Oh, Panama

This Fourth of July, I will be feeling very patriotic. Usually I like the fireworks and festivities surrounding the anniversary of our nation’s independence, but I don’t always have a particular reason to feel patriotic. This year, a month in Panama was enough to do it—make me miss the good old US of A. The reasons? Lots…number one: everyone (men, women, old, young) stares as I drive by. I’m not sure what’s behind the staring; it isn’t necessarily that I’m a gringa because I have had a couple of people wonder if I was Latina or American before talking to me. But I do know that Panamanians begin staring from a very young age. In the U.S. it is considered rude to stare, and those who are staring do not make eye contact with their target for very long before turning away abashedly. In Panama, however, people stare for much longer than is socially acceptable and are not ashamed when you catch them at it. In fact, they seem to like it. This is very uncomfortable for you when you are being stared at; you think you catch them and they just keep looking at you. Then you turn away abashedly because you don’t know what to do. It is quite confusing and I don’t know what they mean by it. These people would be very good at psychological interrogations, I think.

Number two: The honking drives me nuts. In Panama, honking is accepted as a general greeting toward anyone on the street, whether they are driving, biking, walking, or just standing. It is customary for a driver to honk when he is passing someone. This is pretty reasonable, as it is good to know when someone is approaching. However, if you are the only pedestrian on a two-lane road where cars are very uncommon, it is quite easy to tell if a car is approaching. After all, you can hear it from at least half a mile away. Thus the driver does not need to honk loudly at ear level just as he passes you, unless he is a hearing specialist and wishes to recruit more clients by ruining the hearing of everyone he meets on the street. During rush hour, which happens most of the day in Panama City, people think honking will help them get places. Newsflash: it doesn’t. Taxis are particularly guilty in the honking matter: honking means, “I’m here! Want a ride? Let me stop my car in the middle of the road while we negotiate the price and hold up all the traffic behind me.” More honking ensues.

Number three: The street signs, or lack thereof. None of the roads are marked with their names. And when there is a sign, there is not much hope of knowing which road it refers to because all the roads have multiple names. I rented a GPS to help me navigate around Panama City and Garmin must have made up some of the road names because they cannot possibly be real names. Frangipani Road? Boyd Roosevelt? Is that someone’s first and last name? Boyd? The GPS often wants to take me the wrong way down one-way roads, or through locked gates that there is no hope of me penetrating. So it takes three times as long to get anywhere, but I still feel better off using the GPS than not because at least it hasn’t gotten me lost in any bad neighborhoods. Outside of the city, the highways at least have mileage signs every so often. But these are put up by the rental car companies, not the government. And there are random off ramps that are unmarked, so you just have to guess if you should go straight or veer right and hope the road leads to where you want to go. I have driven a lot in the US lately and there are warnings for every exit miles and miles before.

Number four: The lack of lane lines on the road. Because there are often no lines demarcating lanes, it is common for a two-lane road to become three lanes, or four lanes if people decide it is time to drive on the shoulder. In some places with a lot of trucks, it is courteous to pass on the shoulder to keep traffic moving. I started to understand why there are no lane lines when I saw the Highway Authority hand-painting yellow lines down the road. They laid a rope about 30 yards along the road and painted yellow dashes across it every few inches. Apparently Panama didn’t get the memo that now we’re in the 21^st century and there are machines that can paint lines on roads. It’s a lot safer for the workers and makes nicer lines.

Number five: Doing science here legally is quite difficult. It used to be that a scientist could apply for a research and collecting permit in English or Spanish, get the permit and it would be good for year. Not many people ever asked to see the permit, but it is good to comply with the laws. Since the new president came in last year, permits are now only good for six months but it takes four months to get one after applying for it. That means you can be granted a permit and have it for two months before it is time to apply for a new one; since they want a progress report with the new application, you better hope you have something to report after only two months. The application also has to be in Spanish; this fortunately is not a problem for me but there are many scientists who do research in Panama and do not speak Spanish. I don’t know how they are getting their permits. I applied for my research permit months ago and have been waiting for it. I also applied for an export permit at the same time, because I wanted to bring samples back to the U.S. Of course to bring anything to the U.S. I would need an import permit, which required that I go to the closest US Department of Agriculture center to show my ID. It wasn’t very close, but I drove to the USDA center in farmland California, showed my ID and got my import permit ten days after I applied for it. Ten days total. Not even ten business days. There was also a convenient online application process and I could check the status of my permit online. In Panama, there is no online application process, no way to check the status, and no way to expedite a permit. It takes at least four months, which is TWELVE TIMES as long as it takes in the U.S. Now remember that Panama is a country the size of South Carolina with only three million people living in it. Sure, there are a lot of scientists who want permits to study the tropical rainforest and the interesting wildlife therein, but the U.S. has many more people doing research and many more permits to grant, of the collecting and importing and exporting nature. So why on earth does it take Panama so long to grant a simple permit?