Finding excuse to not have to work…

 As I’m getting older I seem to have less and less energy. I already felt the onset when I was trying to renovate the house in Wilmington all by myself, in an attempt to proof to my then wife how much I cared about her. Well, she didn’t get the message… And i blew, it seems, my last reserve of energy…

Today, I’m working on building two houses here in Panama. And it’s getting harder and harder to get going every morning… 

The house in Chiriquí is about 4 to 5 weeks of work (with hired workers) away from being able to be put on the market. I’m hoping some nice folks to have as neighbors will find it, and enjoy the very unique architecture features and serene country setting, up high enough to have warm (not hot) days and cool nights. Despite the materials and labor costs having risen quite a bit over the last year and a half, I’m still thinking of being able to sell it for 150K - much less than the usual homes suitable for foreigners.

Backside of the house, as seen from the street

Huge terrace - the living room, dining room, and kitchen all at once

Guapo, my trusted worker. Front view of the house

Well, first I need to get it finished, though. And for that I need to get back to Chiriquí…

Currently, we’re in Santa Catalina, Veraguas. one of the best surf spots in Panama. Iris‘ house is really close to being able to make use of it. Really close, but not yet quite there…

Iris - family outing with dogs at playa estero

skin and bones! no matter how much I eat

Happy to take few hours off

Due to the countrywide protests it’s even more difficult to get materials and workers, as movement is very restricted. So I’m forced to try to work on my own…

I’m supposed to tile the livingroom/kitchen, sonIris can do the grouting. And I’m trying to build out one room upstairs, so we have a lockable space to store tools, materials, and other household stuff.

This morning, though, i woke up with the desire to bake Vanille Kipferl - one of the many traditional Austrian Christmas cookies. Iris encouraged me, too, to bake. She always seems to know what i really would like tondo, and asks me to do that. So, today, i baked these cookies, that used to be my longtime favorite sweets around christmas.

We bought a new stove last year. A mid-level style, I guess, as it was not cheap and also not one of the expensive ones. However, it doesn’t have convection fan. Nor does it have upper heat, but only from the bottom. the dial gives temperature ranges, just to make it even more challenging! 

However, given this stove and the fact i haven’t baked Vanille Kipferl in probably decades, they turned out  bastante bien (quite well). 

Proof of that is the fact that for desert at lunch we devoured already 1/2 of what I made!

what a delicious excuse to not have to tile… 😇😝🤪

Vanille Kipferl

Mining Protests - Part 3: My take

One reason i chose Panama to retire at was that it’s politically the most stable country in the 15 degrees north to 15 degrees south belt around the earth. I’m starting to wonder if this was an accurate assessment.

Yes, it has no military - so no military coup likely. Yes, the elections seem fair, and the handoff of power seems to function well, too. (not like lately in the US!)

But…

The understanding within the population of how democracy works is very - hm - “immature”!
At this time, there’s a repeat of the problems we had last year, when the indigenous blocked the interamerican highway, and every organization who wanted something joined in. At the end there were plenty hoodlums among the blockaders, who simply saw it as easy way to make money: charge those who wanted to pass a few $, and turn these funds straight into booze…

After 5 (!) weeks, finally, the road opened again and the blockaders returned to their homes and jobs.

That situation last year pointed at a big problem that Panama has, that’s made up of three facts: 

• firstly, almost all the fresh food is produced in Chiriquí, the western most province close to Costa Rica. 
• Secondly, the gasoline enters the country in Colon - a port on the caribbean coast, about an hour north of Panama City. 
• And thirdly, the only connection between Chiriquí (plus Bocas del Torro, the touristy caribbean coast) and the rest of the country (including Panama City) is the interamerican highway!

The Chinese offered the country to build a railroad, but Panama didn’t want to get completely dependent on China and passed. The europeans could build it as easily and at much less risk for the country - but they are too busy fighting amongst themselves to see the opportunity. and the americans? well, they have no idea about how to build a train line - which they’ve proven with their accela line between Boston - New York City - Washington (which they should have named “deccela”, as it “accels” as much as the german democratic republic was democratic).

Well, Panama has one single road connecting the whole country. And when that road is blocked for whatever reason, no fresh food gets to the eastern provinces, and no gasoline gets to Chiriquí and Bocas! 

I though, the people learned something from that experience last year. Everybody in the country was suffering! 
But, apparently they didn’t suffer enough to learn the lesson! 

About two weeks ago, the union SUNTRACS - Syndico Unico Nacional de Trabajadores de Industria de Construcción y Similares - played sorcerer’s apprentice and called their members to block access to all ports and airports until their demands are met. They also invited and encouraged all other organizations to join their protest. Now, everybody and their grandmother is back on the streets blockading amongst other things the interamerican highway. That includes the indigenes of the mountains between east and west. And, as last year, there is no fresh food in the eastern provinces including Panama City, and there is no gasoline in Chiriquí!

The people in Panama do not understand the difference between protests - a great tool within a democracy - and riots. Protests are a firm, strong but peaceful message to the country’s leaders. What they are doing is violating everybody’s freedom to move, and removing everybody’s access to food and gasoline. Basically, those who are trying to move about for whatever reason are kept hostage at wherever spot they got stuck on their journey!

Yes, there are no burning cars, (almost) no clashes between police and protestors, no shots fired, no people killed. 

For now, at least.

Last year showed, that as the mess drags on and some people’s livelihood start to get seriously challenged, emotions start to flare up. Last year we saw several incidents where fights broke out between blockaders and blocked folks. 

I heard of one incident, where a pickup truck broke through a blockade driving over some blockaders who tried to prevent them from getting ahead by staying in front of the car. The driver said the blockaders started destroying his car and he got afraid of his life, so he pushed through, trying to get away from the angry mob.

Let’s see how much longer until we start seeing such violence again…

The initiators of the protests did an excellent job in spinning the situation in a way that everybody now believes it is a matter of defending the country against a foreign power who’s trying to create a situation similar to the american occupation of the canal zone. That was such a big issue to the panamanians, and it cost several people’s lives to get the US to leave. Anything that looks even remotely like a similar situation gets everybody to see red.

The sorcerer’s apprentice SUNTRACS called upon the indigenous spirits, now these spirits can’t be quiescenced anymore. And the regular population happily joins in, waving flags of the country, holding signs “for our country. for our future”.

Just like in the US, ignorance and lack of education of the general population makes this a very, very difficult situation to resolve. People don’t have the ability to understand the bigger pictures. So they don’t understand what those who do understand are trying to explain to them.Granted, those who do (or should) see the bigger picture do an as poor job in explaining as one can do! But, nobody wants to listen anyhow, it seems, as everybody is drunk of the “our country is in grave danger” coolaid the populists have fed them…

You can’t get blood out of stone. But if people don’t understand (and don’t want to understand!) what a stone is, there’s not much hope! Is there?

I am very curious:

How this will develop and eventually end?

When will normalcy return to our tranquil life? (we already can not offer all we usually offer at the restaurant, as produce isn’t to be found. And as it drags on it’s going to get harder and harder to offer anything except pepperoni pizza). 

And what are the overall casualties going to be? (the canadian mining company lost 50% of its value within a week. How do they continue? How badly will the loss of the majority party be in next year’s election? Will the president step down? How much will the tourism industry decline due to people no longer considering Panama as a safe destination? Will the number of new foreign retirees decline? How much will the safety rating of the country for foreign investments decline? And probably many more factors, that I haven’t even thought about or noticed yet…)

Mining Protests - Part 2: getting caught up in the mess

The same Thursday that SUNTRACS issued the call for blocking the ports and airports, my beloved Prius arrived in the port of Colón. Due to the blockades, the car couldn’t get picked up from the port until 9 days later. which meant, i had to pay additional storage fees to the port, as the car was there longer than what is usual and included in the freight price.

Also, it meant, we had to drive to Panama City to pick it up from the public parking outside the customs broker’s office. It seemed too risky to just leave it sitting there without license plate until all this is over. So we decided to try to get there from Santa Catalina, Veraguas. We didn’t have to use the stretch of the interamerican highway from Chiriquí to Veraguas. And there seemed to be less going on from here to the city.

Well, that was a wrong assessment! 

First all went well. But after 200 of the 350 km to Panama City, we got stuck at a blockade 10 km before Penonome. Smarty pants that i think I am I check google maps about a side road that might get us around the blockade. And I found one! But it simply skipped the line of waiting cars and led directly to the blockage. So I turned around and tried another side road off the side road we were on. The gravel road quickly turned into a muddy path used usually only by agricultural equipment leading into the fields, further and further away from the interamerican highway!

parts mudslides, parts two tracks with ridge with vegetation between them and full of deep puddles

After about 10 km on such paths and one hour of driving, we finally reached a gravel road again, then an asphalted one, and found ourselves in Penonome! Yeay!

Funny side-story: a local guy had followed me all the way through the fields. He got stuck once in a deep puddle that he tried to tackle differently from me. He honked, and I waited for him. He turned on the 4-wheel drive of his pickup, and was able to get out of his difficult position. When i stopped to check the map again as we reached the asphalted road, he passed me and gave me a thumbs up…

Penonome is 150 km from Panama City. I thought we’re ok now. But, just 30 km later, the next blockade! This time no path around it to be found on google - not even one like before. However, I found a way to make it to El Valle de Anton, on a gravel road reaching one of those roads that lead off the interamerican into the mountains.

We stayed for the night at the Bodhi hostal - the same hostal that I stayed in in June 21, and where I was pointed to the Bodhi hostal in Santa Catalina, where I then met Iris. So, I was happy to show her part of our history that was just before we met…

We set our alarms to wake up at 2:00 am to try to make our way to Panama City during the night, hoping people will be at home sleeping, rather than on the roads waving flags and partying.

And so it was: we reach Panama City by 5:00 am, without hitting any more problems. 

That day, we bought all the items on our list, that are not available outside of the city, picked up the car, and had a wonderful indian dinner. 

The next morning, we’d leave early in the morning again, we decided…

Mining Protests - Part 1: what’s happening

One of the largest copper mines in the world happens to be in a very remote area off the caribbean coast of Panama. In1996 a panamanian company got the license to create this mine. Mining is an industry where scale matters very much. So, in 2013, they merged with (resolved into, were taken over by) a canadian mining company. The original contract granted Panama 35 million $ in royalty per year. In 2009, lawsuits were filed against this contract, saying it was unconstitutional as it does not benefit Panama enough. By 2018 the supreme court ruled the law on which the contract is based is unconstitutional. Such rulings are usually not retroactive but only going forward…

In March 2023 the government and the mining company agreed on a new contract, giving Panama more than 10 times the money, and more concessions for Panama. The government voted positively on the law, and the president signed it into law shortly thereafter. 

To find more details on this background, check out Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobre_mine,_Panama?wprov=sfti1#

Some people didn’t like this, however. Some NGOs don’t like mines, period. Some of the opposition think it’s still not enough for Panama. The powerful construction workers’ union SUNTRACS, for reasons i am not sure of, opposes it, too, and called upon its members to block the ports and airports until this law is annulled. They started the slogan “Panama is not for sale!”. And they asked everybody else to join in the fight.

On 22nd or 23rd of October SUNTRACS started blockades. Within a few days, the slogan resonated with large portions of the population, and everybody joined the blockades. Families with children showed up, people brought firewood and large cauldrons to cook food. Signs read: “For panama! For our future!”

Different to typical democratic protests, people didn’t just block part of the roads, but all lanes. neither did they block just for stretches of time, and then letting traffic through for a while, and blocking again. Instead, they kept the blockages all day until late into the night; some even day and night!

blockages between Chiriquí and Veraguas

For most of the length of Panama there’s only one single road - the interamerican highway. From it, roads lead up into the mountains, or down to the coast. But, most of them basically dead ends. So, for much of the whole length of the country, there’s  no alternative route possible. Consequently, when that single highway is blocked, there’s no east-west traffic whatsoever! 

Most of the fresh food is grown in the western province of Chiriquí. Virtually all the gas enters the country through Colón - a port city on the caribbean coast, an hour’s drive north of Panama City, at about the center of Panama. When the interamerican highway is blocked for any reason anywhere along the way, Chiriquí gets no more gasoline, diesel, and gas. And the rest of the country plus Panama City get no fresh vegetables and fruits.

And this is what’s happening now. The produce is overripening on the fields, all the roads are empty in Chiriquí as there’s no gasoline to fuel agricultural equipment, nor cars, nor buses. In the rest of the country, the vegetable and fruit stands on the side of the roads are closed, and the fresh produce isles in the grocery stores are empty - totally empty! Such a weird view! Quite scary, to be honest…

As of today, 2nd of November 2023, there’s no saying how long this will continue, and where it all will lead…