just passed a law to allow Manuel Antonio Noriega, who has prison sentences for murder and other crimes awaiting him here, to return without being locked up. If that story plays out on international television screens, many foreign retirees will rule out Panama as a place to live.

Now the Torrijos administration is proposing new Big Brother measures to allow searches of homes without probable cause and a law enforcement reorganization designed to stop all police investigations of political corruption.

All this probably means that the ruling Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) has implicitly thrown in the towel on the free trade agreement between Panama and the United States. Surely they can't expect to beat the now more powerful AFL-CIO lobby in a contest in the now heavily Democratic US House of Representatives, while at the same time flaunting corruption in everyone's face. But then I'm sure that the ad cartel will come up with some sort of spin to impart, which will be oh so impressive --- for those who have certain illustrious Creole surnames.

So is there ANYTHING good to report from these parts?

Actually, there is.

I review the best play that has been staged at the Ancon Theater in quite some time, a good new book --- sadly, only in Spanish or Chinese for you unilingual folks --- on the history of Panama's Chinese community, and some good websites, all of which have their Panama connections. I got to Parque Omar a few times, with three stories to show for it --- the local freedom to engage in Falun Gong exercises and meditations that are highly illegal in China, a modest official Earth Day observance and some of the fixtures to see around the park. The lectures at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute have gotten into interesting topics like the local history of popular science and the ways people perceive wildlife on Barro Colorado Island.

Let me also tell you about something of a positive nature that I was unable to report upon in time for this issue, which I will cover in time for the next edition, but which by the time that the review appears will have come and gone. The seniors in the advanced art program at the International School of Panama are having their annual show at the Casa Gongora in the Casco Viejo, and there are always some very talented youngsters in that program. The show runs through April 29 and will surely be entertaining for art lovers.

And are renewable energy sources good or bad things to report? Presidents Lula da Silva and George W. Bush of Brazil and the United States respectively have given ethanol a higher profile in the news, but Fidel Castro, who is on sick leave as Cuba's strongman, has raised some sufficiently compelling objections to merit their inclusion in this issue's Spanish-language opinion section. The biofuels controversy leads our business and economy section and even gets into the sports pages. My guess at this time is that ethanol and biodiesel will be increasingly important replacements for petroleum products but that "the answer" to meeting world energy needs and cutting the human contribution to global warming is mainly to be found in technologies and lifestyles that reduce energy consumption.

Another mostly positive development that's covered in this issue is a joint WHO - UNICEF - UNAIDS statement about improved access to treatment for those infected with the HIV virus --- but we're still a long way from ending this terrible pandemic plague.

Ah, but there's nothing ambiguous about the flowers on the maracuya vines I planted along the fence at the office where I live and work. Whether I harvest a bumper crop or get nothing at all, the passionfruit flowers are very pretty.

Enjoy.

Eric Jackson

the editor