TheExpatJournals.com

It’s Mother’s Day in Panama and I’m still in Santa Fe. They have a quaint tradition here that would be charming had I not been awakened at 5AM by a live concert 20 feet away after not being able to go to sleep because of the incessant barking of the abundant dog population followed by the seemingly ever present cacophony of the even larger rooster population. As if all of that isn’t enough, the owner of the hostal has a two year old that is the personification of the terrible twos and currently, a friend of their’s from Santa Catalina is in house with her 13 month old who is just learning to scream for attention while the 2 year old does his terrible two best to torment or physically abuse her. It makes me desperate to get back to Panama City for some peace and quiet and if that statement alone doesn’t say it all, well, there’s nothing I can add.

Then again, I did forget to add in the local cantina with it’s sound system that surely vibrates even these mountains beginning to roar around 6AM, the firecrackers that started around the same time and of course, the ducks that scream so loud you assume pigs are being slaughtered underneath your window. That’s the worst of it decently described I think.

Now back to the Santa Fe tradition…seems a troup of troubadors roams these hills serenading all the mothers beginning at 12AM and continuing for miles all night and all day. I suppose it took people being truly awake to appreciate because I never heard any applause until around 7:30AM.

What is it about this country that caused people to live within such earshot of each other that you can hear one neighbor’s lugie and another’s fart at the same time? That’s apart from the children yelling, crying or laughing or screaming and apart from parents calling out whatever they have to yell. Again, I go back to what has been the most surprising element of life in Panama and that is how noise is so normal and respect for your neighbor’s right to live quietly is non-existent. Ah! As if on cue, a sound system just cranked up about 20 yards away loud enough to imitate a cantina while one child screams downstairs and dishes clang away below me.

Yes, it’s a holiday and any holiday, even Mother’s Day, seems to be a license to get even more loud than usual and get even more drunk than usual. I fell asleep last night deciding to meet the dog out back who barked so incessantly that his unique style of barking (and they do all sound different) I would recognize on the spot. It’s not that I would do anything to the obnoxious creature, but if I lived here I would. On second thought, because of the noise levels that exist in this spot, I could NEVER live here. With noise in Panama, you have one solution and one only: MOVE.

I woke up a few hours later to the live concert out back and after 3 songs, they moved a bit further down the hills, but the noise level was quickly filled by the roosters. They, too, each have a unique crow. And I lay in the dark wondering if there was a way to remove their crow like some people get a vet to remove their dog’s ability to bark. I mean these guys go at it all day long. One crows followed by another and so on and so on until you have this valley full of roosters all loud enough to hear over the cantina and kids crying.

I know I must sound like the ugly American, but so be it. There are some cultural difference I will neither get used to nor accept and the hideous level of noise pollution that is so culturally acceptable throughout Panama is one of those differences.