Panama in one photograph

In 2008, I went to Panama from May to August to volunteer as a research assistant on a seed-fate study that would put me in the forest canopy whilst in a basket hanging from a crane.

I remember being so excited for the trip; as this was my second time in Central America, and the first time was an AMAZING experience.

I went to Costa Rica in 2002 and took a fabulous course on tropical herpetology with the brilliant teacher, Greg McConnell. We spent one month on the eastern (Caribbean) dry side of the Cordillera Central (mountains that longitudinally bisects the country). We were mostly (except for coming and going and one weekend) in the forest, so our contact with Costa Ricans was minimal.

This trip to Panama, however, turned out to be a little different. I did spend a significant time in the forest, but I also spent time in the city with the Panamenos.

I had to travel quite a bit, and I traveled mostly by bus, but also taxi, foot, and with Panamenos that worked for Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales (STRI). In doing so, I had MANY conversations with the working class and saw much of what the cities had to offer.

In doing so, and by feeling the ominous presence of US, I had a very different experience.

The US only officially demilitarized Panama in 1999. That is, there is still a HUGE presence in Panama (mostly because of economically invaluable Panama Canal) in policy, history, currency, people's minds, economics, and politics.

I cannot begin to count the number of people that I met that would bring up, for instance, on December 29, the General Assembly of the United Nations voted 75–20 with 40 abstentions to condemn the 1989 US invasion of Panama to remove former CIA agent Manuel Noriega as a flagrant violation of international law. I would also like to note that Noriega worked with the CIA for over three decades (two were contractual).

To see and speak with the people about their traumatizing experiences of being occupied made me remember that all was not so cozy in Costa Rica as well. I somehow FORGOT that I was SHOCKED when I went there and saw how ugly American and other western influence looked like in that country. I remember during my three visits to town in Costa Rica events like pick-up trucks with megaphones blaring the Coke-A-Cola song and crawling to just lead kids enough to chase them and occasionally throwing the cans out of the back, and the overbearing advertising that was most burdensome than most sporting events that I have attended.

These scenes reshaped my view of what I do and want to do in the World, and I was upset with my memory for allowing my to selectively remember all of the awesome animals and plants in the rainforest. I will not do this again, with Panama or with future experiences.

I selected the picture above to represent my view of my trip to Panama for several reasons. First, the foreground sets the stage with the solemn Spanish statue and architecture reminding us of imperial Spain. The pillar is raised high and powerfully protrudes whilst penetrating the landscape, noting the power to persist time and weather. The foreground is what I shall remember, and not the barely visible background of remaining rainforest. Deforestation to supply our consumers with wood products, beef, coffee, bananas, and soy have left Panama like many other areas of the Global South, devastated. The tone and colour serve as an appropriate lens through which to witness repression of the Panamanian people and Nature. There are many other aspects of the photograph that are less conspicuous but important, like the Kuna-Yala (indigenous Panamenos) forced to sell trinkets in the city to gain their oppressor's currency to survive and a rooster atop the statue (why is that there and what does that have to do with Panama?). But the last main depiction I like to concentrate on is the man on the bench. To me, he man's look on the bench is a manifestation of what Marine General David M. Shoup best described (albeit about general US policy, but of Vietnam):

I believe if we had, and would, keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-crooked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own. That they design and want. That they fight and work for...and not the American style, which they don't want. Not one crammed down their throats by the Americans.