I wanted to take the chance to write a little bit about my perceptions of Panama City and the people here before we begin our travels outside of the country with our first trip to Ecuador this Sunday.
Panama City is a remarkably modern and developed place. I knew that it was going to be more developed than any of the other developing countries I’ve been to before (Guatemala, Ecuador, Nicaragua, India, Costa Rica) but still was not expecting the innovative spirit and consumerism that drives this city. The middle and upper-class Panamanians just cannot get enough of shopping and spending their money here—very reminiscent of the United States. That might come off sounding like a negative, but really I’m sure it will drive their economy in the future, not to mention that it implies that people (even the middle class) have money to spend on basic necessities.
Panama’s unemployment rate at the moment is 5%, much lower than the U.S.! It’s also extremely apparent how much people enjoy what we would consider an American/European lifestyle: bagels, Dove chocolate, resort vacations, European clothing and shoes. This is likely compounded by the fact that because many of these goods are coming through Panama’s canal on their way from China or Japan to the U.S., goods that we would consider “exotic” or “high-end” products in the U.S. cost much less here. They can just unload some of the product at the ports and bang, its right here.
Even just walking around our El Congrejo neighborhood here I’ve noticed so many interesting things.
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Friday, July 8, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Work and Such
Now for a little bit about the actual work I am doing at Plan’s regional office. So far we’ve begun our desk review of many of Plan’s capacity studies and background research on the topic of education during emergencies. This includes reading Plan strategy documents, past performance reviews, country priority documents, etc. There are 12 country offices within the umbrella of the Plan Regional Office of the Americas: Guatemala, Nicaragua, Haiti, The Dominican Republic, Peru, Ecuador, El Salvador, Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, Bolivia, and Paraguay. We are specifically looking at Peru, Ecuador, and El Salvador for the Needs Assessment/Evaluation of education in emergencies programs.
The outside entrance door to Plan's Regional Office of the Americas
We also conducted our first interview with a woman from the UN’s Panama office of the International Strategy for Disaster Relief (ISDR/EIRD en espanol). She was very eager to help and gave us a good overview of what the region and what Plan specifically has been working on in terms of disaster reduction and prevention. Talking to experts I think will really help give us the background we need before going out in to the field.
Next week the plan is to continue working on translating questionnaires to Spanish, coming up with templates for interview notes, reading background information, and creating a coding strategy for all of the information we will collect. We also have a tentative travel schedule for our visits to the country offices. They are planned around when the country staff can host us, as well as what activities such as workshops and trainings are going on during the period.
So far, our schedule looks like this:
June 17-July 10 Panama City (prepare materials, background, expert interviews)
July 10-17 Ecuador (information gathering interviews)
July 17-23 El Salvador (information gathering interviews)
July 23-August 1 Peru (information gathering interviews)
August 1-August 12 Panama City (to wrap up the research/write the report)
Standing along the "Cinta Costera", running, biking, and walking path near the bay in Panama City
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Packing
Now, let me just make clear before the ridicule begins that these are not all my bags! They are James' bags as well, from when we were both leaving for the airport on June 17, me for Panama and James headed for Haiti. This post is slightly out of order but I thought I'd still share this photo in case anyone is wondering what it looks like when two people pack for a collected total of 6 different countries over the course of 9 weeks. This is the type of craziness I guess we can expect if we both keep working in development.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Gold Cup Games & Ciudad del Saber
Almost a week as passed here in Panama, and not a single day without clouds and/or rain! I had no idea how gloomy rainy season could be here in the tropics. It sure does make the grass and the palm trees grow really green and lush, though.
Our days have been spent at Plan’s Regional Office of the Americas, or ROA in NGO acronym-speak (pronounced “row-ah”). The office is on the outskirts of Panama City, in a humongous office complex called “Ciudad del Saber” (City of Knowledge) that used to be U.S. army barracks back when the U.S. still controlled the canal here. The buildings are a simple beige with the classic Spanish tile roofing, lined up in neat rows across the campus. It seems like every NGO in the world has a regional headquarters here, including the Red Cross, Special Olympics, ChildFund, CARE, all the United Nations Agencies, and Doctors without Borders. Then of course there are the finance institutions, the foreign corporations, etcetera. Not only that, the campus also houses the families of many of the expat workers here, in ranch houses with modest carports and jungle gym equipment out back. The complex also houses barber shops, laundry services, restaurants, and cafes. A private international school is called Balboa Academy is also housed here. The gym and outdoor Olympic-size swimming pool are only about a quarter mile down the road in the complex. Soccer fields and tennis courts also make an appearance. Everything that an ex-pat worker could want or desire away from home (with the big exception of Starbucks—bummer) is here in this ex-pat complex.
Plan’s offices themselves are rather small but well-decorated and brand new looking inside, with the same style of plastering cute children’s faces all over the office as in Plan’s DC location. The office has a modern and comfortable feel to it, with new laminate hard wood floors, a nice kitchen with a coffee and espresso machine, and about 20 or so employees. From my office area I can look out over the barges going through the Miraflores locks of the Panama Canal. It is surreal.
Wednesday was the Gold Cup semifinals, Panama versus the USA. You can guess the kind of reception we received in the office (as the only Americans here) on Wednesday before the game. I have a feeling people knew that Panama was likely to lose and therefore the heckling wasn’t as bad as it could have been. We went out to the game Wednesday with a young co-worker and her husband. She said to meet them at a bar called (this is what we heard—“Pit Bull”) along the uber-hip and trendy Calle Uruguay. It turns out that instead of Pit Bull the bar was actually (thank goodness) called “People”. And it wasn’t actually a bar; I’d call it a dance club, complete with music blaring, neon lights, fog machines, the whole 9 yards. It was packed. Clearly the it was the true Panamanian way to watch a big game.
In the background they were playing the game, and everyone would stop dancing to stare at the TV whenever a play was about to be made or the game looked serious. Occasionally they would throw up their hands after a bad play or a foul, or something they thought should have been called a foul. Afterwards when Panama lost our new friends weren’t too mad at us, thankfully, and they took us out to the “Amador Causeway” for a late dinner.
This Causeway connects three separate islands on the Panama Canal are connected to the mainland by long bridge and the view from everywhere on the islands of the city lit up at night was unbelievable. We sat outside at a restaurant on the water and watched the boats go by in the Canal. It was a great experience, especially with the heat lightening in the humid night air and the lovely $3 chicken dinners. Although I wish Panama had won so we could have see the crazy fiestas that would have followed, it turned out to be a great night.
Now back to work, but more about the actual project I am working on here soon to come!
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