AboutLorena Milanes Expertise I can answer questions regarding Panama, its people, culture, places to visit, places to watch out for, hotels to stay, how much your taxi fare should be... specific information on getting around on a safe manner.
Experience I was born and raised in Panama, educated in American schools. Since I enjoy all related to Panama history, I try to keep myself updated on local happenings in the subject. I also enjoy traveling and the internet seems a wonderful tool to use, specially when you are your own guide (which I usually am)- so I am just willing to give some of the help I have received back.
Publications Article - La Prensa Newspaper
Education/Credentials Bachelor's Degree - Marketing and Advertisting
MBA - Emphasys in Management
Question What are the people of Panama like? Where do they work? what are popular pasttimes? How is Panama different from or similar to the United States?
What are the young people like? Do they work? What are their popular pasttimes? What are the schools like? How is their daily life similar to or different from youth in America?
What are typical foods eaten in Panama? Why did they become popular? What ingredients are commonly found in dishes? What times are readily available in the country?
Thank you for any information and insight you can share with me.
Answer Emilia,
You have plenty of questions... hopefully I can answer them all.
People of Panama are first of all a mix, we are referred to as a "melting pot" many times due to our diverse culture.
We have a big porcentage of the population who are black, we are mostly mestizos and a lower percentage of indigenous and whites.
People here are laid back as life is in the tropics, fun, loud and not very good at following the rules. Whether it be running a red light or throwing garbage in the street.
Of course this rule does not apply to all but unfortunately mostly aby by it.
In regards to work, well, there is a big financial center here, which provides plentyful jobs in the banking area, also a well known commercial free zone which has all from sales men, marketing directors, product designers and much more. Hotels are now growing with the sudden increase in tourism, restaurants and many businesses dedicated to providing service can be found.
There are many family owned businesses as well and international companies that provide jobs.
For popular pastimes, due to Panama's proximity to the beach, water sports are popular. Surfing, fishing, cayuco racing and of course other sports as baseball and soccer are very popular and yes we have golf courses too.
Panama is similar to the US in the fact that it uses the US dollar as the local currency, we have many English speaking people and since we had US presence here for so many years there are some customs that stayed.
It's different because people get more quality time with family as distances tend to be short (Now with all the foreigners coming in traffic has become hectic and this is changing).
Here, standards are not as high as expected, service is not what is should be, consumer rights are almost non existent.
There are little pollution control or protection rights and if there are any they are completely ignored.
Young people here, as mentioned above work in the companies established in Panama and pastimes are the same as already mentioned.
Schools in Panama, if they are public they are on strike at least once a year, being teachers wanting to make more money or recent mishandling of funds scandals, there is always something going on.
Most public schools are deteriorated, bathrooms don't work and they don't even have computers so you can picture the rest.
In regards to private schools, there are plenty of them. Wether it be Catholic,Jewish or emphasizing on languages such as Chinese, Italian or English.
What differences schools from the US and Panama is that teachers in the US are better paid and schools get more resources to work with.
Time schedule is pretty much the same, but the amount of courses is much higher for example a student in the US going to 8th grade might have 6 to 8 courses while in Panama this would probably double.
Daily life would be pretty similar to the US, bus ride to school, lunch, after school activities, if any, bus ride back home. At home kids would most likely be watched by a maid or by family such as grandparents.
There are not many parks that kids can go to and kids must be supervised at all times, now even more due to crime increase.
Here there are the usual problems of any country related to drugs and sex scandals in schools wether it be with teachers or kids from the classroom.
Typical foods in Panama contain high amounts of fat as they are mostly fried.
A Panamenian breakfast could be a dish of liver with a fried tortilla, with fried yuca (cassava), fried carimanola...
I am guessing they became popular because they are easy to make and also cheap as all ingredients are locally produced.
Panama has been a nice country to live until recently. Taxes have gone up, the same as crime and traffic.
Local governments have not been strong, have had numerous corruption scandals and most of the time goverment officials are pictured as thieves in suits. There is lack of confidence in the government.
Most recent, we have immigration from Venezuela and Colombia without any control whatsoever, importing things such as "kidnap express" where they kidnap you for small sums of money, a lot of drug related executions, prostitution and things that Panamenians were not use to.
I hope this helps, if anything is not clear or you would like any more info, just let me know.
Happy Holidays,
Lorena
