Panama's Promised Land - Without Water

There's an article on the University of Miami School of Communications website about a little town called La Tierra Prometida - the promised land - about 30 minutes outside of Panama City. It sounds like it might be in the direction of Darien. It's a village of 500 people with no water. Their situation is rather desperate. People, especially children, fall ill constantly to diarrhea and fever from drinking fouled water.

Please read the article and the accompanying video. I want to know what can be done about this situation. Those of you with experience in such maters, please comment.

Here is the article in full:

La Tierra Prometida: Panama’s waterless Promised Land

By Andrew Donovan & Natalia Vanegas

LA TIERRA PROMETIDA, Panama –

Tucked away among the rolling hills of Panama’s impoverished Sector C countryside rests a small and secluded village known as La Tierra Prometida. Just a 30-minute drive from the sultry skyline of Panama’s thriving cosmopolitan capital, Panama City, La Tierra Prometida – translated means “The Promised Land” in English – represents a far different world than that of the country’s well-known capital city.

Rotting wood and rusting scrap metal adorn the small, dirt-floor shacks that line the rocky and winding dirt roads of this seemingly forgotten shantytown in southern Panama.

However, this represents only part of the cruel irony of the place called The Promised Land. The approximately 500 men, women and children who inhabit the close-knit community of La Tierra Prometida live most of their days without running water.

Water only flows through the village’s pipes once every three to six months and the government car that brings water during the dry times only comes every eight days, if at all, resident Maritza Correa said. Even when the car does show up, that water lasts only two or three days before it becomes contaminated and unusable.

Without the proper means to store and conserve the transported water and without a dependable supply of fresh water from the pipes, citizens of La Tierra Prometida have done their best to cope, but continue to endure unending problems.

Residents collect rain water in large barrels for drinking, taking showers and washing clothes, but due to changing climates and insufficient storage procedures, this water source is not reliable and undrinkable.

“During the winter, we have fewer problems, but during the summer, sometimes it doesn’t rain,” Correa said. “And even when it does rain, the water only lasts two or three days before it starts to smell bad. This has affected the kids. It gives them diarrhea, vomiting and fever.”

Hoping to prolong the water’s useful life, one resident added Clorox to the rainwater, hoping to clear up the black residue that had accumulated at the bottom of the barrel. The residue cleared, but the resident, Clara Santos, was left with rashes throughout her body after bathing in the improperly-treated water. “Look at me how I am,” Santos said, painfully revealing several scars spread across her forearms.

Like the rest of the people of La Tierra Prometida, Santos is fed up with the waterless conditions.

“For a whole week, my grandson had a fever and diarrhea, and he was vomiting,” she said. “There are no more options. The water from the rain is making us sick.”

“When there is no water from the water car, from the pipes, from anywhere,” Correa said. “We have to go to the stream to shower. The stream is in the woods and there could be snakes or other animals. That’s dangerous. Aside from that, there are people with bad intentions living in the woods. They can take a girl and take advantage of her,” she added.

From the car, to rain water, to the streams, Correa said the people of La Tierra Prometida have tried tirelessly to come up with a solution, but have yet to find one. “I have been living here for seven years and the problem is still not over,” she said angrily. “We have tried in everyway to solve this issue, but they haven’t solved our water situation.”

“They,” according to Correa, is the Instituto de Acueductos y Alcantarillados Nacionales (IDAAN), the country’s national aqueducts and sewage institute.

“We’ve ask the IDAAN to do something about it, but they haven’t solved our problem,” Correa said.

Their pleas to the IDAAN – the country’s water distributor – have gone unanswered other than the time some of the villagers banded together in protest, creating a human roadblock on a nearby street.

“When we did that, we got water,” Correa said. “And what does that tell us? That tells us that there is water available because the day we closed the street, the engineer from the IDAAN came here and the next day we had water, and a lot of it.”
But, within days, the village’s pipes were again dry, leading Correa and other residents to believe their situation is the result of a lack of compassion and competence on the part of the IDAAN rather than an issue of supply.

IDAAN officials do not deny the accusations of the village’s residents. However, officials say they have no foreseeable solution to the problem and they do not know when running water will be consistently available to the area. “The people that live in the metropolitan area have different conditions of service of potable water,” IDAAN official Catalina de Guema said.

“There are zones in the city of Panama that always have the flow of water. “There are other zones that have it sporadically.” La Tierra Prometida is located in one of those zones and its lack of water is due to the nature of its establishment said fellow IDAAN official Julio Cefar.

”Those are zones that were not planned and the communities are growing without the government being able to keep up,” Cefar said. “Because of that, we cannot always cover those areas with water.

“Despite that, I believe we have one of the major coverage areas of potable water based on population in all of Latin America,” Cefar said. “That’s what the statistics say.”

But, it’s not the statistics that matter to the people of La Tierra Prometida. “They always tell us to wait and it seems that we are going to stay waiting,” Santos said. “Nobody listens to us or comes here to see the situation. We’re totally abandoned.”

Here is an accompanying video::

VIDEO: Tierra Prometida: Panama's Waterless Promised Land

And here is a blog post about it by one of the university students:

Panama Day 3: Harsh Reality

Why is the rainwater undrinkable? Why does it go bad so quickly? What storage solutions can be implemented so that rainwater can be cached safely for longer periods of time?

Comments please.

Where is Home?

Symbols of Home

This symbol is called in Kazakh, a shangyraq. It represents the top of a yurt, the round tent used by Central Asian nomads, and it is known throughout Central Asia as the symbol for home, and by extension, family, tribe and the nation.

I carry my own symbols for home: the photo albums, of course, that accompany me with every move; my childhood baseball card collection, stored in a shoebox in the closet of my old bedroom in my parents home in Fresno. That house is home only because my parents are there; but I did not live there long, and the baseball cards are more evocative of "home" than the house itself, since the card collection was started earlier, during my childhood years in Davis, when I used to take my allowance to the Lucky store and buy a pack of ten baseball cards with a stick of pink gum (as important as the cards), a Hershey bar and a comic book.

Other symbols of home are a ragged t-shirt that I've had for twenty years - it's so worn now that it's almost transparent; a sheaf of favorite newspaper cartoons that I clipped and saved back in the bad years, when I was down and out; a Dave Barry book that he signed, "To my idol, Wael." That's another story. And many more little shangyraqs that are special in their own ways. I suppose I am nostalgic in this way, perhaps because I've moved so much and seen so much.

What is Home?

Why is it so important to us to be home, or to find a home, or to go back home? What is home, anyway?

We grow up and move away from our childhood home and from that point on many of us are homesick for something that we may or may not have had. We wander from place to place, looking for the place that feels right.

Some say home is the place you run to you when you're in trouble or confused. Though sadly, for some, it's the place they run from. That's the tragedy of being a refugee.

Home for many is the place of their childhood, often a place that doesn't exist anymore, a place that you cannot return to for comfort. Like the song says,

I went back to Ohio
but my city was gone
There was no train station
There was no downtown
South Howard had disappeared
All my favorite places
My city had been pulled down
Reduced to parking spaces
A, O, way to go Ohio.

The Wanderer's Home?

So where is home for the wanderer, the wonderer, the one who does not belong? Where is home for me?

The USA?

This is the proud land of my birth. Sure, I speak the language and I know the colloqualisms, I'm educated in the culture, and I love a good California burrito. There was a time, long ago, when I was a true American believer. I memorized the preamble to the Constitution, and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

But Robert Frost famously said that “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” The USA does take me in, but reluctantly. They shuttle me aside at the airport to be questioned and searched, go through my laptop and PDA... the usual FWM (flying while Muslim) treatment. The last time I returned to California, they held me for hours. It was just me and a transvestite with pockmarked arms and suspicious brick-shaped objects in his bag. Then they let the transvestite go and it was just me.

They take me in like you'd take in a bad relative, a freeloading cousin who needs a place to crash. They do not see me as a native son.

Some argue that this treatment is justified by the need for security. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that I am an American-born citizen with no ties to anything criminal, the perception by some people that this treatment is necessary does not mean that I have to like it. It certainly does not make me feel at home, which is the point of this essay.

Well I went back to Ohio
but my family was gone
I stood on the back porch
There was nobody home
I was stunned and amazed:
My childhood memories
slowly swirled past
like the wind through the trees.
A, O, way to go Ohio.

What about Egypt?

I've never lived there. Even my own parents, having lived abroad for decades, are regarded as foreigners when they visit. Perhaps their accents have changed, or maybe it's the subtle differences in clothing, mannerisms and attitudes that they have developed. I remember once when my mother and I went to visit, back when I was in high school, and the taxi driver asked my mother where she was from, and when she said Egypt he did not believe her, even when she insisted. As for me, I would be a total foreigner.

And Egypt's abysmal human rights record is not inviting either.

Panama?

It's beautiful here, at least here in this Elysian valley of the crater. I am at peace here. People smile at us and greet Salma by name, even people I don't recognize. As I write this the birds are singing outside and our two cats are sleeping comfortably a few feet away. Rosa has pancakes on the stove, and Salma is smiling and giggling.

Nevertheless, I miss being around Muslims, I miss my parents and my old friends, and I long to contribute something meaningful. Even once I get residency here I will not be Panamanian, and my role in this society will always be limited. I am essentially a guest, well treated and made comfortable.

Where They Understand You

Someone said that home is not where you live but where they understand you. Wow... So where is that place for me? Maybe the Market Street office of my former psychotherapist, Dr. Milhem? I'm pretty sure she understood me?

Really, where is this mythical, unlikely place where they understand someone who has been through hell and mud, who has never belonged, who dreams of something greater for the ummah and humanity but who tiptoes so as not to wake himself?

Still, my friend Samayya said to me recently that all her friends are going through this "no one understands me" phase, which brought me up short to the realization of what a cliché it is, what a throwback to teenage angst and confusion about self-identity. And who understands anyone, anyway? We each live in our own universe, with our own galaxies of weirdnesses, regrets and unspoken thoughts expanding and contracting in our heads.

Speaking of which...

My Own Head

Some say that your head is your home. I remember reading long ago about a nomadic tribe in Africa who believe this very thing. They are constantly on the move, with no geographical home, but each member paints his skull with its own unique design that represents his own centeredness and identity. He repeats this design throughout his life, to represent a home that always moves with him.

I went back to Ohio
but my pretty countryside
had been paved down the middle
by a government that had no pride.
The farms of Ohio
had been replaced by shopping malls
and Muzak filled the air
from Seneca to Cuyahoga falls.
Said A, O, way to go Ohio.

What About the Muslim Ummah?

Ah, now we're beginning to touch on something true and meaningful. I realize that my non-Muslim readers may not be familiar with this terminology. The word Ummah comes from the same Arabic root as the word for mother, and it refers to the global community of Muslims, which is like a mother that nourishes and cares for us all. This is not a sinister thing in any way, rather it is a community of people who share a faith in God and a belief in spiritual living, and who are committed to helping one another and caring for one another. A Muslim belongs to this Ummah regardless of his or her citizenship or race. For a Muslim this Ummah itself is home.

This is an ideal of course, a vision of brotherhood and sisterhood that often does not live up to reality. It's true that the Ummah today is fragmented, disunited and ruled by a variety of dictators. Some Muslims might totally disagree on political or social issues, and even in their approach to Islam. In spite of all that, though, when I meet another Muslim, no matter where he or she is from, there is an instant transfer of recognition and respect.

Though there may not be a geographical place where they "understand" me, the Ummah is the closest thing to a community that understands me, that welcomes me, and that will always take me in.

Family

I believe this is really the key.

It just occured to me that this town where I live now, El Valle de Anton, is very much like the Davis of my youth. Davis back then was an idyllic small town, full of arching oak trees, people on bicycles, and green parks that were all within cycling distance. It was a sweet place and time. That Davis is gone, surrendered to suburban sprawl and California real estate values, but here I am, having come thousands of miles to find a place just like it in which to raise my child(ren). So perhaps, in a strange way, I have come home after all.

Isn't this what it really comes down to in the end: you make a place for your family, and it's home because your family is there. Remember what I was saying about how you grow up and move away from home, and then you become homesick for a place that may not even have existed? I think this is in fact a rite of passage, leading to the time when you have children and create your own new home, one that lives not in your past or your imagination but in your wife or husband's embrace, and in the smile your baby gives you in the morning.

My daughter Salma does not dream of Davis, or Fresno, or any other small town of the past that has been paved into a shopping mall. For Salma, home is right here. This is the place of her birth and her childhood, and more importantly this is where her loving parents reside.

If Laura, Salma and I were to pack up tomorrow and move to India or China, it would still be home, because we would still be a family. Sure, I'd still think about Davis, Fresno, San Francisco and El Valle, and I'd still carry my nostalgic charms, my shangyraqs, but at the end of the day, coming home, it would be about seeing my family's faces, and their smiles when I walk in the door.

Between my family, and my Ummah, I think I have more of a home than most.

The Hereafter

I'd be remiss if I did not point out that from an Islamic, spiritual perspective, there is no true home in this world. The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said, "I am in this world like a rider who stopped briefly to rest under the shade of a tree, then went on and left it behind." He was a deeply humble man who ate only simple foods and wore patched garments, though he was born into nobility and later in life had the wealth of an empire available to him.

Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him), one of the closest companions of the Prophet, once narrated this event:

"I went to the Prophet and saw that he was lying on a mat made of the leaves of the date-palm, and there was no bedding between him and the mat, and the texture of the mat had left deep marks on his body, and under his head was placed a leather pillow stuffed with the bark of the date-tree. On seeing it, I said, "My Master! Pray to Allah to grant prosperity to your followers. He has bestowed riches upon the people of Rome and Persia even though they are not believers."

The Prophet replied, 'O son of Khattab! Do you not prefer that they take the joys of this world and we of the Hereafter?" (reported in Bukhari and Muslim)

This doesn't mean that nothing in this life has value, but that it can't be found in the things we generally prize. Value cannot be found in material. Our houses, cars, computers and TVs, savings accounts and stocks, designer clothing and cell phones, and all the material things that we aspire to and hold dear, are dust in the wind.

What is valuable is what lasts: our behavior and actions. Whether we're hateful or compassionate, selfish or generous, devoted to God or devoted to ourselves. These things go with us into the grave and stand by us on Judgement Day.

Any home that we try to build in this life must be built on what is real and lasting.

HUMMINGBIRD: A Poem

A hummingbird followed a scent
or a stray thought into our house.
A brave bird, a traveler, thinking fast
or acting on impulse,

known to others
as the ibn Battuta of his kind.
He came to a good place
for I would never harm an intrepid soul.

I turned out the lights and opened the doors wide
but the tiny bird went to sleep in our attic,
where the moon shines,
his fast-beating heart trusting in Allah

or following its own imperatives.
In the morning I caught him in my hand
and tossed him into the blue Panamanian sky.
He disappeared so fast

that I think maybe the real bird escaped last night
and left only his shadow here,
his dim double, his dream,
and that's what I set free.

Have I too have left my shadow asleep
in some strange prison or lamplit street?
And when will it fly free
to join me?

Or am I instead
the shadow, the dim double, the dream, the ghost,
Lost and asleep in the moonlight?

Lost Tourist in El Valle; Ways to Say Yes

Adam's team resumed work today and I went to the library to get some work done. I worked for a few hours, with a nun on one side of me and a retired American woman on the other. I could have done more but I got sick of the old, unresponsive computer mouse, so I went to lunch. After lunch I noticed a young American standing in front of the Melo store, sweating profusely and poring over a Lonely Planet guide. This being Christmas season, I have seen several American tourists about town. Many of them are out walking in the midday sun, a bad idea at any time of year but especially right now, the beginning of dry season, when UV levels are very high.

This particular young man looked lost and uncomfortable. I went over and asked him if he was trying to figure out where to go.

He said, "Yes!" in a tone that implied great relief, and said that he needed a guide. He told me his name was Eric and he was from Los Angeles. He is staying at Los Capitanes for a few days then moving on to some other part of Panama.

I took him to see Niko, a craft seller at the mercado. Niko asked him for three dollars an hour, and the young man said yes, but since neither of them have a car they will have to take a taxi. Niko is an odd young fellow with an attitude that is a mixture of intense, tough and ingratiating. Actually I have met many young Panamanians like him.

I later found out that a man named Mario, who runs the Serpentario (the snake shop) here in town, is a licensed tour guide and is bilingual.

As I turned to leave, Niko took me to the side. He thanked me for bringing him some business, then asked me if I know martial arts. He must have heard this from Cleo, another craft seller with whom I have developed sort of a friendship.

I said yes, I know some Hapkido, a Korean art. Why do you ask, do you want to learn?

Niko responded with a very intense, "Yes!", glowering and getting very close to me, like some young warrior trying to prove his sincerity at wanting to go to battle.

I may regret this, but I told him to come by the house Tuesday evening for a practice session. I do need a practice partner to hone my skills on. I made it clear to him that I am not an expert, but I will teach him what I know. He said, "How much I pay?" I waved him off and shook my head to indicate that there would be no charge.

When I got home Adam's team was gone. Rosa informed me that the mini fridge - the new one I bought just last week as a temporary measure until full electrical power is restored - is no longer functioning.

In addition, I discovered that one of my new surge protectors, one I just took out of the package yesterday, is fried. It smells burnt and no longer lights up.

Called Adam and he says that he's waiting on EDEMET to install a new transformer on the street pole. His team will put in the new wiring tomorrow. Looks like I'll have to go back to the library to get some more work done. I'm tired of this.

But would I trade it all to be back in Oakland, or even San Francisco, for that matter? No, no. Definitely not.

Living Without Electricity in Panama

The problem with the electricity has continued to worsen. To run the mini fridge, I have to turn the lights off. To run my computer, I shut down the mini fridge. Sometimes as I am working at my computer, particularly at night, the low power alarm sounds and I must roam the house, shutting everything down until I am sitting at my computer in total darkness, the glow of the LCD screen attracting every mosquito, gnat, termite and moth in the house to my location.

Occasionally even that's not enough and I must hurriedly shut my computer down as the alarm on the backup power unit sounds. Sometimes the shut down process is too slow and the power cuts out while the computer is stil running. Not good for the system at all.

The hot water heater consumes too much power so I take cold showers. I have a hand-cranked flashlight and I rely heavily on it at night, rather than turning on the lamps or room lights.

Adam Brunner has arrived with his local crew to address this problem. Adam and his father Bill own Los Nances, a local bed & breakfast on a hill above town. The B&B does not attract many guests, so they also sell local real estate, do construction, and manage repair projects. Bill is an American who has resided in Panama for many decades. His son Adam was born and raised in the Canal Zone, attending Balboa High School and Florida State University's Panama branch. If you ask him where he's from, he'll say Panama, as do most Zonians. He is fluent in both English and Spanish and comes across at first glance like an American, but once you begin conversing with him you discover that in his attitudes about politics, the environment, and life in general, he is more of a Panamanian than a gringo.

His repair team consist of Eric, the apprentice electrician super-athlete with the little bionic dog Clifford, both of whom run ten miles in the mountains every morning before work; a large, experienced electrician whose name I don't know but has bad breath and body odor and is so hairy he looks like he fell into a tub of glue and then rolled around on the floor of a barbershop; and Lazaro, a rotund, born-again bald plumber with a high pitched voice and excitable mannerisms.

The electricians determined a few days ago that there are several problems. Several circuits are shorted, excessive humidity has built up in the circuit box, and most seriously, the house wiring, and the electrical wires coming in from the street, are of insufficient gauge to handle the electrical load. The wires from the street are No.8 guage, really not appropriate for a large house like this. Of course this house was never meant to be lived in full time. William Silen built it as a weekend house and did not even put in phone wiring.

All of the wiring will have to be pulled and replaced. Adam and I went to the city in his pickup truck and bought three spools of No. 2 gauge copper wiring to replace the old stuff. Cost for materials alone was $2,2oo.

By the way, I'm writing this on my laptop and the zero key is dead, hence the little o's in the place of zeros. This laptop is in bad shape, suffering many malfunctions. I believe they are the result of many months of unprotected use in Panama City, when I plugged it directly into the wall socket with no surge protector or voltage regulator to guard it from the constant fluctuations in the electrical current here in Panama. I did not know better at the time.

Adam and I proceeded to the Do-It Center where I purchased a new refrigerator for $8oo. The compressor on the old fridge has been burnt out by those same power fluctuations.

Laura had requested a fridge with an external ice maker and I wanted to accomodate her, since it was her only request, but those models were all over a thousand dollars and were high energy consumers. I was concerned about getting an energy efficient model, to keep our electric bills low and also to minimize the demands on the house electrical system. So, no external ice maker. I also bought a $5o power adaptor made especially for refrigerators, called the Refri-Line.

Salma requested a fridge with external milk dispenser, but I could not find one. Anyway, she already has one, the Mama model. Price: priceless.

The next day Adam's crew proceeded to dig up the old wires and put in the new. However, additional hidden problems surfaced. The subsurface wires ran in odd, multiple directions. A section of the wiring runs beneath the concrete at the side of the house and will be hard to reach. Most disturbingly, Adam discovered that the previous owner, the aforementioned William Silen, had installed a secret box to siphon power illegally from the electric company. As much as half of the house's power had been coming through this box, but the box had shorted out, so the house is no longer getting a sufficient electrical flow. Adam said he would have to tear this out and put in a new circuit box.

Then something unfortunate occurred. Adam had filed a work request with EDEMET, the local power company, notifying them of the work he would by doing. The inspector happened to come by in the afternoon as Adam was discovering all these problems. The inspector spotted the illegal box, and threatened legal action. He is obligated by law to report this to his superiors at EDEMET. I would be fined between $3,ooo and $7,ooo, my meter wall would be knocked down and my electricity would be cut off until the conclusion of the court case, which could take up to ten years. The fact that I did not install the box and did not even know of its existence is irrelevant at the moment. I could try to prove it in court if I wished, but Silen might claim that he knows nothing about it.

I told Adam to try to resolve this problem with the inspector on a one-on-one basis. After some negotiation, Adam paid the inspector $25o, and the man drove away without filing a report. This is what we call, paying an unofficial fine. Adam's team immediately removed the illegal box and its wiring, so that no further evidence of its existence remains.

However, this means that I cannot take action against William Silen to recover the cost of these repairs. Officially this problem never existed, and I cannot make an issue out of it without exposing this payoff and coverup. So I just have to eat the cost of these repairs, bitter though it is. Or maybe I can sue him for the cost of upgrading the wiring, unrelated to the illegal box. He and I will both know what's really up, but neither of us can mention it.

Meanwhile the chubby, fast-talking plumber is hard at work. We have no hot water at the kitchen sink, only cold. The plumber discovered that at some point in the past the hot water hose had been damaged and repaired with cigarrette box tin foil, which of course did not hold.

Many of our faucets drip, and the plumber told me that Silen had used cheap, thin washers that would not last more than six months. There are other problems with similar causes, all having to do with the use of cheap materials and shoddy repairs.

I'm not too happy about this. I have to wonder if Silen ripped us off, if he conned us. He had a story about building this house for himself and his wife, then discovering that he had cancer and therefore had to sell the house to pay his medical bills. His wife in turn acted upset at having to sell the house. But I wonder if that's what it was, an act. I wonder if his plan from the beginning was to build a house with cheap materials, sell it to a gringo and move on with his profit.

No, I just can't see that being true. The house is beautiful, and for the most part is sturdy and well designed. And Silen's wife's upset at selling the house was too genuine. She actually cried. She insisted that she be allowed to remove a large stone with a Virgin Mary statue that stood out in the front yard. She wanted to stage a goodbye party in the house and was upset when the lawyer informed her that the contract had already been signed and the house was no longer hers. For a few months after I bought the house, but when I was still living in the city, she pestered my lawyer because the grass at the house was not being cut, until finally the lawyer began blocking her calls. Clearly the woman was very emotionally attached to the house and planned on spending her retirement years here.

Night Time Parade in El Valle de Anton, Panama

If you read the last post you remember that I was eating at Nina Delia as the school Christmas parade took shape outside. I had left the front doors of the house wide open in the hopes that a trapped hummingbird might make its escape.

The parade itself took a long time to arrive, as things are wont to do in Panama. It's not unusual for a parade to begin hours after its scheduled starting time. No one is upset by this. They wait, talk, and sit quietly. They are the real sabireen.

For about a half hour I ate my dinner and listened to the drums approaching. Finally the first car arrived and I stepped outside the restaurant to watch. In actuality the restaurant is a large open air, palm-thatched bohio, so it's just a matter of taking a few steps to the edge of the bohio.

The first car was a fire marshal's pickup truck with a siren wailing and blue lights flashing. It carried a large display with Santa on one side and a Raggedy Ann on the other. At their feet were recreations of what looked like white seals frolicking.

Behind this car was a four wheeler ATV driven by Mark, the tall fellow from Tennessee who rents these electric golf carts here in town. Mark wore a Santa cap and smoked a cigarette as he drove, slouching in the seat. In the back seat several children waved to the crowd.

Then another fire truck, the occupants throwing entire bags of candy to the crowd, children in the streets scrambling to retrieve them. In fact I saw my waitress scurrying to get some.

At this point the parade halted. A little ways down the street a squadron of drumming boys continued to play.

I went back into the restaurant and ordered a piece of carrot cake. I brought the cake outside and stood on the grass, eating my cake and waiting for the parade to resume. As usual, it was a long parade. Girls in knee high boots and skirts marching and twirling batons, other groups of girls playing Christmas music on xylophones, squadrons of as many as forty boys drumming, a group of children in nativity costumes... and all of them wearing flashing lights on their caps and shirts, making the whole thing ridiculously festive and almost surreal.

At one point a small girl who could not have been more than three joined the marchers, twirling her own baton. Her mother came out to get her and she ran between the marchers, leading her mother on a chase, swinging her baton, determined to be a part of the parade. I pointed at her and laughed out loud, and said to no one in particular, "Panama is so funny! Panama is a trip."

And it really is.

When I got home, the doors still wide open and the lights out, I found that the hummingbird had gone to sleep in the loft. So I left the doors open all night, hoping the bird might wake up and find its way out.

It did not. The next morning it was still there, but when Adam came by to resume work he climbed up to the loft and caught it in a towel. We took it outside and set it free in the yard just as Rosa was arriving for work. She saw me open the towel and a small bird shoot into the sky, and watched with a startled look as it flew away. Life is a precious thing, subhanAllah, so fragile but so resilient.

A Place of Innocence: El Valle de Anton, Panama

I went out to eat yesterday evening, December 20th, because it was Rosa´s day off. A hummingbird had gotten into the house and kept trying to fly through the loft windows, even though I climbed up into the loft and tried to wave it in the right direction. So I left the front doors of the house wide open, and turned off all the lights in the hope that it might exit on its own.

I walked down to Nina Delia in the dusk after sunset, and along the way I noticed a large crowd gathering in front of the Hong Kong market. Many wore red shirts and santa hats with flashing lights. Pickups and buses were pulling up and disgorging more holiday clad revelers as I watched. One family had a toddler sleeping in a stroller, also wearing the ubiquitous santa cap.

I continued on to Nina Delia. I ordered the corvina with garlic and french fries - always tasty - and read my Robert Ludlum novel, Apocalypse Watch, as I ate. By this time it was dark outside.

The crowd continued to grow, now lining the entire street from the school to the Hong Kong market (as far as I could see). I asked the waitress what was going on and she said in Spanish, ¨School Christmas parade.¨

They love parades in Panama. And here in El Valle, parades are all-town events, with half the town either participating or watching, and people coming in from surrounding smaller towns like Los Llanitos, Las Margaritas, Caimitillo and Mata Ahogado.

It reminds me of the Davis that I grew up in, a small town back then, with tree lined streets and everyone getting around on bicycles. When there were parades I used to climb one of the many oaks as my parents stood below. It was a place and time of innocence, before I was aware of such things as oil wars, genocides, torture, intolerance and environmental exploitation.

El Valle reminds of that time. Of course I am now aware of all the ills of the world and I have to deal with the emotional effects of that knowledge, while at the same time trying to figure out what I can do to bring something good into the world, or to make a difference in even a small way.

But in El Valle I am often able to forget all that, or to feel happy in spite of it. When the sun is shining on Cerro Gaital in the morning, when the breeze is blowing and the yard is full of birds and the odd iguana, when the frogs are sounding at night, and when the locals smile at me and ask about my wife and my baby - or when the town revels in the pleasure of its amateurish but enthusiastic parade - I feel that the world is a good place and that there is some happiness to be found here, Alhamdulillah.