IS IT SAFE IN PANAMA?

Since I first thought about retiring south of the Rio Grande and started mentioning it to people one of the questions most asked is “isn’t it dangerous down there?”
I don’t know. How dangerous is it where you live? Recently in Fort Lauderdale five guys held up several Dunkin Donuts stores and killed two people. Shouldn’t it be safe to go have coffee and a donut in the middle of the day without having to die for it?

Three cops killed in Oakland, California and a third in critical condition and not expected to pull through. Just a routine traffic stop. In today’s (March 22, 2009) Sun Sentinel on line: “Driver Robbed at Gunpoint in Boca Raton.” “Authorities (in Lake Worth) Try to Identify Slain Home Intruder.” “Two Women Sexually Battered During Orlando Home Invasion.” And people wonder if it’s safe in Panama?
So, then, how is it in Panama? Well, recently on the blogs I read there have been stories of home invasions here, too. And murders. All the guide books, and people as well, say that you will, at a bare minimum, get mugged if you wander out of the Zona Libre in Colon. The ever present and highly visible police in Panama City’s Casco Viejo district will gently steer the unwary tourist away from dangerous adjacent neighborhoods should they unsuspectingly turn down certain streets. As in any big city there are definitely places you shouldn’t be and Panama City and Colon are two of those here.

In the past week I’ve been to three separate towns in Panama: Santiago, Chitré and Pedasí. These are completely different from the large city. I didn’t see much of Santiago and can’t really say if it’s a dangerous place or not. I simply didn’t see enough of it to form an opinion. I do know that I didn’t care for it much. Most of the travel books pretty much write it off as a stopping off place for travelers going between Panama City and David, the country’s second largest city. I had been planning to go to David but an international festival had all the reasonably priced rooms (i.e. under $50/night) were booked solid.

Pedasí, with a population of less than 2,000, is probably about as safe a place as you will find anywhere. In Chitré, with about 45,000 people, I felt reasonably safe. I walked everywhere.

The lighting on the side streets is nothing like it is in the States. It’s pretty dim with maybe one street light every block or so, but it’s pretty hard to feel uncomfortable walking down the street at night when families are walking there, too. Teenage girls, singly and in twos and threes walk down the side streets after dark with no apparent apprehension. At first I wondered about this but came to realize that eyes are watching everything that’s going on.

One of the things that has made America unsafe has been the advent of air conditioning. When air conditioning came along Americans shut their windows and closed their doors. Doing so not only kept the cold air in, it kept the world outside. Americans insulated themselves from the world.

Here in Panama, at least outside of Panama City, anyway, the majority of people don’t have air conditioning. They leave their front doors and back doors open in their small homes to catch the cooling breezes, and though nearly all homes have bars on the windows, doors and porches, the people are aware of what is going on on the other side of them. Many sit on their porches chatting the night away and they often acknowledge your presence as you pass by with a murmured “buenas.” (Note: Here in Panama “buenas” says it all. “Dias,” “Tarde” and “Noche” are only added to “Buenas” occasionally.) So, back in the States, we talk the good talk about “Neighborhood Watch” and have even set up a single night that encourages people to get outside their homes and onto their front yards, porches or steps. Here in Panama, at least in the few places I’ve been so far, that’s a 365 night a year occurrence and I’ve felt a lot safer walking down the street after dark than I do in Fort Lauderdale.