For those who are interested in my words, here it is.
A picture for your thoughts : 2 lovers sitting frente al mar
This saturday morning, I've been invited by a friend of mine to go to the Mercado de Mariscos, the fish market. Panameños on the contrary of Argentinians, eat a lot of fish. I mean, a lot. They have a long tradition of eating fruits of the sea : shrimps, octopus, sea-bass, crab, anything pulled out of the sea. And it's not that expensive, man... A 2-lbs grilled fish costs 15USD. 12€ more or less. I mean, the whole fricking fish :-o Excellent. Not that subtle taste, but very good. They also eat a lot of "ceviche" (french people : pronounce it like "c'est vite chié", which can be the case if you do not let your organism get used to the local micro-fauna before trying the said ceviche). It's a mix of fishes, shrimps, octopusses, etc., cooked and marinated it vinegar and onions, stored in big jars stuck in ice. A bit like Rollmops. It doesn't cost a lot and is very good. You eat this with a few crisps and a plastic spoon, in a polystyren glass, sitting under a bamboo roof supported by roughly moulded wood pillars, listening to a crackling radio singing salsa, your elbows on a sticky table or leaning against a peeling blue painted wall, watching in the distance the relentless dance of boats and diving pélicans.
Incredible moment, you are just in. In a movie, in a book, in a culture, among the people. Your face and cloths are screaming "tourist, tourist, tourist !!" but you don't hear it. You're the only one not hearing it, though. But well, people accept you as you are, they don't look at you with envy, disdain, mockery of hatred. You don't belong to this place, which belongs to them, but you can be here. Well, that's how I feel it, and maybe the reason why I could not decently take my 1 month salary costing camera to take a picture of their place, their home, their face. I didn't want to act as the tourist i nevertheless know I am.
Enough of that :)
Apart from this, of course, you have the air conditioned market itself, where fishermen sell their first quality and fresh loot. It reminds of the fishmarkets around the world, but less touristized. Panamá is not that popular (yet) in occidentals' mind, hence is the place "preserved". Which means also kept away from pickpockets. I went to a sicilian fishmarket once, and you really feel like what I described above : guilty for having that much money, invasive, zooing locals, dominant though not wanting it, and then incredibly vulnerable. Hamburg fischmarkt was also different : everybody's happy to see anybody. At 6am, drunk partygoers meet early birdies coming here to share the same thing : lager beer and Fischbrot. So you feel like anybody here, in a different country, but at ease. ANYWAY ! I didn't take pictures because it would have altered the moment, a least the way I felt it, which is a good enough reason not to do it :) Next time, maybe...
During the night, we went to the same district, but a bit further. Called Casco Viejo (the old helm), this is -I believe- the oldest part of Panamá City. It looks like Barcelona, but 30 years ago. A lot of buildings, ruined, and/or being restaurated and/or painted and/or inhabited and/or not. The walls there are all enlighted by orange-yellowish street lamps, giving them an incredible ocre colour. I tried to take a picture, but it didn't work. So, no pictures here neither. Different situation, same output :p Later, later... So yeah, many different buildings, in very different state of decay or renovation, sometimes both at the same time. Brand new balconies, made of raw wood and freshly varnished, while the building next door or across the street is litterally tumbling. I know, the right typo is "literally", but it was a poetic-licenced pun on "litter". Because I'm French. The sky is very dark in this city. Given the level of humidity here, the sky is always veiled with a thinck (☺) layer of vapor, making the stars literally invisible. The term of pollution lumineuse doesn't make any sense yet, here. So, no stars, and in comparison with the light bathing the streets, the sky seems dark. Except from, in the distance, an apparently neverlasting storm above the Pacific, enlightning the sky and the roofs in a total silence. When you wait enough time to see one, you sometimes see a 2" lightning enlighting the sky, veeeery far in the distance, with no other noise than the waves' one. Of this neither could I take a picture (eh... was that grammatically right ?).
On the way back home, we went through darker streets, poorer too, I guess, where the doors, often missing, are either replaced by plastic-pearled curtains (as the ones in the Oracle in Matrix... sorry), or utterly absent. You sometimes just can't avoid a glance at the inside : an undescriptible mix of ... things I could not recognize in a glance, but as far as I remember (and my imagination completed), it was a table crumbling under an old sewing machine, babioles, trinkets, candelabrum, around it, chairs, a carpet, boxes, papers. From the ceiling dangled a dull bulb giving an eery glow of light to this galimatias. Amidst of it, an old couple dressed in the plainest cloth you ever saw, wearing old and thick glasses, bent towards a... flat screen TV. Ouch. It felt so bad... I mean, they don't have the same standard of comfort as I do, so I understand that their house is nice and comfortable enough, so this flat screen is a legitimate investment because they don't need anything else. So, who am I to think that instead of spending 1'000$ in a TV screen, they should buy a door or a stronger bulb ? Nobody. The only objective thought I have it this one : they probably had to get a loan to get this. This is, according to a taxi driver friend I had a long talk with, very common. The consumption society is working so well here that people live in shit (his words) in order to/whereas they buy Porsches, 4x4, and sport cars. Well, this is my point : I felt bad for the abusive power the mercantile society has on this part of the city, its people, its houses.
This is it for today. In the next article, I might be posting pictures of my appartment. In 1h20 I get the keys, soooo... expect pictures on monday or tuesday !
Thanks for reading !
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