Those Whom Panama Frustrates

Monday February 01, 2010
Written by Matt Landau
The Panama Report

In the span of five Panama City blocks lay a multitude of sights, some as beautiful as others are unsettling. The serene presidential palace, a gang house commonly the suspect of errant shootings, an ultra-luxurious fifty-room hotel under construction slated to charge $300/night, and a network of open-air stalls where desperate people sell the odd pair of socks or cheap Chinese imports just to get by. In theory, Panama’s contrasts are some of its greatest appeals. Yet that theme, when examined in greater detail, could also explain some of the country’s most serious impediments to long-term success.

It’s seven AM Monday morning and the grind of life in El Chorillo, one of Panama City’s poorest and most downtrodden neighborhoods, has already begun. Clothes are wrung out atop balconies and set to dry on makeshift wires, children walk through abandoned lots overrun with weeds and heaps of decaying trash. No matter the year in which they were built, all buildings in El Chorillo look categorically neglected and rundown. Its residents, if you were to ask them, would unanimously agree that life in Panama in this day and age can feel pretty much the same way.

No more than three or four miles to the east, Larry Paul and his wife Gretta sit reading magazines on a plush couch at Panama City’s most prominent branch of HSBC, the world’s local bank. The Paul’s, transplants from Southern California, moved to Panama three years ago for many of the same reasons other expats do: low cost of living, good weather, wide business opportunities. They’ve been at the branch for three hours and despite their seemingly supernatural dedication to the task, the Paul’s have still not been able to acquire a credit card processing machine for their small restaurant in a city suburb. “Without a credit card machine, a restaurant can’t make money,” they said. It’s been roughly two years of hounding their bank representatives, but as Mr. Paul puts it, “certain things in Panama feel like a lost cause.”

For some, there is a new, or maybe revamped pride in being Panamanian. The country since the new millennium has institutionalized the art of upgrades: new highways, coastal strips, condo towers, hotels. Buildings as tall as have ever been built in Central America make for an extremely impressive skyline and the illustrious Canal expansion will widen one of the great wonders of this modern world. But opposite such glamorous imagery, what lacks is money spent on primary education for a nation among the worst in schooling in Central and South America. What has evolved amidst a wave of Panamanian growth is the foundation for an idiot savant economy that can strive for the impossible but fumbles with the mundane.

The Paul’s ended up leaving HSBC without an answer. Not unlike their credit card machine, their immigration papers are still being processed meaning, that after two years of investing time and money in the Republic, they are both technically considered illegal immigrants. “We haven’t given up yet,” says Gretta, “but jumping through these kinds of hoops came as a shock. It wasn’t really what we signed up for.”

The puzzle is that while Panama is economically confident (because it has posted extremely good numbers over the past few years) it is comprised of an organizational network sunk in the past: a sort of Dickensian paradox of going both everywhere and nowhere fast. Complaints of incompetence with regards to immigration and banking top the list while other fractures lie just beneath: for those looking to do business, these frustrations can be deal breakers. It is amazing, in a way, to know that such extreme contrasts are at play: progress versus regress, aspiration versus dysfunction.

There is no doubt that Panama offers one of the most burgeoning playgrounds in which to store cash and vacation in style, to open anonymous corporations and to benefit from the Panama Canal. And while glamorous triumphs have been made on a number of fronts, there still exists a diminished ability to focus on the immediate future. It’s like being farsighted: the distance is rosy and clear while the nearby appears to be blurry and overlooked.

In 1958, a young promising American actress named Sherry Rubin had the unfortunate desire to eat what amounted to four entire meals within a time period of several hours. According to the local medical examiner, Rubin’s 100-pound frame was nowhere near accustomed to digesting so much food and in a vain attempt to vomit, her stomach walls exploded and she died. While nothing as serious as death is in its near future, Panama is, in certain ways, becoming a victim of its own rapid growth. It is a case study of emerging infrastructure, both physical and social aspects, that ceases to shed facets of the developing world. It’s not unusual that most large cities have inequalities like these, but rather that the discrepancies in Panama are so big and so startling.