Tag Archives: Políticos (politics)

VII Cumbre de las Americas

As you may or may not be aware, the 7th Summit of the Americas is taking place in Panamá this week.  It’s very very exciting for all of us down here.  The Cinta Costera (the road in front of our building that all you regular readers, ie. Mom, know about) will be completely closed.  Actually most of the major roads in the city will be completely shut down.  All government workers are off tomorrow, and most private businesses are closed too because people simply can’t get to work.

Last night, my friend Jessie from capoeira, the one from DC who was featured a few weeks ago flying through the air during the presentation, was driving home to Casco Viejo and was stopped by the police.  She explained that she lived there and had to get home, but then she saw several guys in suits walking…with Bill Clinton!  She sent the cutest voice message to the CDO (capoeira) group via WhatsApp and was so excited!  Big names in politics from all over the western hemisphere are in what’s becoming my city, and I’m excited.

As a side note, there’s a joke within CDO about this seedy strip club called La Mayor.  I think a few of the guys have been there, but most just joke about it because it’s really really shady.  But someone sent a photo of what was supposed to be Obama’s car in front of La Mayor yesterday.  After the Bill Clinton sighting, it was decided that it was most likely the former president that was there, rather than the current.

Even more tangentially, people down here evidently refer to Obama’s car as “La Bestia,” or The Beast.  Have you ever heard of such a thing?  They also call it Cadillac 1.  I can see that one more than the others, but not since they changed over to giant SUVs.  There are also rumors going around that they carry around in the car a bag of Obama’s type of blood, just in case.  Not completely far-fetched, but it’s a rumor I had never heard.  How often would you have to get a new batch?  Interesting stuff.  What is everything security related and presidentially related so cool?!

Anyway, if you are not following the Cumbre, the Summit, I can’t really in good faith urge you to do so because if I were there I wouldn’t care too much, honestly.  But from here, it’s going to be really interesting.  I even fired up the old Twitter account that hasn’t seen any action in probably a year so I could see which president is arriving when and who is talking to who about what.  As you’ve likely heard, one of the major things is that Obama will be “interacting” with Raúl Castro this week.  I love the quotes that have come out of that whole deal.  A deputy national security advisor has been quoted all over the place saying “I’m sure President Obama will be interacting with President Castro at the summit events.”  Thanks, guy.  That’s really informative.

There have already been some protests here, and that has really upset the Panamanians.  Some Cubans stopped traffic yesterday – like this city really needs more traffic problems – in some kind of protest, and my friend Lourdes went off saying how rude it was to do that when they had invited these people into her country and were hosting them in an effort to work on international relations, etc.

All this to say, I’m really excited to be here during all of this.  I don’t expect to pass Obama in the street or anything, but we did see an aircraft carrier out our window yesterday!  Turns out, from Eric’s googling, that it is a Brazilian carrier.  Not sure what it’s doing.  I was also surprised to hear that the US has only 10 carriers, with two others that are in reserve, and the countries with the next largest number of carriers have only 2.  Italy and India.  Here’s a link if you’re interested.

So, that’s my attempt at politically-minded writing.  I hope you didn’t miss it, cause it don’t happen often.  🙂  And you’ll notice that it didn’t actually involve me writing about the issues, but rather writing about people who will be talking about the issues.  That’s about as good as it gets.

 

Day Two with Marta

Day Two is going much better.  I am calmer.  I have Reiki music going, I’m making lists of things that need to be done, and I’m slowly checking things off.  I started the day off by greeting her warmly, smiling, and asking how she was.  We’ve been chatting a little too.  I asked her how long she’s been in Panama, and she’s been here a few weeks less than we have!  She has two kids.  Her son is here with her, but her daughter, Jennifer, is still in Nicaragua with Marta’s sister.  She misses her, of course, but she says it’s only for a time, and things will get better.  She tells me that she lives in a place here in Panamá where people steal.  It takes her two hours to get here.

Last time she was here, she asked for a small step ladder before she would dust the air vents, then showed me a deep huge scar from when she had fallen before doing something similar.  I agreed that a step ladder was a small request considering possible medical bills.  So today, when she pulled out a chair to do it, I went in to spot her.  We talked a bit in there too, and she’s even smiled and laughed with me some, so I’m feeling much better about our relationship.  I just plain can’t be the boss all the time.  We’ll have to arrange something a little different.  Yes, I’ll have to make sure everything gets done before we pay her or before she goes home each night, but things will have to be pleasant or else I won’t be able to soportarlo (to bear it, to endure it).

I’m finding that my Spanish is coming along rather well.  I’m really enjoying our Spanish teacher, Marianela.  I may have said in earlier posts that she is the one who taught my friend Brie (the one who I’ve known since preschool and who moved here over 10 years ago).  I can’t say how glad I am that we decided to go with her because not only is she a great teacher, but she is just a great person.  We get along so well.  We are similarly minded people.  We’ve discussed, in maybe 6 days (long days, mind you – 4 hours of just sitting and talking to each other), religion, politics, racism, immigration, different measures of beauty, anxiety, illness, family issues (don’t worry Mom, your secrets are safe with me), women’s rights, the list goes on.  She asks me to read the Bible (in Spanish) for homework, and I tell her Bible stories in order to practice the past tense.

Mostly, we chat…but about important cultural issues.  But she also challenges me.  What DO I think about immigration in the US?  Mostly I’ve always thought about the basics and how it’s a really tough problem.  There’s no simple solution, I’m not the one who’s in a position to solve it, I have other big issues that I deal with in my work and my life, so I honestly don’t think about it too much.  But when she pushed me yesterday, we had a great conversation.  She brought up points that I’d never thought about.  And then that spurs great conversations between Eric and me.

I wish that Eric was able to have the same experience with her.  He has to drill with her.  He has to come from a 9 or 10 hour day of work with Red Hat to a table of workbook pages or to tell her where he went on vacation last year.  He’s working on past tense (one of the two of them) right now.  He’s doing GREAT, and he doesn’t see it…but it’s boring.  I get it.  He can’t speak freely like I can.  He can’t even experience Marianela’s incredible personality because they don’t have the chance to interact on a deeper level.  I’m sure they think much differently about each other than I do about either of them.  Actually, i’m sure Marianela gives Eric a lot of credit b/c this is her job and she gets it.  I’m guessing Eric doesn’t really know much about Marianela.  So I try to tell him what I know of her.

One more thing, I found out yesterday via Facebook that Sweet Briar College in Virginia will be closing at the end of this summer due to “insurmountable financial challenges.”  This is Brie’s alma mater, as well as that of her sister, and the two are devastated, as is the entire Sweet Briar community.  It’s a small women’s college – a little over 700 undergrads and 0ver 700 graduate students – and it was founded in 1901.  It has an incredible reputation.  Jackie Kennedy’s mother was an alumna.  Anyway, it was horrible news for that community, and I’m hoping to take Brie out to lunch or for drinks soon to hear the whole story, to let her vent, and to see if I can do anything for her.  She’s just the best kind of person, and I hate to hear about this kind of thing happening to her.  I can’t imagine Carolina just disappearing one day.

To lighten the mood, I’ll leave you this morning with a few voyeuristic (maybe I should say sneaky so I don’t feel so dirty) photos of Marta, just so you can get to know her a little.

Empleadas

Today is a strange one.  This morning our first “empleada,” Marta, began work at 8.  Meaning, we now have a cleaning lady.  WHAT?  Why don’t you just clean your own little apartment?!  It’s just the two of you!  You don’t have kids!!  You don’t work full time even!  I know, I know.  It’s part of the culture here.  It’s cheap.  I’m taking it as part of the experience of living here.  It is sure to provide hours (or at least minutes…I already have worries about this lady) of entertainment for y’all.  We always have the windows open and never use air conditioning, so the place is constantly covered with dust and dirt.  There are all kinds of ways I can justify it.  Al fin, it’s just plain nice to have someone do all of this.  Laundry, mop the floors, heck, right now she’s wiping off the outside of the cabinets.  When is the last time you even thought about doing that?!

So this will likely take many more posts to explain, but there’s this whole crazy culture around these cleaning ladies.  There are a billion rules about how to treat them, how much to pay them, what they can eat while they’re working.  You should be nice to them, but not too nice.  You should be authoritative, but not mean.  A few of these rules:

  • The woman of the house is the one who issues the instructions to the empleada.  As we all know, the woman of the house is the one who ALWAYS cares for all household matters, so obviously she is the authority here.  A big change from the workplace in Panamá where a female boss gets no respect, not even from her female employees.  A male boss gets immediate results.
  • You just plain can’t be friends with your empleada.  They will think you are weak and stupid, and they will begin to manipulate you.
  • If you feel sorry for your empleada’s situation and want to help her to get an education, for example, you just can’t…or rather, shouldn’t.  It won’t work.  Period.  My friend from high school who moved here 10 years ago said this is really hard.  She’s the nicest person ever, and she wanted to help a young girl who worked for her by helping her to go to college.  The girl ended up using the money to buy shoes or jeans or something – wasted it all – and ended up exactly where she started.  There are a million stories like this.
  • You have to tell them exactly what food they can eat while they are eating and what food they can’t have.  You generally have to feed them breakfast and lunch when they are working.  One woman told me that her daughters drink Tropicana orange juice, which is $5/carton here.  She tells her empleada that she can’t drink that juice.  She buys cheaper juice for her.
  • You have to tell them exactly how much food they can eat when they are working.  This same woman told me that she told her empleada that she could make a sandwich using the ham in the fridge.  The empleada used ALL the ham.  She ate the whole package.
  • You have to be very literal and very specific about your instructions and about the privileges that you give them.  Another story:  A woman had a live-in nanny/housekeeper for a number of months.  When the woman and her husband went on vacation with the kids for a weekend, they told the nanny she could watch whatever she wanted on tv, including pay-per-view.  I guess it was a few years ago.  🙂  When they came back, they found out that the nanny had just constantly had the tv on with a pay-per-view movie playing.  Not the same one, but different ones, one after another, for the whole weekend.  They had a huge bill.  But the reasoning, so they say, is that the nanny was told that she could do it, so she did exactly as she was told.  No need for common sense to kick in.

People talk about these women as a class, as a singular group.  It sounds awful.  “You have to treat THEM this way.”  “You can’t let THEM have the good juice because they’ll drink the whole $5 bottle in one day!”  “If you let them get away with being late once, they’ll never be on time again.”  I did it in the rules above.  It’s how people talk about them.  It’s the culture.

I can’t imagine being one of these women.  They are treated this way, so they must be forced to behave in a certain way to get by.  I imagine that you get to the point where you have to try to take advantage or manipulate your employer because otherwise you’re going to get treated like a slave.  Or maybe not.  I don’t know.  This is all so foreign to me!  Aren’t there empleadas out there who are honest hard-working people who do a good job and earn the money that they are owed and get along with their employers?  And aren’t there employers who treat their employees well?  Or is the entire system too messed up by all these people who don’t treat each other well and by the stories that everyone tells to ever be decent?

I’m already jaded, and we’ve had an empleada in our employ for a little over an hour!  I’m nervous.  I’m completely on edge.  I’m don’t know if I should be following her from room to room to make sure my stuff is safe.  (Luckily, we didn’t bring much with us, so we don’t have much to take!).  I think carefully about each thing that I say to her and how I say it.  Be nice, but firm.  Say it with authority, but don’t be a jerk.  Set precedent from the very beginning.

I even dressed up.  Since we got here, and especially since I got sick and since I’ve been recovering (yep, still recovering…you don’t want details.  Ever heard of Clostridium difficile or C. Diff.?  Don’t look it up.  TMI.), I’ve been wearing shorts, tank tops, and my rainbows (flip-flops for Eric…I swear, we’ve been together for over three years and he still has no idea what I mean when I say Rainbows.  Yep, STILL means my same flip-flops!  Clearly he didn’t go to Carolina.) every day.  Yes, I look like a Gringa at the grocery store, but guess what?  I’m a Gringa.  They’re gonna know it no matter what I wear or no matter what color I dye my hair.  I’m pale, my Spanish isn’t up to par…there’s no hope.  I’m gonna be comfortable.

But today, I got up super early, showered, and put on a dress and heels, hoping to look like una dama, a lady, a respectable woman that this woman, Marta, should listen to, like, and…well…respect!  I think the height helps my confidence too.  It’s hard to be 5’3″ and confident.  It really is.  I don’t know how my sister does it as a pediatric CT surgeon.  She’s my size, but when she walks into the OR, it is HER OR.  It’s HER surgery.  The patient whose life is on the line is her responsibility, and she has to command respect from everyone working with her.  I try to do it in the courtroom too, but at least I have some distance from the judge.  I don’t have to stand right next to him or her and show exactly how short I am.  It helps.  🙂

One of these days, I’ll have to go into all the politics about how Panamanian empleadas are different from Colombian and Nicaraguan empleadas b/c of changes in immigration laws passed by the last (very corrupt) president of Panama and all the new prejudices and attitudes that each group has towards the other because of all of this.  It’s amazing how involved all of this is.  This ain’t Merry Maids!

I’ll let you know how the rest of the day goes…