The Good and the Bad

This is me with Emilio in the truck yard. If you had told me a year ago that I'd be living in Panama City working for a dump truck company, I would have laughed...but here I am, keeping the company's books and doing other administrative-type duties. Me, keeping people organized. I bet I could impress a lot of guys with my truck knowledge.

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I was thinking of all the jobs I've held in my life: Grocery store cashier, Department store lingerie sales girl, college security desk, college multicultural office student aide, vineyard pouring room sales girl, preschool teacher, Frommer's Guides travel writer, political transcription copy editor, and now, multi-faceted administrative assistant. I'm probably forgetting a few things in between as well. At least I can say I've tried pretty much everything. Nothing can beat the travel writing though.

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Lately, I've been comparing the U.S and Panama a lot. It took me a while to feel like I was in a different country, but you start noticing things...not so much the big things like language and laws and weather, but small things like how paying a bill here can take all day because there is usually one person attending to 100 clients or five less-than-competent people taking care of one client. Both scenarios take just as long, and it's the kind of thing where you find yourself thinking, "This would never happen in the U.S." Here, if you're a girl, no matter how attractive or unattractive, men whistle and catcall and proposition you all the time. A 70 year old man thinks it's perfectly normal to hit on a 15 year old girl. Things we'd call sexual harassment in the U.S. are compliments and flattery here. There's not really a concept of "sophistication" and culture here; no amazing museums, no inspiring, European style cafes or cozy bookstores. There's one big bookstore in Panama City, and it pales in comparison to Borders or Barnes and Nobles. If you break a road rule, you slip a cop a $10 to avoid an official, $60 ticket. The paint job at even the most high-end buildings is lacking; dogs have to go up the cargo elevator in apartment buildings -- so does the maid; every corner is piled with trash and the whole "green mentality" is still a long way off.

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But there are good things too...otherwise I wouldn't be here. If I feel like ceviche at 3am in the morning, all I need to do is walk three blocks down to the 24-hour grocery store. I can eat at a top tier restaurant at mid-tier prices. No horrible winters to deal with. The mountains and beach are only an hour's drive away. Temperature varies not by distance but by altitude. Great bar scene. Everything is walking distance. Proximity to vegetated, natural beauty. Feeling that you're doing something new and interesting and doing it on your own. Great historic district reminicent of Cartagena but less expensive. Amador causeway. cool-looking canal style houses. When you actually find someone you can trust, they go out of their way to treat you well and do what they can for you. Convenience -- there's a key shop, empanada tienda, several bars, internet cafes and notaries within two minutes of my house. So I guess you have to take the good with the bad and hope the good outweighs the bad.