Buses, Boats, self-hating seaport-officers and a Beautiful Panamanian family

July 13th, 2009

¨Amarrate bien los pantalones, y sal pa´delante.¨

Por la gracia de dios nací en Panamá.
Me dio esta mamá quien me apolla de borracho, de fumador, de pierde-tiempo. Panamá me dio este hogar lejos del centro, para que aun haya lugar en el bus en camino al trabajo.
Me dio este mercado, donde la teconologia en computacion es un negocio de sueÑo.
Panamá me llevara a Europa. Europa me reinventará.
Dejare acá un negocio fuerte y una ONG, relegado.
Me llevo mi mujer, si tengo, y dejo mis vicios.
Dejo mi corazón y me llevo mis sueÑos.

Went to muelle coco solo, ¨de aqui no hay lanchas para colombia.¨ Bus back to Colon the northern equivalent of the panama city port ( on the other side of the canal) one of the most grimy, sketchy and self-declared unsafe cities I´ve experienced. No cargo boats with need of foreign labor. ¨we don´t even have jobs for Panamanians, much less for you.¨
Made it via hiking, and buses to the main marina, where all the gringos find shelter, Shelter Bay Marina. Talked to Lina, the attendant, who told me that it´d be hard to find anybody going to Colombia at this time of year, its too late in the season, dangerous and boat propeller required. I later emailed her the random romantic muse i had about her name (¨Lina, prestame parte de lo que eres para que seas ¨d¨mi. She thought it was really Lindo, and lamented my absence :p) I was told to post an ad on my attempts to work-accompany- pay to get to Colombia and see what comes of it, to spread the word, and make friends during happy hour. I was down, but i was impatient and had no place to sleep, so I headed back towards panama that evening. A rumored cia employee with a powerboat was headed to cartagena, Colombia, and might be ok with taking me along with him for the 12 hour jump. I scrambled to contact him, but when i finally spoke with him he gave me a blunt ¨no.¨ I did meet a Spaniard who told me it was easy to make friends there and hope to whereever your new friends happen to be sailing if you have the time. From that marina, there were people crossing the canal, going to places along the northern coast of s. america, going north into the carribean, up to central america, even to the US probably. It was the place to be to hitch a sea-ride. Ill be there sometime soon.

On my way to Panama City I met Mayra Stevens, an intelligent, well-informed mother on her way home from Colon to Panama. She had afro-caribbean ancestry. We talked about journalistic sensationalism, safety and unsafety in panama, self-betterment as a choice in panamanian society, the promises of the new government, her family, my hope in human patterns of welcoming strangers naturally, the gift and reciprocation, social problems as part of structure, not human nature and so on.
She sounded like an anthropologist.
She was also a commuter transport whiz who guided me accross the transit system.
She invited me to spend the night with her and her son, Jorge, I told her I had decided to fly to Cartagena that night on a 10pm flight for 200 dollars., ready to get out of panama and on to colombia. I got her number.
At the airport, flying the next day was 100 bucks cheaper, i could find out a final word on the cia powerboat, and not arrive late with no clue on where to stay. I stayed.
What a good choice. The next day, the coolest panamanian lad, 25 year-old Jorge McDonalds would guide me through his city, Panama City from the perspective of a true Panamanian citizen.

Jorge McDonald is 25. His dream is to establish a socially conscious computer systems company that will give him the money to live comfortably, move to Europe and have a well-tended family. His business plan is drawn up in his mind in detail. His plan to start a network of contacts for which he repairs and maintains computer systems is going to work. He´s ïnvested far too much in this plan for it to not work.¨ He has two huge almanacs on business management next to his Linux OS home computer, the internet unplugged for the expensive bills.

He spoke to me with unabated interest in what he said, and what I had to say. With the educated and polite voice of one of the lucky few approaching a college degree, he enquired about my life and interest in anthropology, while giving me his definitive pitch on why Linux Mint kicks ass. (it really does, i think). He´s got a mind as sensible as a 2 day-old father and as structured as a business man.
He drew up a plan for our day touring downtown, our time on the beachwalk and our route back home without a pen. He found out how much credit he had and how much he needed for his college degree at his city University, the time he had cut from it after ¨wasting a lot of time on other things.¨
He spent a whole day on me. And renewed my image of Panama City from the household of one of the hopeful, patriotic, hard-working and optimistic families that somehow cling onto the goodness found while in relative ignorance of how things are in places with historic luck.

The next night, with some love, a cd of linux mint, a panamanian flag and some good home-made food in me i was off to the airport to the awaited land of three colors, colombia red, colombia blue, colombia yellow.