Postcards From The Edge: Panama City - Part 2

As I adjust to my new life in Panama City, I am routinely overwhelmed by the colours, smells and faces that fill the streets of the city's old town, and the heaving slum districts that boarder it. As I settle into Panamanian life, start my job, and begin to make friends in the area, I become more and more fascinated by the faraway society I've found myself a part of, and the stark inequalities that come along with it [1]. I will soon wake up and go to sleep amid this less-than-pretty picture of social and economic injustice... I've (perhaps recklessly) decided to set up home on the very edge of one of the city's most infamous districts, the slum suburb of 'El Chorrillo.'

'The perpetual lack of government intervention in these 'ghettos' means that millions are trapped in a cycle of poverty from which it's almost impossible to break out'

Within the so called 'developing' world, Latin America is perhaps looked upon as being in a less desperate situation than Africa or Asia. True – the continent is rich in raw materials [2]. Its metropolises are expanding at an unstoppable rate. Skyscrapers are being built, foreign investment is being poured in, and gap year travellers from England flock in their thousands to hippy out, soak up the incredible landscapes, and live the good life for a few precious months before returning home.

On the surface, Panama is the success story of Central America. The downtown district of the capital is filled with casinos, shopping malls, neon billboards and in-your-face American business. The currency in circulation is the US dollar. 'Nuff said really.

Its coastline is now home to a multitude of rich American retirees, who purchase the flashy condos that are being constructed on countless virgin beaches. Big business and hyper-capitalist enterprise has hit this tiny and ancient Central American nation hard, and it's not going to let go of it any time soon.

If I've painted a picture of a prosperous and developed nation, then let me stop firmly in my tracks and flip to the other side. From my balcony on the corner of Avenida A, the dramatic inequality within Panamanian society [3]becomes starkly evident. Allow me give you a tour of the barrio....

'Though Brazil is particularly infamous for its suffocating and violent 'favelas,' these sprawling shanty towns exist in abundance across the length and breadth the continent'

El Chorrillo is, in many ways, a typical South American slum. Everyone's seen 'City of God' by now, right? Though Brazil is particularly infamous for its suffocating and violent favelas [4], these sprawling shanty towns exist in abundance across the length and breadth the continent. The perpetual lack of government intervention in these 'ghettos' means that millions are trapped in a cycle of poverty from which it's almost impossible to break out.

So what's life actually like in these barrios? My journey to and from work at the UN offices in Panama City takes me through the heart of El Chorrillo, and gives me a unique (but brief) insight into a part of the city that is deliberately kept off the tourist trail.

Through the taxi window, the slideshow of corrugated iron roofs, precariously constructed wooden shacks, and endless droves of people who seem to have nowhere in particular to go flashes by. The colours are vibrant and gaudy, murals that advertise coca cola and packets of Chinese noodles are painted on shop walls, somehow withstanding the tropical rains year after year. The area is infamous for its violent gangs, who seem to be constantly in conflict with one another, as well as with the police.The murder rate has escalated alarmingly [5]over the past few years in this part of the city, and it’s pretty evident that El Chorrillo’s residents are reaching boiling point.

Gun shots ring out at night like fireworks.

Drugs are cheap and plentiful, and crack addicts search through the bins for empty cans and bottles to sell to get their next fix.

Instead of viewing problems like violence and drug addiction as being symptomatic of a lack of opportunities, social services and unemployment, those in power stigmatise the residents of these slums as violent thugs. As a result, these communities are left  almost entirely to their own devices, with little intervention or support from the state.

The chronic lack of employment opportunities, the widening gap between social classes, and the ‘don’t care’ attitude of Panama’s Neo-Conservative government [1]are proving to be a nauseating cocktail for the country’s poor. In a society that’s far more concerned with lining the wallets of an elite class that spend their weekends in Miami, deprived communities like El Chorrillo are sadly viewed as nothing more than an inconvenient smear on the shiny plastic façade of economic development.

Words: Eva Baker

Photos: Flickr user g[wiz] [6]

To read the first Panama postcard, click here [7]