¡Bienvenidos a Nuestra Aventura!

Saturday, July 08, 2006

This is a quick link to some of the world's most dangerous snakes. Where do these specimens live? In Panama!!













http://www.czbrats.com/Facts/snakes.htm

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Panamania!


Well, the last few weeks have been a mixture of both prep and pleasure for Amanda and me. Along with the necessary readying of all sorts of additional Peace Corps forms, the sending out for our Peace Corps passports, and generally trying to figure out what we want to bring with us, we've been doing quite a bit of extracurricular activities.

We spent a few days up in Toronto for my friend's brother's wedding, which was beautiful. Other than its traffic (and the bitter cold I imagine tortures its denizens during the 9 winter months they have up there), I could definitely see myself living in Toronto. The neighborhoods were all very nice and clean and seemingly very ethnically diverse. In fact, while we were up there, more than one person claimed that it was the most ethnically diverse city in the world, something that I wouldn't doubt based on the number of flag-bedecked cars I saw zipping around the area. And although it isn't Quebec, there still existed a noticeably French bent to the city's general character. We found quite a few French talk shows on the AM dial, and the crowd we viewed the France/England World Cup game with was majorly tilted towards their continental brethren. I suppose it would be premature to declare "le commencement de l'invasion française," but it nonetheless felt very much like being in a foreign country despite it only being...er...Canada...eh?




Speaking of foreign lands, we've learned a bit more about Panama from a second packet of information which arrived from the Peace Corps the other day. Interestingly, while Panamanians enjoy the highest GDP per capita in all of Central America, nearly 40% of its people still live in poverty, mostly in (surprise) majority-indigenous areas. The above map demarcates the majority-indigenous regions with stripes. From what I gather, these are some of the areas where Amanda and I are most likely to be sent, and are comprised of mixed mountainous/white sand beach terrain. Either option sounds nice. The "Bocas-del-Toro region in the top-left corner of the screen is where some of Panama's nicest beaches are, and if anyone anticipates visiting us during our 27 months, you should really hope that we end up there! However, many of the other provinces also have amazing beaches and a quick Google of "Panama Beach Images" will drop your jaw. The diving and surfing are supposed to be excellent in some areas (not that we're...uh...going there for that) but in fact, I do hope to have an opportunity to visit the beaches with Amanda once we have some free time.

Chiriqui is another province that I wouldn't mind being sent to, and can be located in the bottom-left most section of the above map, right by Costa Rica. Keeping in mind that our priority is to go where we're needed, I see no inherent conflict of interest with being placed in a certain locale from which we might directly benefit, as we (I?) would in Chiriqui, the epicenter of Panama's coffee-growing region. While Panama is Central America's smallest coffee-growing country, producing around 270,000 100-pound bags each year (the equivalent of neighboring Costa Rica's one month contribution), they have a reputation for beating out more distinguished regions like Kona and Jamaica in blind tastings. They produce both filler for the mass-production robusta market and some of the highest quality arabica beans for the more sophisticated palate, something I hope to investigate in more depth once in country. If we do end up in Chiriqui I will look around for the best coffee I can find and report on it later.

Apparently, coffee-growing isn't the only category in which Panema shines. Skimming an eclectic mix of sources on Panama's ecology, I find that one of the most consistent claims is for Panama as one of the world's best venues for bird-watching. Now, I don't believe that either Amanda nor I consider ourselves in any way amateur birders, but I have to admit that it will be exciting to wake up to Parrots, Macaws, and Toucans (think "Fruit Loops") frolicking through the canopy. Who knows, maybe this will spark some kind of life-long passion for photographing birds in their native habitat; or maybe their incessant noises will drive us insane and compel us to poison all the birds by our home upon return. Well, crazier things have happened! But I digress...

Thankfully much of this interaction with nature seems probable, given that Panama has already put aside more than 25% of its land for conservation, and around 50% of it is still heavily forested. However, environmental degredation is a significant problem in many areas, such as in the Darien region in the bottom-right corner of the above map, near the Colombian border (I don' t think the Peace Corps will be sending us here due to some recent Colombian-paramilitary linked kidnappings). Parts of this region seems to have become heavily deforested due to some long-standing, but unsustainable cultural practices. Apparently, many in the Darien attach an intrinsic "manliness" to cutting down trees, and manly men from all over will go to great lengths to find and kill the biggest tree that they can in order to prove their worth. I am not sure what the wood is then used for, if at all, but several sources have agreed that the seductive attraction of chopping down trees has actually distracted enough men out of circulation to make a significant impact on the local dating scene. I know, this last part sounded somewhat far-fetched to me too, but why not, they have tree-chopping and we have Sony Playstation, so are we really all that different?