Panama: The Purpose

The purpose of our trip was multi-fold: (1) for young clergy (plus Leisha) to get to know Bishop Willimon better, (2) for us to be trained as team leaders for future UVIM trips, (3) to find out more about what the North Alabama conference is doing in missions (particularly Panama), (4) and to keep Patsy Willimon from spending another birthday depressed because it falls so soon after Christmas.

On all counts, the trip was a success. We got to know the Bishop about as much as we wanted to. Really thoug, the greatest part was getting to know other young clergy (plus Leisha) better. Being in the Florence District, clergy in the 20-30 age range are few and far between (only one other elder, plus two student pastors). In addition, my age group is not only noticeably absent in churches, but also in the community. (Florence wants to be the state's premier retirement community.) As a result, direct interaction with peers can be quite limited for Laura and me. So, being able to spend a week with other young clergy was quite a refreshing time.

The time with the Bishop wasn't quite what I had expected. The trip was billed as a time to get to know the Bishop and be mentored by him. Turns out, he was more interested in using the time as a vacation and to test out ideas on us. Case in point, in one of his last email letters he writes about "Affinity Clusters," referring to the re-districting. Well, we heard his ideas on that during one of his many breaks from painting.

In college nor seminary, I was never one to seek out the professor after class just for the sake of he or she getting to know me. There were a few that I did get to know well, but I was never one of those "front row" people. So it was with our time on the trip. I got more than enough time for me to spend with him, but there were certainly others that sought out every minute they could with him, particularly "The Infector" who was our translator and is a lay person - not that he didn't have a right to talk to the Bishop.

As I said, I feel that the time I got to spend with the Bishop was more than adequate. My appointment for the coming year was not made or broken with the trip (at least I hope). Plus, he really does have a short attention span. Many times someone would be talking to him, would make a point, and he would say, "Hmm." and then walk away on to something else. Even our time at the Panama Canal was rushed because he didn't want to waste time waiting for the English version of the Canal video to be shown. But enough about that.


The other part of the trip, the information and training about UVIM (United Methodist Volunteers in Mission) was also good. I would definietly like to go back and lead a team to work longer than we were able to. There is going to be plenty of opportunity to work, especially with the plans to build a camp at the above location.

Panama: Sight-Seeing and Customs

Franklin Durado
Yes, not many people would include a picture of a hardware store in their collection of "sight-seeing" pictures, but mine wouldn't be complete without "The Big Orange."

We spent a lot of time at this hardware store. Not to disparage Paulette or anything, she had entirely too much on her plate, but we got to know the insides and out of "The Big Orange." Eerily similar to a Home Depot in color and design (despite Patsy Willimon referring to it as "Lowe's," but so much more different than any hardware store I had ever been in. They had everything from your general hardware and home improvement items, to exercise equipment, athletic equipment, and musical instruments.

The Pacific Ocean

Since the country of Panama runs West-East (or, East-West the way we first traveled), the southern coast is their Pacific Coast. We stopped here on our way to David for a nice 3-hour lunch. The scenery was beautiful, every picture that I took turned out amazingly. As Laura said, "It's kind of hard to screw up a picture of something so beautiful."

From what I could gather, this was a bit of a resort area where there seemed to be many Panamanian people at the beach as well as a good helping of international vacationers.

Old Panama
This is a picture of a now ruined Cathedral in Old Panama, one of the first settlements in the country. Tragically, the location was not as strategically located as the founder would have liked and the city was sacked in the early 1600s, I think.

One of the neat things about this ruin is that apparently seven different orders of monastics lived in this area. I don't remember which ones were there, but it was stressed to us be the 'Tourist Police' that this kind of thing doesn't usually happen. (I know there are at least a few monastics out there in the blogosphere, so I'd appreciate any extra information on this and their relationships.)

Panama City Skyline
From a distance, you can see that Panama City looks much like any other major city in the world. However, of all of those high-rise buildings, only one existed more than ten years ago.

Much of this has to do with the changing leadership of Panama, after years of oppression by Noriega, their current leadership actually cares about improving the economy and the lives of the Panamanian people. Also, with the changeover of the Panama Canal, and it now being in the control of the Panamanian people, much more money is being pumped into the economy than ever before.

Despite the urban renewal and the growth of the city, as with any major city, the poor were getting the shaft. As older buildings were being bought up to be restored (none could be torn down or even have major external work done), the poor who were living in them were being "relocated." I wasn't clear on where they were being relocated to, or even if the people were being treated justly. But, it did seem that there was more thought put into this than many of the renewal projects un the U.S.

In addition, as with the beach, Panama is now marketing itself as a major tourist destination, especially with eco-travel in mind. Just about every person we talked to about Panama as a vacation spot mentioned at least once about how many birds there were in Panama. Apparently, in a country the size of South Carolina, there are more species of birds than in the whole U.S.

Panama Canal: Miriaflores Locks
Growing up in the Tennessee Valley, I'm no stranger to locks and dams. However, that made the Canal no less impressive. The Miraflores Locks are in Panama City, making them the final set of locks that ships go through before continuing their journey to the Pacific Ocean. (The locks on the Caribbean side are in Colon.)

Being the nerds we are and proving our dependence on TiVo, Laura and I had set the TiVo to record anything having to do with Panama in the months leading up to our trip. This turned out to be a good thing, since it not only helped us be more familiar with Panama and its history and culture, but it also was the only way we knew anything about the locks. There was a really neat museum and even aquarium there at the locks that had a lot of information about the Canal. But, the major source of information was a film that was shown to all visitors.

As a final proof of how short an attention span Bishop Willimon has, we were made to rush through the last 1/3 of the museum tour so that we could see the film - only it was in Spanish. Every 20 minutes the film would alternate between being shown in English and Spanish. Apparently, the Bishop had become bored with the museum and was ready to go. So, we hurry and go in, see the film (I slept through it), and got ready to leave. Only we stayed there for at least another hour, plenty of time to have seen the film in English at least twice.

Customs
As seen in other posts, there was a picture of a "Hello Kitty" pinata that was burning. As we were driving along the Pan-American Highway, we kept noticing life-sized effigies of people on the side of the road. This turns out to be a Panamanian New Year's tradition in which they create a representation of their favorite (or least favorite) person. On New Year's they gather around the stuffy-guys, fill them with fireworks, hold a mock-funeral with a reading of said person's Last Will and Testament, and then set them on fire, watching for them to explode.

Not wanting to be outsiders to their culture, and wanting to understand more about the people we were working with, we decided to to create our own effigy of Bishop Willimon. You can see in the picture "Bishop Kitty" holding a sign saying, "8 Districts or Bust," in reference to our upcoming called Annual Conference. The stole was expertly crafted by Amanda vonHermann, guaranteeing that her husband, Peter, will be appointed to the Roanoke District once he graduates from seminary.

Fortunately Bishop Willimon took this in great stride and had a good laugh about this. Although, I fully expect to hear this in an upcoming sermon from him about how the young clergy of this day are so radical that they have no respect for authority. We all got a good laugh out of it, especially the Last Will and Testament, created by Brandon Harris. (I hope to get a copy of it to post here soon.)

Conclusion
Of course this is only a small representation of the sights that we saw there in Panama. The countryside was beautiful as well as the coastal area. But, like anywhere, there was evident disparity between the haves and the have-nots.

Overall, we were welcomed by the Panamanian people as we wandered through their country like the clueless gringos we were. This was somewhat surprising, considering how the U.S. had contributed in no small part to the economic and political struggles the country has had in years past. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't have been so friendly to people from a country that had invaded mine over 20 times in the last century. Despite this, the people were extremely kind, welcoming, and ready to show how proud they were of their country.

Panama: Food and Dining

As much as Laura and I like to travel to different places to see the sights and experience different cultures and the history of places, trying different foods is also a big part of it.

The whole time we were in Panama we only ate in one McDonald's - thank God. Maybe I'm a bit of a travel snob, but I don't go to a foreign country to eat American fast food. Luckily we were able to avoid most of it, especially during our 12- and 8-hour bus trips to and from David. That, in part, was due to the fact that in the middle of Panama on the Pan-Am highway, there aren't any fast food places, at least in the sense of what we know them as. Most restaurants were family run and seemed to have pretty much the same menu from one end of the country to the other. These weren't chains, but by the end of the trip we didn't even have to look at the menu at any of the places because it was all the same. Fish, Shrimp, Filets (cut very differently there than here), and the occasional squid and lobster. The menus only varied in how many different ways they prepared the items.

The food was tasty enough in these places, I'm sure it would have been a lot better had they not been trying to accommodate a party of 20. But there were a few snags here and there. I really hate eating in very large groups. From my time in the food service industry, and from eating with groups of people who are clueless when it comes to restaurant etiquette, parties of eight are my limit. More than that and you can guarantee that somebody is not going to get what they ordered. Add to the fact that most of the places we went, the people spoke no English, eating out was an ordeal.

Though the restaurants were not as great as I had hoped, the food prepared for us by the women of the host church in David and the women of the Chiriqui village where we worked, was amazing. Fresh fruit and vegetables everyday, chicken and rice dishes, beans, sausage, breads, and strong coffee every meal, really gave us an authentic taste of Panamanian foods. It must be universal that Methodist women know how to cook and feed lots of people because these women did not disappoint.

They were so gracious and kind too. These women were up early to fix breakfast for us, and up late, waiting on us to get through with our work to feed us.

No corn syrup in my coke please. I loved the fact that the local Coca-Cola products (and I would guess, all soft drinks) were made with real sugar - not the high-fructose corn syrup that we get here. It was a much better tasting Coke to me and in a strange way, felt healthier. (If you're in doubt, read "Fast Food Nation" or see "Super-Size Me." I've heard Coke with sugar is a rare find stateside. It usually can only be found either around Passover with a yellow cap, or in Mexican markets. In just the same way the corn producers dominate the market here, sugar is in much more abundant supply there. So, it stands to reason that they would use a more local and cheaper sweetener. It definitely produces a better product with the sugar.

The final day of working in Chiriqui, we had a community-wide meal and invited the children of the surrounding area. The meal - beans and rice. It was like heaven. Three local women prepared close to 25 pounds of beans and 10 pounds of rice for all of the people there. A great feat in and of itself, but they did it using an outdoor, wood-fired "stove." It was amazing to see how they were able to prepare the food so well in the huge pots that they had while managing the heat with banana leaves. Definitely one of the best meals of the trip.

Panama: Final Thoughts

Yeah, so I've sat on this for a long time. There's more, but I'm not feeling it right now. Hope that whoever is Jonesing for an update from me, this will suffice...

To sum up, we had a great time. Though it has taken about two weeks to fully recover from the trip and from the Christmas holidays preceeding the trip, all of the stress was well worth it.

I know I would love to go back to work, but I am certainly grateful for the opportunity to have spent time with peers and getting to know some of the other folks better.

Click here (Right-click to download) to see the .WMV PhotoStory of our trip. Windows Media Player required. WARNING! This file is 7.1 MB, so be prepared for a long download. Also, all songs are copyrighted by their repective artists (Van Halen, Michael Tolcher, House of Pain, Big Country)

We're back!

This is Panama. (Actually the Central Offices of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Panama.)

This is where we stayed for the first night we were there, as well as the last two nights. The in between days, when we were working with the Ngobe Indians, we stayed in a hotel in David. Overall, the lodging conditions were much better than expected, especially in David. The only drawback to staying at a hotel was that it made it that much harder going back to the central offices and sharing a bunk with Bishop Willimon rather than Laura.

I had a great time on the trip. We just tried to do too much in too short of a time. We weren't able to fully complete our intended project of painting a multi-use building on the Indian reservation, but we were able to do a lot for the children and the families that the building served.

Because this was a multi-purpose trip, trying to blog straight through the trip would be next to impossible, and very unreadable. So, my plan is to do a summary in segments, addressing different topics and aspects of the trip. It's about the only way I know how to make sense of all that we did, and will help me to properly reflect theologically on what we were able to do and see. Plus, it will allow me to post more pictures.

Expected topics will include: Purposes, Mission and People, Team building and bonding, Sight-Seeing and Customs, Food, Final thoughts. Of course, these ideas may change. Also, any specific questions concerning our trip will help in making the summary more coherent.

Yes, this is a picture of a "Hello Kitty" pinata dressed as Bishop Willimon burning and filled with firecrackers. (More on this in the customs section.) The sign says, "8 Districts or Bust!"

$12.50 for an undershirt

Apparently that's what I'm going to have to pay to live up to Gavin's nomination for being Best Dressed Blogger.

Before leaving for Panama I bought a pack of Hanes crew neck T-shirts from Target. I've only worn a few, and for the most part they felt alright. But, the one I pulled out today looked like they stitched together two shirts of different sizes. I swear, it felt like I was wearing the T-shirt version of the Gordon Gartrelle imitation that Denise made for Theo. I know I'm not THAT misshapen.

I know, I should probably be spending more on nicer undershirts anyway, so as to live up to my best dressed expectations, but as hot as it is here most of the time in Alabama, and as much as I sweat, I can't afford to be that guy yet.

Here's hoping that the shirts in the rest of the pack at least have the holes in the right places.