The Bull

Today marks a year in Panama for me. Over this time, I’ve seen and done a lot of things I never would have experienced in the States. After all, I am living in a totally different culture. However, one thing was missing - seeing the running of the bulls.

Now this isn’t exactly like what you would see with the famous running of the bulls in Spain. Instead, here in Panama, the activity features bulls shot out from a gate with a person sometimes riding and sometimes not. There are also a ton of people milling around the ring deciding whether to challenge the oncoming bull or run for their lives. Most cases the people would run as fast as they could for fence and climb it for protection. I’ll let you guess why that choice was most often taken.

And I have to say, I don’t blame them one bit. When you see something like this charging at you, what would you do?




That’s what I thought.

The highlight of the day was when my friend, that lives in the town where the bulls were at, decided to give it a shot and ride the bull. When he went shooting out of the gates on the back of the bull, his hometown folks in the surrounding arena exploded in approval. It was a cool scene. My friend gave it his best effort and lasted about 10 seconds. Afterward as we were milling around the crowd, people were coming up left and right to congratulate him on his ride. That was really cool. The exchange cultures at its finest.

Now, I just need to work up the nerve to go next year. Although, that nerve will likely never come.

The Dylan

While it might be true that I’m the only white poet warlord in my community, that’s not to say the Dylan brand doesn’t exist outside of me in my parts.

Case in point #1


As you can see that’s me, holding a young child that lives in my community. You might have guessed it, but the kid's name is Dylan! And before you wonder, no it’s not Dylan Jr. It just so happened that there was already someone named Dylan here before me. I guess he was the test run to see if I would work here. It can be confusing for me when I am around him. I just didn’t expect another Dylan around me, especially not a Panamanian.

Case in point #2



This photo is of a hair salon in the bigger city near my community. I’m not thrilled to have my name attached to such an enterprise, so let’s just move on.

Case in point #3



Oh that’s right. A popular, international clothing line bearing my name is prevalent here. It’s quite a hoot, really, especially when I see someone from my community wearing one. The one thing I can’t decide is whether I should be owning and wearing some of these t-shirts. I mean would Calvin Klein be caught wearing a ‘Calving Klein Jeans’ t-shirt? I don’t know; I’m asking you. I could totally see Tommy Hilfiger wearing one of his shirts, though.

Whatever the case, I'm kind of a big deal down here.

The Weeds

Before the start of the rainy season, I was talking with the guy I rent my house from about various things. During our conversation, he told me about how rich the soil was in my neck of the woods. I believed him to some degree, but when I looked around me, there was a lot of dry vacant area. Of course, it hadn’t rained in nearly five months, so, that didn’t help matters.

Fast forward to present day, and I can clearly see the results of what he was talking about. Because things have really taken off. Everywhere. But probably no better example of this is at the baseball field.

You may recall back a few months ago, I posted about playing baseball in my community. The field where we played had been overrun by weeds and grass, and to fix the situation, the decision was made to just burn down the outfield. Here was the end result:


As you can see, there was nothing left. The situation remained that way pretty much through May, prior to the first rains. Now? Well, let’s just say the scene is a little different:



Hoo boy. As you might guess, not too much baseball is being played now. In fact, the outfield looks more like an Iowa corn field, then an actual baseball field. Every time I head over to the field, I keep expecting ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson to come walking out of the weeds and ask me to play long toss. Really, old Shoeless would fit right in with my community because of the whole no shoes thing, which is pretty much standard foot attire for most players, including yours truly, well when I’m batting. My sensitive feet can’t hold up on the outfield.

But, alas, Shoeless hasn’t shown up and neither will another baseball game for awhile. The weeds, however, will continue to grow.

The Bonfire

This past Thursday, my community had a bonfire as a little fundraiser to help fix the small park in the town. To raise the funds, drinks and food were sold. And, of course, there was the bonfire and really, excessively loud music.


The shindig was supposed to get underway at 7pm, and much to my surprise, the majority of people came at 7pm. This is shocking because, in general, Panamanians operate on ‘Panama Time’ which is a way of saying they move to the watch only my dad would love, i.e. always late. After sometime here, I’ve become adjusted this fact, but it doesn’t mean I’m a fan of it. As total darkness fell upon us at 7:30pm, the bonfire was lit and the food and started rolling.

I realized that help was needed in making the hojaldras, so I volunteered my services to help roll out the dough before they were sent to the pan. Here I am in action (note: you can also see the high and tight buzz I got in the back from my haircut):


As the night rolled on, the big activities became singing/dancing and jumping over the bonfire. After dancing to the newer pop music, some of the older folks made a push for more traditional Azuero music. And, yes, there was even some gritaring.


The party started to fizzle out around 10pm, with all the food and drink gone (money raised!). While it wasn’t a Thursday Ladies Night from college, all in all, it was a good time.

The Haircut

The other day I noticed my hair was starting to get a bit on the shaggy side. I’ve been keeping it mostly short, because, well, it’s pretty hot here. So I started to weigh my options on what to do. Since my time down here I have done a few different things. A Peace Corps friend cut it, I’ve cut it (oh my), and I have had my counterpart, Sergio, buzz it. As I was thinking about this, I came upon my decision. It was time to get my haircut in a Panamanian barber shop.

I have noted that Panamanian can be very particular about their hair. They love to use razors to make clean cut lines and definitely put time into detail. So I figured I didn’t have much to lose. Besides, in two weeks who would notice anyways?

I made my way into the barber shop with the standard ‘buenas’. The barber got an excited look on his face and pointed to the chair. I was up. While sitting down, I looked around the shop and felt like I was pretty much in an American barber shop. Namely, they had the older barbers and he even older guys that just hang out.

Now it was time to get down to business. I debated whether to ask for the Larry Fine, but in the end decided to keep directions to a minimal. In this instance, my limited Spanish vocabulary wasn’t a hindering factor. I just wanted him to go where the hair cutting spirits took him.

With that, we were off. Right away a big clump of my hair came falling down, and I knew he was going to go short. About halfway through, the barber opened up a drawer, took out five bucks and headed out the door. No word on where he was going or what. After about five minutes, he reappeared. With razors, no less. I was going to the razor treatment!

As the hair cut continued along, I was quite certain that never before had I had so many different clippers sizes taken to my hair. He must have changed around the sizes five times. I did get a little razor action, but no where near what I was hoping for. And in the end, I ended up getting a pretty regular haircut.

But at least I got a lame entry idea from it.

The Gritar

You may recall, ok, probably not, but back when I wrote about my day in the rice field, I mentioned an activity called 'gritar'. In fact, this is what I wrote:

Another interesting activity is the yelling that occurs about once every half hour. Basically, one person lets out a scream that I don’t even know how to translate it into a typed word. I’m sorry. Come visit me and you can experience it firsthand. After that person lets his ‘grita’ (or scream) out, another person answers that call. And they go back and forth a couple times. Sometimes another person joins in as well. That’s when it really takes off.

Well, now you don’t have to worry about coming to visit me, because a friend of mine put up a video of the activity on YouTube. So, click on this link, and enjoy.

The New President

You might recall a couple months ago that there were elections here in Panama. Well, yesterday was the inauguration for the new president Ricardo Martinelli. Here is what one paper had to say about the upcoming term for the new president who came into office promising change.

Martinelli, who brought together several opposition parties under the banner, "Alliance for Change," said that he will reduce red tape and offer a leaner, more efficient government.

He said that he will end the tradition of elected leaders "arriving clean and leaving millionaires," which reiterated one of his most popular campaign slogans, and said that the needs of the people will come first in his administration. One of his promises was to provide a pay increase for police officers, viewed as a way to reduce crime, and to give a pension to indigent senior citizens of $100 per month.

Other program outlined by the new president included the construction of low-income housing, the construction of a metro system and the titling of land.

One thing I find funny is the line about arriving clean and leaving millionaires. Because Martinelli is already a millionaire! However, a lot of the things that Martinelli outlined could have a positive effect on Panama, especially the metro system (traffic in Panama City is awful), low cost housing, and titling of the land.

There was one thing that shocked me about yesterday, though. The fact there was no fireworks in my community. I mean, people set them off for anything from celebrating Mother’s Day to having a little fun while drinking, but yesterday there were none. My community was strong supporters of Martinelli, too. So maybe there will be some change in Panama coming up.