Signs of the times

Signs of the times

One important part of the context of this photo you will not see --- the editor was on a bus to San Carlos, which broke down just west of the Bridge of the Americas. While waiting for the substitute bus an opportunity for a bit of trial and error learning about his complicated new camera presented itself. Although this bus was a Toyota Coaster that serves the San Carlos to Panama and back route, the Interior buses are not particularly in worse shape than usual. It was just one of those occasional things. On the other hand the Panama City metro area fleet --- the diablo rojo buses --- are being phased out and little money is being invested into their maintenance, so in that part of the bus system breakdowns are more common these days. None of that, however, can be seen in the picture.

What you do see is half of the billboards empty, a symbol of a bad economy for real estate, advertising, the media and much of the rest of the private sector. Without massive public works project there would have been no economic growth last year and there would only be slightly more this year.

You also see a dysfunctional and abandoned pipeline. As in, now that they're not using the pipeline and it's partly dismantled, one might think that they'd send out a crew to pick it up and take it away to storage, but no, the thing has been allowed to rust away in place for months now.

And yes, it's late afternoon heavy commuter traffic on the country's main drag. When you think of it, that's also a powerful economic symbol --- Panama doesn't produce oil, but has by and large designed and is continuing to plan its development around strategies that require the internal combustion engine in general and the private automobile in general.

There are signs of a slow economic recovery in Panama and nearby parts of Latin America this year, but this glimpse contains signs of just how slow that recovery is.

Photo by Eric Jackson