CIAT is right in the middle of the countryside because there are scientists working on climate resistant seed varieties so they need a lot of land to test them out on. The grounds are beautiful and well-kept and have a varieties of really pretty trees many of which twist and turn and look hundreds of years old. CIAT also has a post office, a bank, a travel agency and the cafeteria where employees get free hot lunches. So, all in all it is a pleasant working environment and it is nice to get out of the city into fresh air every day!
Here are a few photos from CIAT and the buses we take to work. I live in the south and CIAT is in the north so my bus picks me up just after 6am so it is not quite light yet. It is over an hour away which is a pain but at least I don't have to take three separate buses and stand up all the way like I used to have to when I lived in the north and worked in the south! On the way back, the bus leaves at 4.40 and I get back home at around 6pm. CIAT is right in the middle of the countryside because there are scientists working on climate resistant seed varieties so they need a lot of land to test them out on. The grounds are beautiful and well-kept and have a varieties of really pretty trees many of which twist and turn and look hundreds of years old. CIAT also has a post office, a bank, a travel agency and the cafeteria where employees get free hot lunches. So, all in all it is a pleasant working environment and it is nice to get out of the city into fresh air every day!
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From my extensive research during my masters dissertation and from having a Colombian boyfriend and living with his family, I have both an academic and personal view on social issues relating to inequality and race in Cali, which extend to much of the rest of the country. For me, one of the most significant differences between Europe and here is the social segregation by socioeconomic strata which is highly racialised (I will post more about this at a later date). It justifies the complete segregation of classes into different zones of the city leading to a lack of interaction between them, higher concentration of social and environmental problems in the lower strata areas and, ultimately, an almost total physical divide between whites and non-whites. Even the poor are separated by race, with the two poorest neighbourhoods of Aguablanca being predominantly black and Siloé being predominantly indigenous. It is the ideal way to fragment the power of union against a common oppressor as division is the best way to mask the common root of inequality. Colombia is one of the most ethically diverse countries in the world and Cali in particular has one of the largest black populations in Latin America. Nevertheless, one of the greatest obstacles to accurately examining racism in this country is the lack of official data on the socioeconomic situation of non-whites. There are, however, a few independent statistics which help to paint a better picture. Only 1 in every 5 afrocolombians reach higher education, half of afrocolombians are unemployed, 44/1000 black children die before the age of 1 and 45% of afrocolombians do not have healthcare. Statistics about racism in Colombia seem to only focus on the afrocolombian population, this is an indicator of a common 'identity' crisis in Colombia where those who have even a tiny bit of white ethnicity, which is probably most of the population to some degree, will identify as white, making any meaningful study on racism very difficult to carry out. As is common in many countries in the South, the media is inundated with photos and adverts of aryan white, blonde, blue-eyed tall models who are either hired from Argentina (a predominantly white country with large Italian/Germanic heritage), the USA or Europe, or are sometimes Colombian highlighting the almost absolute lack of racial mixing between those with European ethnicity in the 500 of years since the Spanish invasion. There is an obsession with eye colour here and Colombians seem to have a superhuman skill to notice whether someone has brown eyes or not. My boyfriend recently showed me a model's profile whose description said that his eyes were 'greygreen with honey' and that his hair was light brown. Unfortunately what he wants to look like doesn't change the fact that his photos showed very dark brown hair and eyes, but it demonstrates the desperation to look as far removed from the darker races as possible, even for a white successful model. The most ethnic diversity you will see in the media or fashion catwalks is one black person and this may be because in the western media there are some famous black models and actors, which means that Colombian outlets can believe they are not being racist, however, the indigenous, predominant races here are almost never represented. I have read various comments by other ex-pats who appear to have a very different understanding of the race issues here, with some praising the lack of political correctness, as you can call people what would be considered racist terms in Europe, without causing offence. It makes me wonder whether some white western people are only not racist in their home countries because it is not permitted? Others, while acknowledging the fact that lower classes are almost entirely black and indigenous, state that in Colombia there is more of a general respect for people than in western countries. I find that hard to believe. Of course, it could be that since white foreigners receive a lot of attention here, perhaps instead of interpreting this as a symptom of an unjust hierarchy and racism, some just lap up the compliments and jump on board with it as they belong to the 'privileged' race. On the other hand, it is always shocking and uncomfortable for me when this obsession for blonde whites with light eyes ('mono ojiclaro' such a commonly used phrase here) becomes apparent when I walk down the street or meet new people and they stare at me in admiration. Although, obviously they are being nice, they are simultaneously implying that they are unhappy with the way they look and their cultural heritage and it creates a sort of artificial superiority. And here I am thinking I am too white and need to get myself a tan, much to the surprise of my boyfriend's family! Clearly neither my culture, nor theirs is getting it right, but unfortunately the race issues here have far deeper consequences for people's every day lives. The issue with racism here is that it is not direct, there are no racist riots or people being beaten up or killed in obviously racist attacks. However, there is an institutionalised and normalised racism that seriously impinges on these ethnicities' human rights leading to low levels of social mobility. This is reflected in the every day language of the society with 'indio' being an insult synonymous with stupid, ignorant or animalistic, generally inferior in all ways. Also I have heard people talking about the fact that a mix between black and indigenous really is the most ugly mix and how people strive to improve their blood by 'marrying up' i.e. marrying someone lighter skinned than yourself. The cleaner my boyfriend's parents used to hire is black and she once said that she would never work for a black family, that it would be humiliating. It is clear that the social hierarchy by race, not only by class, is deep rooted and that challenging this is seen as disruptive and odd. An example of the ignorance of racism in this country and the reason why most people when asked would deny its existence, is the country's recent first-ever sentence for racism given to a town councillor who stated the following: 'being honest, difficult groups to manage like the blacks, the displaced and the indigenous are a cancer that the national government and the world has' ('Siendo sinceros, grupos difíciles de manejar como las negritudes, los desplazados y los indígenas, son un cáncer que tiene el Gobierno Nacional y mundial'). In spite of the sentencing, he stated he did not regret what he had said and did not retract his statement. My final observation regarding race is that another reason why even the black and indigenous populations may not acknowledge racism even though they are denied social mobility because of it, is because it is simply accepted that this is the way things are. During my interviews with these people for my dissertation, the most common theme was that they were resigned to this situation that will never change and they deserve to live this way as this is the 'natural' order of things. They are given the illusion of freedom and rights in order to not complain and to ensure that the situation of racial hierarchy remains unchallenged. To date, I have only heard an indigenous language being spoken once, when I was at the Migración Colombia office getting my visa, and I think I was extremely lucky to have heard it. And, again, only once have I seen an indigenous wearing authentic clothing from their culture. Here is a photo I took, so you can see the stark contrast between him and what the media lead us to believe Colombians look like. I started my new job yesterday. After over a year of pressing CIAT for an opportunity and dreaming of working there one day while gloomily sat in the tube in London, I am officially employed by them and couldn't be happier.
My official title is Visiting Researcher and I am working in the Decision And Policy Analysis (DAPA) department in the Climate Change And Food Security (CCAFS) division on long-term adaptation to climate change, more specifically on climate smart agriculture. This is part of the wider international research community of the Consortium of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). I am very excited to be working with an organisation that has such an international reach and influence on policy. It looks like I am going to be coordinating a project that CCAFS is undertaking with USAID, but I don't know too much about it yet. It sounds like a lot of responsibility but I am excited to take it on. Apart from the very long working day of 12 hours, including a long commute of 1.5 hours each way, my first day went really well. After an induction with HR, I finally met my boss who is lovely. She is half French too so we communicate in several languages. She took me to an outside café to have a chat for a couple of hours and she bought me an avena (oat drink) that comes in a giant yoghurt pot, so I wasn't sure how to drink it. I didn't want to tip it all over my face in my first meeting, but I managed to stay clean, somehow! The atmosphere is pretty relaxed and they seem to trust their employees a lot to get on with it on their own time and are not constantly monitoring them. Someone near my office even takes his little dog to work every day! There are people from all around the world working there and my office neighbour (I get my very own office...!) is from Uganda. The grounds of CIAT are in between Cali and Palmira and are in the middle of the countryside so it is beautiful and calm. The only downside to being in the countryside is that there are so many insects there! I was being eaten alive by mosquitos and had to keep interrupting the chat to reapply repellent! After a while, a few wild dogs rocked up to join in the chat too. My mum thinks I am working on a farm, and it seems I pretty much am! I will take some photos soon and put them up. I digress from my usual posts about Colombia but this is such a hot topic in the media and online at the moment that I just had to put some thoughts down in writing.
Although I am an atheist and half French, it is not easy for me to find my identity in this debate and my views are more complicated than simply posting a Facebook photo stating 'Je Suis Charlie'. Even in Colombia there has been social media support and even protests supporting the cartoonists, which is a little surprising. This is the only issue I have ever seen the comments on the Daily Mail and the Guardian be so similar. This has pushed the left to the right without them even knowing it. Farage and Le Pen will be high-fiving each other. I feel like many are jumping on this bandwagon because it has a cool social media tagline and they feel comfortable from their positions of privilege. As soon as the tables are turned, however, these same people would not agree to their children shouting racist or xenophobic comments to minorities at school because it’s funny, so what's the difference? Offensive jokes of the same nature would (I hope) also be frowned upon by the very same people, so why is Charlie Hebdo an exception? Would the reaction have been more diluted if the 12 had not died? Although some of Charlie's drawings have been what I consider political satire, and were intelligent and interesting, most did nothing to further intelligent conversation or encourage political debate. Most people reply to the focus on the offense caused to Muslims with 'but they drew Christians, Jews and others too'. But surely that the fact that they did it to other groups makes it worse, not better. I do not believe that anyone should take another's life under any circumstance and nothing justifies what the terrorists did. For me, however, this is not a binary issue of either being with Charlie or with the terrorists. The world is far more complex than that and so should the post-attack debate be, instead of this imagined dichotomy that appears to dominate. I believe that most of what Charlie published was rude for the sake of being rude, whether to Muslims, Jews or even the English. However, Muslims were disproportionately targeted, so is it still under freedom of expression if one, already marginalised group is targeted over others, such as elites and leaders who would arguably be better targets? One particularly repugnant depiction was of the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram as veiled, pregnant and ugly "sex slaves", demanding that no-one touch their welfare cheques. How can mocking kidnapped victims of rape in order to make a loose critique of benefits to immigrants be seen as instructive or funny? Their version of freedom of speech was simply exercising the right to offend. In an interview a couple of years ago, Charb himself said that Charlie's aim was to ridicule Islam "until it was as banal as Christianity". In his own words, this was not satire, it was not exaggerating the right's views to make them look ridiculous, it was anti-religion. How is it useful for a multicultural society to believe that religion is stupid? Were they trying to embarrass them out of their beliefs? If so, they were poorly informed about the nature of religion and, quite frankly, were being bigots. I would go as far as to say that they were an anarchistic publication targeting any form of power or institution. So, although they self-identify as a leftist publication, I'm sure very few on the left would agree to anarchism. Of course people have the right to be anarchists, but let's call it what it is. Let's not pretend they were heroes of Western values or defending the left. They were anarchists who used images against the right and for it. Leftist satire is meant to ridicule the right, not simply display its view. The sociopolitical position of Muslims in the modern world is very different to that of Christians and Jews for whom similar insults may not cause the same offense (just like if I received racist comments about being white, it would not affect me as much as if I were black, as I am in a more privileged social position). Muslims are an oppressed minority in Europe and some Muslim countries are experiencing very difficult times that inundate the Western media. So, saying that Christians and Jews did not go in and murder the authors, so why did these terrorists, does not mean that the drawings are not offensive, and whether something is right or wrong is not judged by how people react to it. And if the reaction of one group is severe and utterly criminal, it does not cancel out any wrong-doing of the publication. It certainly does not justify a violent reaction, but we are dangerously close to overlooking responsibility and justifying racism and xenophobia in order to condemn, or even vilify, the murderers. But the two are not mutually exclusive. Respect and tolerance are surely ideals that should be promoted and protected over boundless freedom of speech. Freedom of speech laws were enacted to protect oppressed groups, not fuel their oppressors. Freedom of the press comes with responsibility and freedom of speech comes with limitations when it conflicts with other, more peaceful values. This is something that has been conveniently forgotten by the right and left alike in the midst of the sudden call for broad and absolute freedom of speech. In the UK, for example, freedom of speech is legally restricted when it includes threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviours which will cause harassment, alarm or distress. Even in France itself, the law limits freedom of speech when it is based on hatred, discrimination, slander, racial insults or xenophobia. These also specifically apply to the press. Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights also outlines limitations. How many other rights would people sacrifice for this absolute freedom of speech? Maybe a lot, until it starts affecting them. Romanticising freedom of speech does nothing to further society or reflect all the facets of this event. The difference between the social media backlash here and after a similar attack in Australia is starkly apparent. The hashtag #I'llRideWithYou stands in solidarity with Muslims against islamophobia and is conscious of the potential affect this would have on the rights and safety of Muslims. Joining '#JeSuisCharlie', on the other hand, lends your identity to a publication that printed negative portrayals and generalisations of religions or national groups and heralding the cartoonists as heroes and martyrs is likely to drown out the details and controversy of their work. Although, of course, the killings are important and must be dealt with, the reason why I focus on islamophobia is because this is the misguided repercussion that this event has been used to justify and it is important to situate such events in their sociocultural and political landscapes. Even if Charlie's depictions hadn't been offensive at all, a conversation about islamophobia would still be relevant. You can be concerned about islamophobia without agreeing to murder. The wave of islamophobia has been growing in Europe (and the USA, of course) for years and there is a very real problem with terrorism, but doesn't help us to deal with it when instead we so easily slip into bigotry by painting everyone with same brush. Islam doesn't promote violence or peace. Islam like all religions is people and if you are violent then your Islam will be violent. The reason why there are problems in some Muslim majority countries is that religion fills the vacuum when social, political and economic instabilities arise and there is a scramble for identity within the chaos. We risk putting in more effort to protect the oppressor, by asking for complete freedom of speech, than the oppressed. Again, I am not defending acts of violence and totally agree they should go to prison, I am just pointing out that acts such as these do not occur in a vacuum. The colonial experiment to civilise these 'barbaric' groups and the continued domination of the West through neo-colonialist political and economic forces have undeniably left them with some problems. However, these are very location-specific and Islamic states such as Turkey and Indonesia, for example, are very different in terms of rights and safety than Iran and Pakistan. It is no surprise, though, that the images that dominate in the media of Islam as a restrictive, backwards and violent religion are based on cherry-picked examples that serve the Western ideology. However, these occurrences are not a product of Islam and originated in pre-Islamic Arabia so should be categorised as cultural, rather than uniformly religious, phenomena. For example, the US media conveniently overlooked the mass beheadings in Islamic Saudi Arabia as they are one of their closest allies and preserve national interests. Furthermore, there are Buddhist monks in Myanmar slaughtering people, but would anyone say that Buddhism is a violent religion? Would the media report this incident? No, because it does not have political gain. By the logic being increasingly used to generalise about Muslims, however, extremist terrorist groups should be given credit for all the amazing things that Islamic organisations do. No-one would do this so why implicate peaceful Muslims for the acts of extremists? Sisters In Islam, for example, is a Muslim women’s organisation in Malaysia that promotes the equal rights of women from within an Islamic framework. They draw from parts of the Qur’an that assert that men and women are equal and they abrogate Shari’ah law. Islamic Relief is a major non-profit organisation that is deeply involved in sociopolitical and humanitarian issues for Muslims and non-Muslims around the world. In the Central African Republic, for example, Islamic Relief are attempting to solve the religious conflict between Christians and Muslims and ensure they can live in harmony. Islam is, like any other religion, complex and varies depending on who is practising it. I believe that the advocates of #JeSuisCharlie's fight for freedom of speech above all else would not adhere to it in other, less trendy contexts. The intolerable actions of the Westboro Baptist Church, for example, are not seen as representative of the entire Christian religion and no-one has been protesting to protect their freedom of speech, which has incidentally been legally limited as they incite hatred. Many seem to conveniently forget that the only difference between terrorist and non-terrorist violence is whether it is authorised by an official body or not. The atrocities committed in the name of Western values (could anyone remind me what they are, as they seem to be changing), are only not terrorism because they are government-approved and tax-payer funded. This does not make them better or morally neutral. If anything it makes them worse as they should know better. The idea that terrorist and Muslim are somehow synonymous overlooks centuries of white, Christian and other acts of violence for political gain. The IRA’s extensive terrorist attacks spanning over three decades appear to have been forgotten and, again, the Irish were not uniformly blamed. There are multiple examples of other terrorist attacks that have not conjured up the same shameless lack of critical thought as those perpetrated by Muslim terrorists. What the terrorists want is to incite more islamophobia as this widens their pool of recruits as Muslims in Europe will feel oppressed and alienated, all the while widening the divide between West and non-West, further justifying the extremists' position in Islamic states, leading to more acts of violence. These terrorists are led by greed and power, not religion. Islam is, like all religions, a complex religion of which most of its followers are peaceful. The terrorists use religion to further their claim to power and recruit Muslims using religion as their common ground. To not see this is to assume that if Islam never existed, violence from people of middle-eastern or central African heritage would not exist. If it wasn't religion, it would be something else. Instead of leading by example, the reaction seems to be to homogenise and demonise them which will undoubtedly fuel more conflict and isolation, rather than inclusion and respect. There are thousands of European Muslims who are stuck in the middle and will be targeted by retaliation attacks. This has already happened with Mosque attacks and physical attacks on Muslims, including the murder of a 20-year old Muslims refugee in Germany. Have we learnt nothing from the persecution of the Jews, or the morally abhorrent invasion of Iraq? How can we stigmatise another people, another diverse group? How can we forget our own parent’s teachings of respect for diversity and difference? Is it easier to ignore these as the issues and victims are so far removed from our own identities? These terrorists were not psychopaths, they were people who took a rational decision because of the experiences and life they have had. Let's try to understand these causes in order to prevent such horrific acts and ensure that our opinions reflect the complexity of the situation and do not cause harm to innocent people. Clothes shopping in Colombia can be a real nuisance, apart from if you have a huge budget and love overpriced and/or designer clothes. I have found it really tricky to find clothes for work that, due to this heat, need to be lightweight, preferably cotton and obviously not revealing as so much of the women's clothing here is. Here is a summary of where I found affordable and/or suitable clothing that wasn't all synthetic and diamantéd.
I had to go outside of Colombia to pick up my work visa for my new job so I decided on Panama (as I had already been to Quito) and my boyfriend and I made a mini holiday of it. Here is a short guide of Panama city and what we got up to. Getting from Tocumen airport to the city: You can get taxi from the airport to the city but they are pretty expensive. If you opt to take a bus, here is what we did. When you leave the airport, turn right and keep walking until you get to a small alleyway behind a shop or office. Walk through the alley and keep going slightly right through a car park until you get to some roads. You are aiming for a bus stop right on the other side of all these roads. When you are stood at the bus stop with the airport in front of you, you want to take a bus going to your right. You can take the air-conditioned white buses but you need a card so can give someone the money to swipe you in (it should cost around 75c). We opted for a 'Diablo Rojo' (Red Devil) bus, which are the old classic Panamanian buses that look like Colombian Chivas. It cost 50c and had no aircon and online I saw it described as the 'poor people's bus'. But it was fine and felt safe as everyone had their iphones out. It took around 50 minutes to get to Vía Espana where we got off for our hotel. You pay when you get off the bus Hotel: We stayed in the Veneto Wyndham hotel in el Cangrejo neighbourhood. We got a good deal for £140 for 4 nights for both of us and we were really impressed with the hotel. It had a Las Vegas feel to it as it had a casino on the lobby floor and quite grand decorations. It had a free rooftop pool, gym and pingpong table and the rooms were huge including a massive double bed, flat screen TV, desk, fridge and huge walk-in shower. The street it is on isn't exactly nice, but it had a few nice restaurants on it and some minimarkets. It was also just down the road from the metro stations and was only a 15 minute walk to the sea. The only downer from the hotel was that on our last day, my boyfriend left $20 on his bedside table and when we went to the pool for an hour, it got stolen. This is in spite of the fact that we kept the 'do not disturb' sign on the door the entire time so cleaners should never have gone in. We complained to the hotel but they denied it. So be careful what you leave out as it will probably go missing! General perception of the city: The city feels very different to Colombia. Of course the huge sky scrapers give it a more American look but it is actually more of a facade. One you get up close and walk around the streets, there are a lot of run down buildings and blocks of flats in between these multi-million pound skyscrapers. One of which, an amazing spiral tower is brand new but has actually been empty for 4 years, as a taxi driver told us. So it seems that, like in Colombia, Panama has problems of government abandonment, corruption and illicit activity, meaning that the economy fluctuates massively and leading to inequality. This was confirmed when talking to other Panamanians we met who told us about the mafia that has de facto rule there. The Cinta Costera, a walk way along the coast it lovely, although there used to be a beach which was ruined by unregulated building and pollution of the water, so a beach would have been nicer! They are planning a regeneration project over the next 10-15 years to restore a beach and clean up the water so hopefully that will happen. It is used a lot by locals for walks and running or skating, although for me it would be far too hot! The old town, called the Casco Viejo, was beautiful with old colonial buildings including the presidential palace. However, even in this tourist attraction where the president lives, there were extremely run down and abandoned houses and a lack of maintenance. It was bizarre to have such lavish and pristine government buildings right next to abandoned and burnt down houses. One thing we found strange during our holiday was that we didn't find a supermarket anywhere, not even in shopping centres. And the shopping centres we did go to in the city (excluding Albrook) were deserted! Budget: Although we were advised that Panama was quite cheap, we found everything more expensive than Colombia. The minimum for a meal was $6 and average taxi rides were $3/4 but you had to haggle hard and still much more than in Cali. We planned a budget of $20 a day each for transport and food and we ate breakfast in our hotel room by buying milk and cereal - proper shoestring traveling! This would be the absolute minimum you could go with. Night out: My boyfriend has a friend from Cali who lived in Panama so we got in touch and her and her husband picked us up to go for dinner. My boyfriend had warned her that we were on a very tight budget so needed to go somewhere cheap. They picked us up from our hotel in an American-style Ford Raptor pick up truck that made other 4x4s look like children's toys! I have never been in a car I had to climb two steps to get into and I felt like I needed a rope to abseil down it to get out! They took us to the old town to this beautiful rooftop restaurant overlooking the city skyline and we took a look at the menus. I pinched by boyfriend's leg. Nothing was less than $18. We sat there awkwardly trying to telepathically decide how to play this and eventually my boyfriend told them that this would be too expensive for us, to which they expressed surprise. They clearly have a certain lifestyle and income over there as they picked this place out because they thought it was cheap! Awkward minutes of silence followed and then they said they would pay. We ended up having a really nice night and the temperature was incredible. However, not only was the food extremely over priced, but it was nothing more than tiny pretentious portions, less than I would consider a starter! It was delicious but we left still feeling famished after our day of traveling! I felt pretty embarrassed that they ended up having to pay, but our lives are just in very different places and they were quite a bit older than us. Or that's how I justified it to myself anyway. I tried to explain our situation to them and said that I haven't been working since finishing my Masters to which she replied that that sounds brilliant as I have been on a long holiday in Colombia meanwhile, but I explained that I have been just job hunting and I wouldn't call it a holiday. Clearly still not getting it, when we asked for somewhere low-key and cheap to spend the New Year, they suggested the $150 a head Hard Rock Café! I nodded politely and recounted my $20 a day budget for Panama. It was very amusing and goes to show how some people live here! Safety: In general, Panama City felt significantly safer than Cali and the Colombian coast, perhaps due to the smaller population (the whole country has the same amount of people as Cali), the more established tourist industry, or some other factors. We felt totally fine walking around at night which we would never do in Cali unless we had to for some reason, and were never approached by anyone begging and hardly saw any homeless people compared to Cali. My boyfriend's friend who we met up with who is from Cali confirmed this and told us that she felt so safe living in Panama and in Cali she would be very careful but was robbed at gunpoint inside her car numerous times in daylight and got her phone stolen at knife point when she was walking in her strata neighbourhood. Another Colombian we met from Bogota who was the owner of a restaurant also agreed and said that living in Panama was just completely different safety-wise. Shopping: I had intended to buy some work clothes in Panama so I had withdrawn some dollars for it and we went to Albrook Mall by taxi ($3) as we had heard it was relatively cheap and the biggest shopping centre in the country. We were very disappointed. It was small, expensive and there were no suitable clothes. Another day we went to Multicentro shopping centre near the consulate as my boyfriend's friend had told us it was the best and poshest one, so we were expecting more choice or quality cothing, but once again, it was small, non-airconditioned and very disappointing shops. Compared to the shopping centres in Colombia, what we were told was the best one in Panama wasn't even as good at the not-very-good ones in Cali. All the clothes in Panama were either designer sport-style clothing like Lacoste or Tommy Hilfiger or were extremely tacky, overpriced clothes with sequins and diamantes or big slits to show off surgically altered bodies. There was also almost not option to buy cotton clothing and most of it was synthetic which is crazy for the Panamanian heat! These types of clothes certainly exist in Colombia too, but tend to be the lower end of quality and price and in nice shopping centres or outlets stores you can find shops selling nice designs and cotton clothing! Needless to say that I didn't end up buying anything! Getting around: Panama is a strange city transport-wise and you need a travel card to use the metro and buses (which you need your passport to buy) so most tourists opt for taxis. However, in Panama, they are not required to have taxi-metres so just charge whatever they want, which tends to be more for foreigners. Thankfully my boyfriend is a 'local' and is used to bartering but we still got ripped off as we didn't know how much rides should cost. After our trip, we can confidently say that the average taxi ride, lasting 10-15 minutes should cost $3-$3.50 and no more! Although the taxi drivers are stubborn and often will not budge. For the same trip, one taxi driver would not move from $8 and made it seem like we were ripping him off, but then we found another that charged us $3. Another strange fact about taxis in Panama is that when you are in the middle of a ride, they will slow down and beep at pedestrians, offering their services, and will stop to pick up more people. So it is more like an expensive bus than a taxi! American influence: One of the main things we noticed about the city and culture is that it is extremely 'americanised'. Not only do they have the dollar as their currency, but their police wear identical uniforms to American police, the police cars are the same as in America too and even have the slogan 'Protect and Serve', and there was an almost total lack of Panamanian businesses. There were so many American restaurants like Popeye's chicken, Wendy's, Dairy Queen, Taco Bell, dunkin' Donuts, almost all the television programs we saw were Colombian and the rest were American and most of the banks were Colombian. I thought Colombia was very 'americanised', but that is nothing compared to Panama. The links between Panama and America due to the building of the canal and the use of the currency has obviously had an effect on local businesses and has been used to America's advantage. There were also a lot of American tourists and expats who live there who we saw walking their dogs along the cinta costera. Language: Another side effect of this 'americanisation' is that we noticed that a lot of Spanglish was officially adopted. For example, many signs used the English term instead of the Spanish such as 'Parking' instead of 'Parqueadero' and many more such as 'soda' instead of 'gaseosa. Spoken Spanish also seemed to have deteriorated and we heard locals say 'llamar patras', which literally means 'to call (someone) back'. But this is solely an English phrase and in Spanish it should 'llamar más tarde' or 'volver la llamada'. Apparently they speak like this in Puerto Rico too, as it is basically part of America. We had a really good trip and it was really nice to get out of Cali after 3 solid months! It was very interesting visiting a country that is so similar yet so different to Colombia but both share a common history and used to be one country. Next time, when we have more time and money, we would like to go to the beaches and islands to the north of the city. If you are planning on going, prepare for the extremely hot and humid weather that is significantly more uncomfortable than Cali!
If you've been following the various previous posts about my visa journey, you will know that I went through the processes of possibly getting a partner visa, then having to extending my tourist visa and, finally, over three months after arriving, I have my work visa (category TP-1)! I went to Panama to collect it as work visas have to be collected abroad if you are foreign. It is a bit of a hassle but I managed to see another country and have a little holiday too. This post will explain how I got it.
As soon as I was offered my job, I had to send my contact at CIAT scans of my passport, photos etc for them to apply for this visa on my behalf as they have a special agreement with the Cancillería and obviously process a lot of these visas as they are an international organisation. I was told it would take up to three weeks and this was at the end of November. The time passed and Christmas was fast approaching and still no word. Then, miraculously, in the last half hour of my contact's working day before CIAT closed for two weeks for Christmas, the approval of my visa finally came through. What followed was a frantic day of filling in the online application form with more personal data and documents to upload such as a photo, the job offer letter and a scan of my passport. I then desperately tried to contact the Panamanian consulate on the morning of the 24th December (Christmas day in Colombia) but the phone lines were just playing a recording so I thankfully managed to get an email reply just before the half day in the office was over. I was told that I actually did not need to book an appointment so could just go whenever they were open to collect it. Since my visa had already been approved, I guess it is a faster process. Unfortunately, between the time that my contact at CIAT had told me it had been approved and finding out I could go to Panama whenever I wanted, the prices of the already high prices of the flights had increased by $100! But it was all worth it in the end and we went and had a great time. I will write a post about Panama City later for anyone who is going. Getting the visa once in Panama City was very easy. We took a taxi to the consulate which is opposite the Plaza Paitillo Hotel and the receptionist told me to go to the last room down this corridor and the man inside knew who I was because of my emails so I just left my passport with him and the following day picked it up. No waiting time, no hassle! |
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