Stray Thoughts

Your life is what your thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius


Off of Calle 50, here in Panamá City, there’s an empty lot of beautiful, lush green land the size of a city block. On it grow several tall, majestic trees. Of these, one stands out in particular—every February, across the street from La Mansión Danté, a regal guanacaste astounds passersby with a spectacular bloom of bright yellow flowers. A stately, waist-high stone wall surrounds the site. This place would indeed make a dazzling park.

Four years ago—when my wife and I first moved to our current home—an aged but still splendid-looking, two-story hacienda house stood at the rear of the lot. The building spoke eloquently to the area’s noble past. And I use to love to fantasize that, one day, I’d be able to afford the mansion and restore it. Then, three years ago, without warning and without ceremony, the manor was torn down. This, I believe, was a tragic mistake.

Nevertheless, in spite of that loss, the landscape remains beautiful.
But last week, in La Prensa, a brief note in the business section stated that the property—which for generations had belonged to the Obarrio family—changed hands, the third time in four years. And the piece heralded the projected construction of high-rise office buildings as a remarkable testimony to Panamá’s vigorous economic growth.

I did not rejoice at this news. It saddens me to think of this wondrous, open space, in the heart of the banking district, succumbing to the imperatives of greed.

What the nation’s capital needs today, far more than skyscrapers, are places where people can find respite from the chaos of Panama City, as well as from the worrisome and dreary proliferation of insipid concrete towers.

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Once again, Jaime Raúl Molina has stepped up to the writer’s podium to preach about the virtues of unrestrained profit-making. His article appears in the latest issue of Agenda Magazine. Molina’s simplistic condemnations of environmentalists and people who believe that it’s essential to monitor corporations have forced me, in the past, to respond to other articles he has written. These pieces, “The Highway Through Darién” and “The Specter of Greed,” appeared in The Panama News.

And now Molina returns with an article that condemns all environmentalists. He blames them—and in particular Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring—for the public panic that led to the “unnecessary” banning of DDT. According to Molina, this ban is responsible for the resurgence of malaria and, of course, for unjustly hurting the pesticide industry.

While this is true—and I agree with him that the reaction to Carson’s claims was somewhat hasty—DDT was proved harmful to wildlife, especially birds and fish. Because of this, the ban remains on using DDT in large scale agriculture. But recently, the World Health Organization has cleared the insecticide for use in areas where malaria is a problem.

Jaime Raúl Molina calls this a victory for progress, and he then proceeds to condemn anyone who places the well-being of the environment above the well-being of people. Being familiar by now with Molina’s ardent advocacy for business without barriers, as well as with his distorted notions about the meaning of freedom, his failure to understand that the well-being of humanity depends precisely on our ability to co-exist with the planet doesn’t surprise me.

After reading Molina’s latest piece, I’m ready to cancel my subscription to the magazine. The problem is that all subscribers to La Prensa receive Agenda for free.

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I plead guilty to being curious about what readers have to say with regard to Bernardo and the Virgin. The critique below appears in Nicaragua Living—a website for English-speakers who live, wish to live, or want to visit Nicaragua.

Here’s the review:

Bernardo & The Virgin: A Novel, by Silvio Sirias.

Sirias is a Florida State University professor, with a strong background in Latin American literature. He was raised partly in Los Angeles and partly in Nicaragua, and is familiar with bi-cultural environments and the unique life-forming experiences formed in them (and he edited a book about the writings of Dominican Julia Alvarez—author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents—which is about just that). He also wrote the introduction for Nicaraguan poet Salomon de la Selva’s Tropical Town and Other Poems.

Bernardo is Bernardo Martinez, a pig-farmer and sacristan in rural Nicaragua. In 1980 Bernardo, plagued with money problems and much more, finds himself witness to a miraculous light emanating from the statue of the Virgin Mary, in his local church. From this—a common man’s experience with that which he worships but perhaps doesn‘t really fully understand—Sirias crafts an epic novel, incorporating many stories about the people, politics, culture, religion, and Nicaragua itself. As broad in scope and perhaps as pretentious as that sounds, that is what Sirias attempts, and he is remarkably successful.

Bernardo is indecisive, and fears public humiliation if he comes forward with his tale of the miraculous, especially given his role in the community and his inability to serve his Church in the higher capacity he once sought. Sirias’ novel is obviously classified as fiction, but it is based on the factual events pertaining to the Virgin Mary at Cuapa, Nicaragua (there is no shortage of commentary, on the internet and elsewhere, regarding such Marian Apparitions). Two things probably prevent many potential readers from starting such a book: the size (454 pages) and the Christian focal point.

What Sirias has on his side, however, in addition to a true gift for writing, is the ability to weave people and stories, and make this tale appealing even to religiously antagonistic readers. Sirias offers a vivid, rich image of the politics, mysticism, culture, and everyday life in rural Nicaragua.

The original posting can be read here.