Panamá Prequel Take 2: A Tale of
Two Cities
 |
| Panama City. |
World Youth Day events are now officially underway in
Panamá. Thousands of young people continue to converge on this small Central
American nation and its capital, Panamá City. But, according to our
correspondent, there’s more to Panamá than meets the eye.
By Seàn-Patrick Lovett
Imagine, just for a moment, that you are a young pilgrim
attending the 34th World Youth Day in Panamá City. If you are
lucky, you will have arrived by plane. Even after a 20-hour flight from Europe,
Africa or Asia, you’ll still feel fortunate to be here. Because we all know
this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a unique opportunity to celebrate
being Catholic among committed, faith-filled, young believers like yourself.
First impressions
That sense of celebration will increase exponentially as you
drive from the airport to the city centre. Flanked by fluttering flags,
alternating the yellow and white of the Vatican, with the red, white and blue
of Panamá, you will be greeted by the face of Pope Francis himself, smiling
down at you from banners and billboards.
Your destination is the Cinta Costera, a 2.5-kilometer
coastal beltway and park, built on land reclaimed from the sea. It’s here the
opening Mass for WYD was held on Tuesday afternoon. And it’s here the Pope will
first greet young pilgrims at the official welcome ceremony on Thursday
evening.
The Cinta Costera provides a spectacular backdrop to the
best Panama City has to offer: breath-taking skyscrapers, mouth-watering
eateries, top-of-the-range fashion stores, and everything else a consumer’s
heart could possibly desire.
It’s no secret that many of the world’s super-rich,
including four of the wealthiest people on the planet, have a home in Panamá.
Income from the Canal, along with some rather liberal tax laws, ensures it
stays that way. For the lucky ones, at least.
Second impressions
But if you keep walking, your surroundings change rapidly
and radically.
Suddenly you’re in a warren of cobbled alleyways where
street vendors sell pineapples, coconuts, fish and hand-made footwear, all at
prices that anyone can afford.
Keep on walking and you reach a part of the city that never
appeared on Trip Advisor: past the quaint and picturesque cobbled streets of
the Casco Viejo, or Old Quarter, past the hostels and hotels, the colourful
sights and exotic smells, keep walking past ramshackle houses where paint peels
off weatherworn walls.
Now you are outside Panama City proper, in a kind of
no-man’s land made of mud and shacks, where stray dogs prowl and children play
among the garbage.
This is where the unlucky ones live, those who reap zero
benefit from the wealth generated by the Panama Canal, or from anything else.
They are the other face of an otherwise fascinating city.
But if you want to meet them, you’re going to have to keep
on walking.
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