Al principio I didn't arrive my head filled with rainforests or Indians or grand real estate projects on the beach: no, I came blank like a clean canvas, ready for whatever paint this new culture was going to throw my way. Americans have been in Panama for a while now, but the fact that I myself do not wear army fatigues or Hawaiian shirts buys me a little bit of elbowroom in terms of how I get labeled. I sometimes pass as Argentinean or Costa Rican but when my true roots are revealed, my USA-ness publicized, I become “Matt the token American guy”, held responsible for everything from the politics in my country, to our reason for taking food home from restaurants in giant paper bags.

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I Can't Believe It's Not English: One wing of my ambassador-ship lies is the language department, being that a native English speaker in Panama is automatically an authority on the subject—my advice and assistance oddly idolized, the way a cult member might believe in Kool-Aid or Nike sneakers. I sometimes like to abuse this position of power though, casually confusing body parts or curses with formal greetings, but for the most part I am a very reliable source of information. I am especially helpful to taxi drivers who, because I've assisted their kind so much, honk at me every time they pass by.

The first words or phrases of a new language to most people naturally fall into three primal categories: eating, sleeping, and procreating. For me though, instead of learning bits and pieces of articles and verbs that—once smashed together—would vaguely resemble a lame discharge of a sentence, I tended to migrate towards words that, if said at the right time, might actually make someone believe I was fluent. Words like otorrinolaring�logo and subsequentemente were some of the first in my vocabulary and ever since, I've been working my way backwards, leaving all those traditional students looking hopeless and clueless. Leaving all those traditional fools in the dust.

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You Can Really Taste College! Many people in Panama, when told that I've graduated from a states-side university, are very impressed and follow suit by asking a gamut of questions about my academic experience, such as whether or not my professors actually whipped students with rulers. This interest is really bizarre to me, considering that a greater part of my upper education was spent building beer contraptions that could then be attached to my head and streaking through various quads. Frequent visits to the States however consistently reaffirm my faith in the American education system as men with names like Shorty scan my baggage at the airport and ask me questions like “hey playa, you got any fruits o' veggies in dat bag?” As I wave goodbye Shorty points my way. “Homeland Security playa! What!”

That particular instance, the man walking through the terminal next to me called Shorty and his actions ‘riveting'; a word that I thought was only reserved for those small quotes on the back of books. “Hilarious, and shocking. I laughed, I cried” I should have added. “An astonishing sojourn through otherwise regular customs.”

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Heat Tested, Panama Approved: Panama's men by custom wear long pants and closed-toed shoes in the city as if, by some demented show of manhood or machismo, they are able to take the heat better than you. They are part of the same group as the guys who'll outlast you in the sauna and out-drink you in the pub just for the heck of it. For me, I have no interest in proving my ability to tolerate heat and usually like to sport shorts and flip flops because after all, life down here feels like one big long vacation. My outfits though seem to offend a number of slack-wearers (people from the other side) who look at my bare lower legs and wiggling white toes as if I unlawfully broke some sort of dress code—a dress code plot to keep Panama's people sweaty in the mid-day sun.

Panamanian women on the street sometimes carry sun-blocking umbrellas which in my opinion look about as silly as a man wearing ski boots in the mall. I'm sorry, but unless you are an albino or P. Diddy's little manservant you should not be carrying an umbrella in the sun. There were about seven days back last summer when it was humoring me so much that I joined along in the fun—wore myself goulashes and a Paddington Bear-style rain jacket on my way to work alongside one of these comics. Got a couple good laughs.

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I'm A Secret Almanac Reader: Counter intuitively, being away from my home country has increased my knowledge on a variety of American subjects. (Because after all, when asked the meaning of Thanksgiving or the marital status of Jessica Simpson, it would be an embarrassment to my country if I was not able to answer with conviction.) I bought myself an American almanac—the sort of book that serves also as both a doorstop and defense weapon—and whenever I'm faced with one of these questions, such as why New York is referred to as ‘The Big Apple', I go home and research the topic heavily so that the next person to ask me that question will actually believe that I know what I'm talking about. I would never have purchased something like this in the states, as at college, a person carrying an almanac is not even really considered a person at all.

There was once a time when several Panamanians cornered me in a room and demanded to know all the states of my country, a list which I got half-way through before a hot dog vendor rescued me. Now though, after thorough review, I can all fifty faster than you can sneeze.

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Choosy Mothers Choose The Panama Canal: There are certain things that are never quite as good as you expect, and much like flavored toothpicks or tandem bikes, or cummerbunds or caviar, the Panama Canal is one of them. When I first realized I'd be living within distance of the Canal, I envisioned myself sitting on the observatory deck on late Friday afternoons, sipping Tab soda and practicing my harmonica chords with friends—the calls and whistles of mariners falling like baroque music on my ears. In reality though, the Canal is somewhere you go once out of obligation if you are in Panama. You go because your friends, your guidebooks, and your mother say you have to. I visited the canal even though I'm not into boats, for the same reason I had a hotdog at Wrigley Field despite my aversion to boiled meats. My subsequent trips to the canal were simply out of courtesy to visiting friends who—besides insisting on seeing the canal—swore that they would not make it home alive without a memorial T-shirt/magnet packed in their suitcase.

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Happiness Is A Cigar Called Prescription Drugs In Panama: Growing up in the states, I was always led to believe that medicine was supposed to hurt you in order to be effective. I remember countless times sitting on a stool in the kitchen, with my father poised to splash rubbing alcohol on wounds I'd collected playing street football or full-contact dominoes. I was always under the belief that unless the medicine that we got from the doctor stung badly enough, my wound would not heal. For me, drugs like Vikadin were reserved exclusively for the times you were really sick: the times you couldn't even go to soccer practice. Panamanians though, weren't raised this way. They were born with the extravagance of an open drug counter—‘prescription' being a word not in their vocabulary. Because this is something so foreign to me, I try to take advantage of it as much as possible, sometimes unnecessarily so. I'll be on my way to work, for example, and decide to stop in the pharmacy for a bottle of Xanax not because I want to use it or because I need it, but simply because I CAN.

In these pharmacies, the counters are similar to those where you get your bowling shoes, a lot of polite little ladies behind scurrying around in corny-looking red vests that appear to have been leftover from Christmas. They greet me when I come in: “Oh, Senor Matt!” they say, “what'll it be today?”

Which leads me into my next subject. If you weren't aware, Panamanians like to be formal when they address people, I'm assuming as a sign of respect. I very much enjoy being talked to this way because it makes me feel mighty and powerful, I imagine the way a king or a prince feels much of the time. Adding ‘Sir' before a first name can elevate even the simplest question to one of royalty: “Sir Matt, could you please pass the salt?” These sorts of comments usually segue into me envisioning myself actually as a king—most frequently of a small island—walking around my castle wearing nothing but my crown and a small Gatorade-red banana hammock.

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Nothing Sucks Like Going To The Beach: It can be easy to take things like remote controls and cappuccino machines for granted, but one thing that always strikes me is how, with perhaps the most ideal and picturesque setting between two vast gulfs of water, Panamanians in general are not beachgoers. Other than several now-developed beach towns just outside the city, I have come to believe one of two things: either the entire population of the isthmus has a fear of salt water or Panamanians have simply become complacent living on two coasts, thus rendering the luxury worthless.

As an American coming from a state characterized by cold weather and garbage dumps, I refuse to take any of this for granted: I keep my snorkeling equipment in the trunk of my car for god sakes. My snorkeling skills rival that of some of the top in the world, my mask and flippers of such high quality that they'd eat your dollar gear for breakfast any day. If I were to join some sort of snorkeling circuit, I'd hate to have me as my own enemy:

“Matt is really on point today” one of the announcer's would say.

“Yes, Jim. He's making the other sorcerers look like blind tit mice.” (A funny note about this last sentence: my computer spelling program refused to accept the fact that ‘snorkelers' was actually a word, insisting that I change it to ‘sorcerers'.)

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A Day Without Laziness Is Like A Day Without Sunshine: One thing that Panamanians have in common with Americans is that we're both inherently lazy animals who will do anything to save us the trouble of expending energy. Much like the solace one may find upon discovering that aliens like beer too, Americans in Panama find comfort in the fact that no one is surprised when they take a cab two city blocks or refuse to get up out of their chair to order the next martini. The service industry in Panama is not nearly as developed as that of, say, Costa Rica but things are getting better each lazy waiter sacking at a time.

It takes a while to get used to the service industry here, or more accurately the lack thereof. Panamanians have this inborn habit of being late for things and if you think ‘tico time' is bad, you're in for a treat. It's good to add thirty courtesy minutes to any appointment you have in Panama, or else you'll be flipping through the same issue of Latin Sports Illustrated in the waiting room like it's going out of print. Honestly, I find this to be extremely disrespectful and obnoxious, to such an extent that I have reinstated the 15 minute rule from high school: that rule that the teachers would never allow me to enforce.

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