When I turn on the TV in Panama, I go directly to channel 211, which, is the originally-named American Network: concurrently the best and worst channel in the history of broadcasting. There are exactly two reasons why I watch the American Network and neither appeal to most people.  First, it airs shows that I vaguely enjoyed in the United States.

Today Union Fenosa arrived to cut the electricity to my apartment. It was the same three-man crew that came out last week: one guy who was stoned and stood off by himself a lot, another heavyset supervisor type who spent most of his time on his green cell phone, and lastly, the guy I think was the driver, who was nothing if not a social butterfly.

When in Panama, the neighborhood I live in is called Casco Antiguo and it is comprised of a diverse network of buildings ranging from newly renovated to admitted defeat. Unlike many other areas of Panama, Casco Antiguo is not hostage to its own success, which is to say, how can a neighborhood have high expectations when its always been on the ropes?

 

Yesterday, my friend Kent and I stopped by Gamboa Rainforest Resort to use their pool. Unlike other hotel pools in the city that are always suspicious of non-guests, Gamboa poses few if any obstacles to trespassers, mainly, I suppose, because it’s so isolated. Aside from the obvious delight of swimming, I enjoy hanging out in Panama hotels because it offers a nice window into the current state of tourism in this country.

In my Bougainvillea-maintenance book, the author says that in order to promote “spectacular blooming” in the tropics, you must use a fertilizer high in nutrients, most particularly iron. He says this something like ten times, repeating it over and over again like a hypnotist, so I assume that it is the secret I have been lacking.

It was my original belief that nothing developed fluency like total immersion. I adopted this mantra after reading once that my all-time favorite Olympic swimmer was accidentally dropped into a pool as a baby. In that particular moment it was sink or swim and by golly he swam. And swam. And swam. And swam. Look where he is today! 

My family always made it a habit to recognize the first Christmas song played on the radio for the pending holiday season. This usually happened in the car while flipping through the stations on our way to school and we used the song, not unlike the first droplets of rain or the first shots fired, as a warning of the riotous storm that what was to come. Eventually lights would be strung, fake snow would line store display windows, and the giant tree in our town square would come alive, but in truth nothing gave the indicator that Christmas was around the corner quite like that first on-air song.

Internet in Panama always struck me as the kind of thing that, without regular phone calls to your provider, would cease to function properly and leave you with no choice but to search aimlessly for some lucky dope around the corner who's non-password-protected signal was, at the very least, a bit stronger than your own. The service itself is what's unsettling. People wait days, if not weeks, for a team of technicians to arrive, this after sitting through a delusional interchange with someone in a call center who often attempts to solve the problem right there on the spot. "OK, sir, I'd like to ask you a few questions. Open your internet browser. OK, now, does it seem to be working?"

For the first time in several years, a Panamanian asked me for directions. "Excuse me," he said in Spanish, "but can you tell me where is the Plaza Santa Ana?" In my book, it's one thing to pass as a local and another to be able to respond accurately, which is exactly what I did. "Why sure I can," I told the man. "Just climb this street until you reach the Coca Cola Café." In Spanish, if a street has even the slightest degree of incline, you either climb or descend it. For this particular man, he had several blocks of climbing to do before he arrived.

One day last June, a terrible mistake was made and I was chosen to be interviewed by a large US publication for an article about retirement in Panama. I remember it because I was really sick at the time with symptoms akin to the ten plagues of Passover: stuck in this irresolvable state of sluggishness. So much so, that when the writer from the magazine called, my good friend Keenan wanted to answer the phone and apologize, but that I was dead.

(Panama) One of the most ripening moments of my life was pulling into the gas station for the first time on my own and saying, "fill ‘er up, unleaded regular." It wasn't one of the things, surprisingly, they taught you in driver's education. I say surprisingly because driver's ed is notorious for addressing the type of details not even an engineer or a traffic cop would need or want to know. "You arrive at a 4-way stop with a police car, a mail truck, and an ambulance," was one question I memorized fondly. "Which vehicle has the right of way and in what order may they each proceed?" 

When in Panama, I like to reserve Tuesday exclusively for errands. I could do these things any day of the week, but lumping them all together in one 24-hour period gives the feel of a scavenger hunt: some substance to the middle of my week. On this particular Tuesday in Panama, I search for the meaning of corned beef, consort with gang members, and rub shoulders with hardworking Panamanians.

I recently got word from a visiting New Yorker that the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant chain would be succumbing to a global health craze and changing the name of their business to Kentucky Grilled Chicken. There would have been perhaps no justice had my first ensuing thought not been a prank phone call I made once back in college. It was around 2 AM and using an adult voice, I requested a midnight clerk at 7-11 in Richmond take down all the signs in her store. I gave the order directly from corporate headquarters due mainly to the nation's newly found aversion to the number eleven (think September 11th) in the name.

You've become desensitized to promotional text messages: as in, you used to get all excited when you'd received a message in the morning, then let down upon realizing it was just quadruplica or a special movie promotion. No more does this surprise you.

There's a certain milestone you approach after some time as a foreigner in Panama; in language books they refer to it as fluency or the ability to successfully communicate with the Spanish speakers around you, but I like to think of it more the notion of pain, the unpleasant physical discomfort experienced by someone who is seriously out of their element.

Someone passed me a story the other day about the escape of a large group of inmates from La Joyita prison in Panama, something like fifty of whom were at large in Panama City doing whatever it is you do after you escape prison. I'd like to think it was similar to the movies, where some return home to hug their mothers, others carry out heinously pent-up acts of violence crafted over years of careful planning, and one or two special inmates retreat to a field of daisies and sunflowers searching for the meaning of life. In reality, most of Panama's escaped inmates went into hiding, using overturned baby pools and broken refrigerators to try and lay low for a while.

I was in a bistro café in downtown Manhattan when a friend from college ordered a juicy rare hamburger and was told it could not be done. "What do you mean you're not allowed to serve that?" he said. "You grill the fucking thing, you put it on a plate, and you bring it over here." While I didn't particularly care one way or another as I just wanted some fries, we were politely escorted out the door and asked to instead try the butcher shop down the road.

Lying in bed the other morning, I realized that during the years I've been visiting Panama, I've never seen anyone doing their makeup while driving a car. While it may seem like an odd observation to someone from, say Europe or Africa, it is an entirely rational coming from the United States, where simultaneous activity while driving has become par for the course. Cell phones, eating, watching flip-down DVDs: it wouldn't surprise me to come across a headline someday reading, BMW Driver Ticketed For Playing Cello On Route 1.

Growing up, my teeth were cleaned by a man named Doctor Holstein who worked in an office building that sported a atrium of living plants. Opening the door to this building was not like opening a door to the tropics; birds chirping, frogs jumping across the sidewalks, and that humid moisture smell familiar to rainforest exhibits at the zoo. I never quite understood the idea behind bringing the outdoors in, perhaps some sort of business park fad of the seventies, but to this day, when visiting the jungle in Panama, I instinctually contemplate flossing.

Living in Panama for prolonged periods of time, certain nuances and facets of life have a way of seamlessly melting into one big mass: a mass so big that you cannot clearly detect it anymore. It's the same with any destination I suppose, where crossing the limits from vacationer to local brings with it new standards of normalcy. It is interesting therefore, counterintuitive even, that oftentimes the best way to recalibrate my senses, to re-sharpen my observations about Panama is not to dig deep into the culture or dive further into it's past, but to take a giant step outside its borders and examine Panama from afar, as the distant land I once knew it.