On: the Panama Canal
a cycle of transformation, re-imagination, growth; repeat
In the distance, container-ships the size of skyscrapers glide effortlessly across the hilled landscape. Framed by earth and dense foliage: a mirage of the jungle heat; they sliced through the mountainside, parting the hills and trees beneath.
Later on, I found myself traversing the canal by boat, in the middle of the illusion itself. The cool dampness of post-rain air clung to every inch of skin in that clammy mist of Panama’s rainy season. But even amidst it all, the sight of ocean freight passing through the hilly terrain struck as nothing else but out of place. It was difficult to blink an eye in anything but marvel.
That grandeur, that splendor; as I started to understand later; came at a cost.
In pursuit of a mountain-height lake that would bridge the Pacific and Atlantic and feed the canal through gravity: the valley needed to be dammed. The ensuing flooding left some areas a shimmering plain of water where no ships could pass. The shallow depths were interspersed with waterlogged wooden stumps, the trunks and branches long dead and rotted away. Like desiccated tombstones in an endless mirror-like graveyard, they stretched far and vast where the water claimed what used to be lush jungle eaves.
The sight echoed a later memorial cemetery: the neat rows of white headstones marking the human cost of the canal’s construction. In the scorching sun, they glimmered pristine and well kept, regardless of ethnicity or whether their owners were of gold wage or silver. Maybe the respect shown reflected a sentiment that the price paid in bodies was worth it. In that endless struggle for advancement, for progress; perhaps the danger risked and pain inflicted led to something greater.
Reflections of that struggle for progress reverberated no where else but in Panama City proper: where people on all ends of the spectrum of inequality sat within reach of a city with not only a history, but a modernity of re-imagination and change.
The withdrawal of the tide left the bay around the original city of Panama, Panamá Viejo, a desert of mud and puddles; barren in every direction except to the South, to the sea. Ringed by glistening towers, the field of mud that would sink a man to his chest lay dark in comparison: a place none dare build, lest they be consumed by the tide come the passing of the moon.
So in the shadow of the ruins of the original city and that bay of mud, they built everywhere else: skyscrapers; a Trump-tower-renamed; the F&F helix-tower; built presumably by and for corporations in modern Panama City that sought proximity to the canal. And yet, even in the shadow of that glimmering city of glass, corrugated steel and makeshift homes crowded under the shelter of trees and skyscrapers alike. The juxtaposition felt jarring, as if growth and prosperity had graced some, leaving neighbors in its wake; a constant reminder that for all of the city’s growth due to the canal, the inequality gap had only grown larger.
It was no wonder then, why the Old Quarter: Casco Viejo; come dark, came alive. At dusk, this middle iteration of Panama City: ringed by a circle-wall of bridge out to sea; became a wreath of lights as cars and people flooded in. Crowding the stone streets between revitalized and re-imagined facades of old family houses, the bars and restaurants filled with patrons admiring the Panama City skyline from afar, content with the glimmer held at a distance. And yet even here, families that lived here before remained: not obscured by the shadow of skyscrapers erected around them; accommodating and finding space to grow amidst the influx of money, investment, and construction.
The allure of the World Heritage site in the process of revitalization didn’t come as a surprise. It felt like a natural progression of things. The drastic transformations of the canal and modern Panama City came first: drastic divergence from the past and the people that remained, churning life and its pains underfoot in the pursuit of progress. Next was an embrace of the land and its people as they were: a desire to hold on in opposition to the sprawl of a metropolis that seemed so close by and to the canal that spurred it. Minimizing the human cost, whatever the cost.
Lounging at a bar that could have just as easily been at home in Greenpoint, I wondered what would be next…
Months later, wandering New York again, visions of Panama flickered before my eyes in the distance like that wreath of lights at dusk. I felt it in the heavy musk of a city in heat, in the shimmering mirage across the East River swaying as waves rocked a ferry underfoot, in the Manhattan skyline that glimmered in rooftop view but remained held from afar.
I pray the cost isn’t progression itself. For if anything, what terrifies me the most is stagnation; is stasis; is stillness.
As the summer drags on, in a semi-conscious haze onset by bouts of exhaustion and sweat, I wonder where; in this cycle of transformation and incremental re-imagination; we sit. And if we’ve dallied for too long. And if its too late.
Hey! Thanks for reading!
It took longer than expected to write this, but I’m glad I took the time to convey just a little bit about Panama, a country I knew so little about, but grew to enjoy and marvel at in so many ways.
I’d like to write a bit more about travel in future, as I think the ways to process experiencing a place, regardless of whether its in digital or physical space, run parallel in ways that seem interesting to explore.
But who knows? I might need to travel more first…
