Dive into Panama!

I knew a Canadian woman who lived in a residential skyscraper on Avenida Balboa, the wide, fashionable street that hugs the Bay of Panama in Panama City. She had asked me and my wife to take care of her cats while she and her husband were out of the country. We lived nearby and it wasn’t too much of a hassle so we readily agreed. The couple had four cats and a reasonable number of litter boxes placed around the apartment. None of this was particularly strange until she mentioned that she was having a hard time affording Panama, especially since she had to order her very specific brand of kitty litter from Amazon.ca. With four cats the cost was, as you can imagine, astronomical. 

While I would argue that the cats probably aren’t too particular about the litter that they go to the bathroom in, I happened to notice that I had seen her very specific brand of walnut-shell-based kitty litter stocked on the shelves at Riba Smith, the upscale supermarket less than a kilometer away. Instead of ordering the litter from Canada and paying taxes and shipping fees and who knows what else, she could just drive down the street and buy it off the shelf.

This was my first experience with a creature that is sadly all too common: the lukewarm expat. They’ve physically moved to Panama, but mentally still live in the United States, Canada, or wherever they originally hail from. You’ll most likely encounter them complaining about the cost of Panama, not understanding that they’re not really living in the country, but instead eating expensive imported food and using expensive imported products.

Let’s take, for example, Panamanian food. Not only is it delicious, but it’s affordable, readily available, and fresh. (The life expectancy for Panamanians is longer than that of Americans for a reason.) While Panamanian food has quite a bit of variety, a typical meal will consist of rice, beans or lentils, and some type of protein, such as chicken, fish, beef, or pork. Usually stewed, fried, or grilled. There’s also a soup option. 

If, instead, you want a sandwich for lunch, then you’re most likely going to have to pay a little more for the privilege. Maybe just a little more if you stop at El Machetazo’s Café Caney and maybe a lot more if you stop at Grand Deli Gourmet. A sandwich might be what you ate for lunch in the United States or Canada, but that’s not the typical Panamanian lunch, so, here in Panama, it’ll come at a premium.

This also happens at the supermarket. If you want to buy, let’s say, Tillamook ice cream, well, you can, but it’s expensive. It was made in rural Oregon then transported to Panama (remaining frozen the entire time) and ultimately finding itself stocked in a freezer in a Panamanian supermarket. When put into perspective, I mean, of course it's expensive. But it’s available. You can buy American apples, American laundry detergent, American potatoes, American cake mix, pretty much American everything.

But Panamanians don’t eat apples. They eat mangos, bananas, papayas, pineapples, coconuts - a literal cornucopia of tropical fruits that can be purchased on the side of the road or even picked from trees in your neighborhood. Panamanians use Colombian laundry detergent, Panamanian potatoes, Ecuadorian cake mix. They buy ice cream from the ice cream vendors who push their semi-refrigerated carts around the country, selling milk-based cones or juice-based popsicles for a dollar.

So, yeah, you can eat the same things that you’re eating now. They’re here. They’re available. But from the Panamanian point of view, they’re imported and niche. 

Relocating, in many ways, requires a paradigm shift. Moving to a new country means truly moving to a new country, not just dipping a toe in the water to see if you like it. Now, having said that, thankfully our modern world allows us to travel pretty much wherever we want and leave if we don’t like it. Panama isn’t for everyone. But my argument is to actually try Panama and not the lukewarm version of it. Dive in headfirst. Take the country for what it is and what it isn’t. Only then can you really know Panama.