The Thing About Banana Republics

Around January of 1985, I was reminded to go and update my Air Force assignment preferences for next change of station (I was to leave in January of 1986).  Most folks would fill out the state or US installation site....but something drove me to put down two overseas locations (Iceland and Panama).  I wanted some exotic change of pace, and had read some short summaries of both....figuring that was enough to make this decision.

Six months would pass, and the assignments folks called me.....I had Panama.

So I would arrive in January of 1986, and spend three years there.  It's best to say that within 10 days of arriving....I came to grasp and understand the term of banana republic. 

Nothing functioned like you thought in Panama.  Everything was corrupted, from the airport crowd, to the police. 

I lived for six months downtown.  Sometimes, you could go ten days straight with power disruption.  Sometimes, the power would go out every other day for two to three hours. 

Crime was rampant but you learned to just drive through the districts and keep the windows rolled up and the doors locked.

Car inspections?  You learned quickly that your car would always fail, but $20 on the car seat ensured that it always passed (even if the tires were bald). 

At the end of three years, I was fully prepared to leave, and simply note all the experiences as something that most Americans never 'entertained'. 

Banana republics are a dark place.....where people disrespect the system and society.  Trust doesn't exist.  Government offices are bloated and ineffective.  My yearly trip to the car-tag office meant stopping at this 1930s building where you would turn in your paperwork and sit for two hours while your slip circled around this sixty by sixty foot room. 

Stations were manned by these Panama women, in thick make-up and dolled up in clothing that barely would fit.  They were all nieces or cousins of people and hired simply as a favor to Uncle Jose.  None of them could type, nor could they really grasp what they were doing....other than stamping the paperwork. 

I usually sat there and amazed that the fifty-year-old chief was standing there and ensuring that the paperwork continued to flow.    This should have been simple to just stamp one form, and issue me a sticker for the old tag, but they had built a system where thirty-odd clerks needed to touch and be part of this process.

All across Panama, you saw the same bureaucratic mess in action.

By the end, I had a fairly good idea of how banana republics functioned, and I had no desire to ever return to one. 

I often look at the general public of the US, and how 99-percent of them have never been in such a situation....for months and years. Everyone ought to have six months of a dose of this.....to grasp what the term means, and just how much to appreciate the world we live in.