Out of Pod Experience

Today I woke up to a very still Panama.

Traffic was slow, trickling, like the slow ebb of a muddy river.

Flags hoisted everywhere, the National flag undulating lazily and almost everywhere a strange feeling of uneasy calm, even when the government here doesnt recognize this as any kind of special day.

"PROHIBIDO OLVIDAR" is the chorus of today in this country. "Never forget", never forgive too...

On radio, tv and local webpages everywhere you see and hear the news, 24 Years since operation "Just Cause", 24 years since the invasion.

"Gringos" everywhere tend to thread lightly and even the US Embassy issues a official note, telling their nationals to avoid some areas of the country today.

Though not common, some people still harbor deep feelings against the U.S.A , specially today.

So I find myself with the need to express some small thoughts, coming to my mind as I sit in the desolated corner of my mind.

Posting it in a place where few will see it, but perhaps rightly so, for it is a very small part of me I want to let out.

Every single time I am confronted with views like this one, when Endara and Ford were attacked publicly in the streets by pro-Noriega forces or some of the films portraying the actual invasion by US forces , like a beginning and an end to the whole turmoil all I can do is sit for a moment and write about some of the conclusions I come upon, conclusions that haunt me even today as one of the many sempiternal Latinamericans forced by political and economic forces to emigrate out of his homeland.

It is simply, as I see it, The Anvil of Fate thrown upon our shoulders, to always be relegated in the annals of history to be seen as forces that are at the whims of Hidden Masters or Monsters, pullulating in dark recesses of the world.

I never wanted this nor asked for this. But Latinamerica is the center of an ages old theft of life and riches, since the moment Columbus set foot upon our lands, exchanging trinkets, small mirrors and worthless beads for the gold of our people.

This strange turn of events, continues to this days, so aptly shown in movies that vibrate with the "Latinamerican plight" , shown subtly here in a small clip of EVEN THE RAIN (2011).

So all I think for a moment is how , using the same movie as a basis I can replicate almost flawlessly the very Anvil of Fate thrust upon us over and over and over again .

Like if someone somewhere, has always tried to stomp us, to divide us, to keep us segregated in a paradoxical way. By giving us what we want in a form we NEVER wanted.

Thoughts that always come unhinged, making me realize, over and over, that I am part of this cycle, part of this strange land, where my mixed blood is tied so strongly, a cycle of which I must confess I am guilty too, or was, for now, by circumstances beyond my understanding the call of this land is stronger now in me.

Who am I to say where my future lies, where the weight of my past always crawls and imprisons my feet?

I see my fellow Panamenian brothers and understand them very well, I see their problems and see a reflection of my own, in the same way I can see all of my latinamerican brothers and feel kinship in all that was stolen from us.

There is no right or wrong In what I am implying, nor a veiled or overt critique to this or that country, government or way of thinking.

What I burn with inside is this atrocious need to understand, to show to a small fraction of the world, in a private way, the echoes of something that I do not fully understand, but pulsates within my very own blood.

I salute Panama today, a country not unlike my own, but different nonetheless. I mourn too for it today, with open arms.

No political party, no army and no ideal can truly encompass that so familiar feeling of alienation, of being a stranger amongst your own, yet even more strange amongst others.

As a final note, in this personal rambling of my own, never take things for granted, EVER, and no one, absolutely NO ONE can say to you , to your very being what you need and what you need not.

Have a happy weekend and Merry Xmas, fellow capsuleers.

o7

That´s quite common actually, just saying.