The Election Season Is Also The Festival Season

Another Fiesta?  Oh, Yeah!

The Mejorana Festival was held in Guarare last weekend.  I realized that I had been telling you about Panamanian festivals for months, but, that the only way you can really appreciate the country's festival phenomena and the extent to which the people go, you have to see it. So I put together this short video.  I think you will be amazed, particularly if you keep in mind that there is one of these national festivals every weekend for seven months of the year.  And that is just the national festivals.  Enjoy!

Election Reform in Panama

Panama is debating (again) changing their presidential election process to a system that has been adopted by 13 other countries. Simply put, the changes would require that if the winner of the presidential election did not receive at least 50% of the popular vote, a run-off ballot would be held between the top two vote-getters.

You don't like the U.S.'s two-party system?  Consider this! Political pollsters and pundits predict that Senora Barbara Herrera will win the upcoming presidential election in a landslide with about 44% of the popular vote. The remaining 50% + of the votes will be spread across five other candidates.  In the last 15 years, none of Panama's presidents have been elected with more than 50% of the vote.  In the 1994 election, the winner and new president had only 33% of the popular vote.

Correction:  I said in a recent posting that Senora Herrea would be Panama's first female president.  Wrong!  The first (and only other) female president was Mireya Moscoso who was elected in 1999 with 41% of the popular vote. Sorry, poor research complicated by a language limitation.  I had read of Presidente Moscoso's accomplishments (or lack of same), and the financial scandals during her term of office.  However, being Spanish-challenged prevented me from realizing that her first name was a woman's name. Duh!

Unforgettably People Along Life's Path

Meet my friend Willian Monge Quiros.  Bill, a Tico whose home is in the outskirts of San Jose, Costa Rica,  spends 7-10 days a month here in the hotel in his travels as the Central American sales Representative for Alta Genetics, Inc.  Alta is a U.S. based company that deals in a variety of technologies and products oriented towards  modernizing agricultural techniques.  His English is about on par with my improving Spanish, so Bill and I usually share a beer, and swap stories (in Spanglish?) on the hotel balcony after he has spent the day touring the big farms and ranches here in Chirique Province.

Bill recently showed me one of Alta's product line catalogs.  The catalog, printed in both English and Spanish, details the product line and each model in the line has it's own full-page description. The model name and stock number, along with a color photo is enhanced by a half-page of very detailed specifications about that model.  The catalog allows the customer to do in-depth comparisons between and among the 24 different models in the line.

What is the product?  Jersey milk cows.  I am not kidding!  And although there are a lot of specs on the page that I can not decipher because they are either abbreviated or are acronyms, I assume that things like dairy form, foot angle and right leg side V measurements are important. And, according to Bill, teat length and front teat placement are key specs when determining a milk cows compatibility with the farmers' existing milking machines.  Oh!  And did you know that there are significant differences in a specific model's daily milk output, and there are reasons why a farmer would prefer a lower output cow (the Forest, model #11JE0790) over the higher output Sunny, model # 11JE0798.  And I would tell you exactly why if my Spanish were good enough to comprehend Bill's explanation. (Milk cows and Spanglish do not mix?)

And, just for your info, there are significant differences in the protein and fat content of the milk from different models.  Though there are no no-fat models, there are a number of low-fat models.

See the kinds of things you learn if you just sit around on the balcony and drink beer?

Noreiega Wants What?

Manuel Noriega continues his battle in the U.S. courts, fighting his extradition to France to face a long list of charges.  Noriega insists that it is his rights as a Panamanian dictate that he be allowed to return to Panama, which is what he REALLY wants to do..

Noriega and two (as yet un-named) former Ministers of Justice were indicted this week for the 1970 murder of a famous opposition leader.  The case was reopened based on new information.  Noriega is already facing sentencing in Panama after being convicted in separate trials for three other murders.  All of the convictions have been upheld by the country's Supreme Court. (Under Panamanian law a person can be tried of a crime and convicted, but not sentenced in absentia).

This Tuesday, one of Noriega's 20+ properties goes on the auction blocks (finally).  This is an effort on the government's part to recoup just a portion of the funds that Noriega owes Panama based on a slew of court rulings over the years.  The deposit required just to bid on the property being auctioned is $4.4 million dollars (US).

Everyone who thinks Noriega's legal gyrations indicate just how bad he really wants to return to Panama, hold up your hand.

A Yellow Fever Outbreak

There has been a spike in the number of yellow fever cases in Panama in the last month.  Though the number of cases is statistically small, yellow fever is serious stuff  in this part of the hemisphere.  Three Latin American countries recently added an immigration requirement that anyone entering their country who is coming from (or has transited) Panama must have a yellow fever inoculation, and that the inoculation must have been administered at least 15 days prior to entry.

And yellow fever is historically scary in Panama.  In the early 1900s, a yellow fever outbreak that lasted for a couple of years almost single-handedly derailed the eventual completion of the Panama Canal.  Thousands of laborers, imported from all over the world, died of yellow fever before they could even be transported from the port to the canal construction site.

Interestingly enough, it was a doctor sent to Panama by the U.S. government who broke the code on yellow fever, and ended up developing both an effective vaccine, as well as disease preventative measures.  Doctor Elden Schwartz thought that the astounding yellow fever death rate in the country's hospitals was the first place to start in his investigation.  He quickly determined that the disease was mosquito borne and ordered the removal of the water buckets from the hospital wards.  Water buckets?  Yes, in the hospitals throughout Panama (which were then almost exclusively open-aired), all four legs of the patient's beds were sitting in buckets of water to deter insects and other assorted varmints from joining the patients in their beds. Dr. Schwartz determined that the water buckets were virtually incubators for the yellow fever mosquitos, and that there were others ways to keep the small mice and rats (the real culprits necessitating the water buckets) out of the patient's beds. 

Dr Schwartz arranged to introduce the small rat snake into the hospital system. (Imagine the look on the face of the procurement official who received that purchase request?)  Dr. Schwartz surmised that the rat snakes would make short order of the rodent population, and that the serpents would themselves then move on when the food source was exhausted. As legend has it, the doctor was correct on both assumptions.

My Role As Monitor (Though Unofficial) of The Town Park

I take very seriously my role as an unofficial monitor of the ´goings-on´in the park.

For instance, Saturday morning it was obvious that something was going to be happening in the park later.   Big deal!  And, a first!  The bleachers were covered. 

Sure enough, later that day!  Who would have thought.

Other times it just pays to be on the alert for suspicious persons!

Till Next Time. Pura Vida!