Kitty Litter

Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.
Joseph Wood Krutch

Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.
Robertson Davies


Latin Americans are dog people. Overwhelmingly so.

I certainly was a dog person—that is, until my wife introduced me to cats. Once upon a time, I used to enjoy tormenting students who were feline-lovers by proclaiming, in class, my disdain for cats. I confess that the look of horror on their faces delighted me. Now, though, I’ve seen the error of my ways.

Over the past six years, my wife and I have adopted four cats—two in Nicaragua and two in Panamá. We also have a dog, a parrot, and several love birds. Our Panamanian neighbors smile indulgently when they see how protective my wife is of our animals. I’ve heard them say that she treats them as if they were our children.

“Los gringos son locos por sus animales,” a woman once said to me in Nicaragua, not knowing that the person she was specifically referring to was my wife.

It’s a stereotype Latin Americans have about people from the States. But most folks here fully appreciate the affection Americans display toward their dogs.

Cats, on the other hand, are another matter. You rarely see them in homes. In fact, I think that my wife and I are the only cat owners on the entire block. Here, cats have a utilitarian purpose: many of the families that own one keep it as a safeguard against rodents. What’s more, popular belief dictates that cats need to be kept underfed; otherwise they’ll neglect their duties as pest-controllers.

Living in a society that places little value on cats as companions makes it difficult for those of us who own indoor ones—especially when it comes to buying kitty litter. Few stores carry this essential product. What’s worst, they are often out of stock. Because of this, my wife and I are always on the prowl for kitty litter, and when we do find the precious commodity we buy the entire lot.

“How many cats do you have?” the clerks sometimes ask.

“Four,” we answer.

“That’s a lot of cat food for only four cats.”

It would be pointless to explain, believe me. We’ve tried.

Still, in spite of the bother, I’ve become a cat person. (And I continue to love dogs as well—it’s one of the benefits of having a liberal education.) I’ve bonded with my feline clan, and I have learned to take pleasure in their refined, sophisticated company.

Nevertheless, I do wish that being a cat lover would come with less stress. As it is, I find myself often worrying if there’s going to be yet another kitty litter shortage in Panamá next month.

A Time to Step Aside

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.
George Orwell

We grew up in a situation where we didn't know the meaning of freedom or justice, and therefore we didn't know a thing about democracy.
Daniel Ortega

I believe that all of us ought to retire relatively young.
Fidel Castro, Playboy Interview - January 1967


I was living in Nicaragua during the elections of 2001. One afternoon, Daniel Ortega, the perennial presidential candidate of the Sandinista party, stopped by San Marcos, Carazo, the town where I was residing, as part of his campaign stump. By then I had been in Nicaragua for two and a half years and I had listened to countless stories, from people in all walks of life, about la Revolución Sandinista and how it had fallen far short of everyone’s expectations.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not a right-winger. Far from it. Throughout the 1980s, when the Sandinistas governed Nicaragua, I was an ardent supporter of la Revolución and the ideals I believed it stood for. The problem was, however, that, to borrow a Spanish expression, I was watching the bulls from a distance, as I had not lived a single day under Sandinista rule.

When I returned to Nicaragua, after a nearly twenty year absence, I heard numerous heartrending, as well as shocking, testimonies about life under the Sandinistas. These made me feel naïve, and betrayed. It was the loss of my political innocence.

There is one thing, nevertheless, for which Daniel Ortega and the rest of the Sandinista leadership deserve credit: when they lost the 1990 election to Violeta Chamorro, they became the first political party in Nicaraguan history to peacefully hand over the presidency.

But they didn’t give up power.

“We shall govern from below,” they announced upon leaving office.

In the years since, Daniel Ortega has become a master at making behind-the-scenes deals. And, although he lost another two elections—in 1995 to Arnoldo Alemán, and in 2001 to Enrique Bolaños—he remains a formidable powerbroker. He also has demonstrated remarkable adeptness to forging alliances with those who were once his mortal enemies, such as Arnoldo Alemán, if he deems that such a union will increase his clout.

But he is also responsible for the decline of the Sandinista party.

The once gallant young comandantes, who in the 1980s made dashing, romantic revolutionary figures, are now veteran statesmen who became wealthy during what Nicaraguans have termed “La Piñata”—the frantic repartition of government funds and confiscated property that the Sandinista leaders shared among themselves after losing the 1990 election. In fact, Ortega’s current alliance with Alemán and his cronies is, in large part, a ploy by the old Sandinista guard to protect themselves from being held accountable for the money and property they made their own only days before handing over the presidency.

At present, the Sandinista party is the refuge of a small cadre of outdated and increasingly irrelevant revolutionaries. If the party is to survive, the old guard needs to stop being enamored with power and step aside to allow a new generation to emerge as leaders. But that is not likely to happen. Many once notable Sandinistas, such as Sergio Ramírez, Gioconda Belli, Ernesto Cardenal, Dora María Tellez, the Mejía Godoy brothers, and even Humberto Ortega, Daniel’s brother, disavowed Ortega and his associates long ago because of the dictatorial control they exercise over the party. Because of this, in the eyes of the vast majority of Nicaraguans, the Sandinista leadership, which is fiercely loyal to Ortega, has lost all credibility. The polls clearly prove this.

During the 2001 presidential campaign, as I stood in the plaza of San Marcos listening to Daniel Ortega’s speech, I was struck by the poverty of his language and by his lack of imagination. He bored the small crowd of five hundred that showed up to listen to him—out of a population of twenty-five thousand—with rhetoric full of old, worn-out clichés from the days of La Revolución. Moreover, his delivery absolutely lacked charisma.

At the end, his presentation received lukewarm applause. A handful of ardent Sandinistas shouted slogans to which those present responded half-heartedly. Personally, I was disappointed. I expected that after three decades of public speaking Ortega would’ve become a great orator. But from the podium he is light years behind his mentor, Fidel Castro.

Today, bolstered by the prominence of Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan maverick, Daniel believes that by climbing aboard the Latin American populist bandwagon he has a chance of making a comeback. High-ranking US officials—who once more are showing their ignorance regarding the sentiments of the Nicaraguan people—have crossed the line: interfering, yet again, in the affairs of this Central American nation by openly expressing their opposition to this.

What Washington doesn’t seem to get is that Daniel Ortega doesn’t stand a chance of regaining the presidency.

Everyone in Nicaragua knows that the former Comandante de la Revolución has run out of things to say.

DON QUIJOTE DE LA MANCHA: Four Hundred Years Later

There is a time for some things, and a time for all things; a time for great things, and a time for small things.
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha, Part II, Chapter 35.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.
George Bernard Shaw


Four hundred years after the publication of Part One of Don Quijote de la Mancha, Miguel de Cervantes is enjoying a stunning resurgence in popularity. As the Spanish-speaking world commemorates this event, his best-known novel has been near the top of the bestsellers lists.

It’s been a fascinating phenomenon to watch.

In every bookstore one sees copies of the novel piled in stacks close to the cash register, and booksellers are thrilled at the quantities being purchased. In addition, throughout Latin America, there have been countless programs and lectures devoted to Cervantes’s creation.

In Panamá, La Prensa has published several reports about what local experts have to say about Don Quijote. The interesting thing is that the majority of these “experts” lack formal training in literary studies. Instead, for most of the capital city’s lectures, a procession of architects, attorneys, physicians, sociologists, entrepreneurs, and politicians have stood behind the podium, sharing their thoughts on this classic.

After reading the reports of their talks in La Prensa—including the publication of portions of their conferences—I’ve come away convinced of one thing: most of the presenters have either read Cervantes’s work superficially, or not at all.

Mostly, their commentaries praise the knight-errant’s spirit of self-sacrifice and his sense of social justice, particularly noting how he attacks fierce windmills in an attempt to defeat evil.

I find this disconcerting. So far, most of the insights of these notable citizens have been little more than a recycling of the universal clichés that emanate from a great work of art, such as Don Quijote de la Mancha, and which most people with an adequate college education can readily manipulate without really having read the book.

But I can forgive these “experts.” Completely. I have to assume that their prominent professional and personal standings have placed them in the unenviable position of having to hurriedly prepare a talk that is intended for those who, like many of us, wish to learn about the novel without going through the trouble of reading it.

Yes, I can easily forgive these experts because, as I learned years ago, Don Quijote de la Mancha is a very, very difficult book to read.

The first three times I tried to penetrate Cervantes’s work, I was unsuccessful. On each occasion I couldn’t get beyond the fifth chapter. To be honest, during each attempt I found Don Quixote undecipherable and, worse, boring. But I kept on trying because my professors always raved about the novel in their classes and I, not wanting to be left out in the cold, would make yet another effort to read it.

I kept this up until I had the good fortune, as a doctoral student at the University of Arizona, of enrolling in a course on Hispanic Renaissance poetry; and the following semester I took a course on Hispanic Renaissance prose. My professor on both occasions was Dr. Alicia de Colombí-Monguió, a genuine scholar of that era. Her lectures were wonderfully vivid and full of splendid anecdotes about the writers. Indeed, she was a gifted teacher, able to pass on her vast knowledge with supreme ease.

At the conclusion of the second course, Dr. Colombí closed her book, and with a mischievous smile, said, “Now, you are all ready to read and understand Don Quijote de la Mancha.”

Trusting her judgment, the first day of summer vacation I picked up Cervantes’s novel again, and it was as if the heavens had opened. Don Quijote, which before had seemed dull and impenetrable, was now strikingly clear and gloriously resplendent.

Suddenly, I was able to see why it’s called a work of genius. Throughout the narrative, Miguel de Cervantes, like a dazzling magician, ponders on the nature of his own invention—the modern novel. At the same time, he manages to enchant his readers with the adventures of a knight who, in his madness, attempts to make the world conform to his beloved books of chivalry.

But I would’ve never understood Don Quijote de la Mancha without the benefit of having studied the major works that preceded it, and which Cervantes relies on so heavily for guidance and inspiration.

That summer I came to revere Don Quijote de la Mancha, and I was so affected by the novel that I willing spent several years under its spell, making it the subject of my doctoral dissertation.

This year, the year of the four-hundredth anniversary of the novel’s first appearance, I am awed by the thousands, and perhaps millions, of Spanish-speakers who are eagerly trying to decipher Cervantes’s genius.

Yet I’m sure that only a tiny fraction of those who have purchased a copy of Don Quijote de la Mancha will be successful in finishing it. A more realistic fate: many Latin American households will now own a book that is destined to sit on a shelf, unread after an honest but frustrating attempt.

It’s a shame that such a remarkable wave of enthusiasm for reading—that only happens once every hundred years—should pass us by without our fully taking advantage of it.

I propose that for 2015, in commemoration of the four-hundredth anniversary of the publication of Part II of Don Quijote, (and why not, after all, Cervantes’s sequel, published ten years later, is superior to the original), we prepare a legion of teachers who, after studying the novel in depth, will lead organized reading groups, opening the eyes of thousands to the genius of Cervantes.

And then, in addition to uniting entire nations by way of the act of reading, we can save all those copies of Don Quijote de la Mancha from idly gathering dust.

The News from Colón

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
Aristotle

It is not easy for men to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty.
Juvenal


More than a year passed before my wife and I were able to get our hands on Cidade de Deus (City of God) at our local Blockbuster. Apparently, this Brazilian film—about teenagers in a Sao Paolo favela who are trapped in a world of gangs and drug trade—has been extremely popular here in Panamá.

I’m pleased to report Cidade de Deus was well worth the wait. The film, directed by Fernando Mireilles and based on a novel by Paulo Lins, takes the viewer deep into the lives of those who dwell in Latin America’s slums. The story is magnificently told—in a clever, circular manner that perfectly captures the never ending cycle of belonging, desperation, and violence that’s at the heart of gang life.

As I watched Cidade de Deus, I couldn’t help but think of the news coming out of Colón—the port city on the opposite end of the Canal. The local media has reported—with growing alarm—a sharp increase in violent crimes, mostly shootings, which is the result of turf wars between rival gangs.

Colón, the largest city on the Caribbean coast, ranks first in Panamá in terms of poverty, unemployment, and crime. Moreover, it has earned an international reputation as a treacherous place. Every English-language guidebook advises tourists to avoid this city, which is populated mostly by descendants of the Jamaicans and Barbadians who were brought to Panamá as cheap labor by the French and, later, the Americans during the construction of the Canal.

La Zona Libre, a walled compound within Colón, is the world’s second largest free trade zone, after Hong Kong. It was created in 1947 to alleviate the city’s historic economic woes. Still, in spite of generating ten billion U.S. dollars each year, little of the money finds its way into the homes of Colón’s citizenry.

When I first arrived in Panamá, I had a couple of students who made the hour-and-a-half trek across the isthmus to study in the capital, every day. Both of them expressed great pride in being Colonenses, and they assured me that the warnings about the dangers of Colón were greatly exaggerated.

About four months ago, while shopping, I ran into one of them. During our brief conversation, I asked her about her hometown.

“I don’t live there anymore,” she said sadly. “My father decided to move the family to Panamá City because Colón has become too dangerous.”

And lately, during the last couple of weeks, the media has started to express concern over the rapidly increasing numbers of deaths directly attributable to gang warfare.

Amid the troubled voices, President Martín Torrijos has stated that the problems of Colón need a permanent solution. This would include, he has said, increased spending on social programs, in particular job training for Colon’s youth.

Panama’s Minister of Tourism, Rubén Blades, who set aside his musical and acting career to assume this post, has repeatedly asserted that he intends to turn Colón into an attractive, safe place for tourists. Although his notions are well-intentioned, as long as the youth of Colón find gang membership and the drug trade viable alternatives to measly paying jobs, or no jobs at all, the situation in this port city will remain critical and dangerous.

At the conclusion of Cidade de Deus, in the midst of poverty, violence, and despair, there is a glimmer of hope as the central character, Buscapé (Rocket), finds that his love for photography may lead to a career as a news reporter. In this way, in addition to earning a decent wage, he’ll actually be able to show those in privileged positions the truth about life in the slums. Cidade de Deus, and the stunning documentary that accompanies the film, “A Personal War,” displays the grim reality of life in the trenches of gang warfare like no film in the U.S. has been able to do. And, more importantly, it teaches us what we need to do to remedy the situation.

Although the state of affairs in Colón might seem hopeless, if President Torrijos’ government delivers on its promise to provide the city’s youth with the education and the training necessary to obtain legitimate, meaningful employment, Panamá will be able to teach the rest of the world a vital lesson.

In Praise of the Nosferatus

If Dracula can't see his reflection in the mirror, how come his hair is always so neatly combed?
Steven Wright


There are always a few commendable individuals who play a vital role in the theater arts, yet shun the limelight. Without their hard work, however, it would be impossible for those in the audience to enjoy the magic of what takes place onstage.

Frankly, I have a difficult time understanding why anyone would wish to toil in anonymity, foregoing public adulation. I figure that if I’m going to sacrifice several months of my leisure time to help put on a performance, at least I should get a comedic cameo that brings the house down.

But, yes, there are those out there who, out of shyness or saintly modesty, prefer to remain behind the scenes. Just last weekend, though, I witnessed a remarkable exception to this rule when the Balboa Academy Players’ performed a stage adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, here in Panamá.

On both Friday and Saturday nights, the stagehands doubled as the Nosferatus. Their characters, seven of them, wore black hooded robes and ghoulishly white makeup—with the exception of the lead Nosteratu, whose face was painted black. Without uttering a single word, the sinister-looking Nosferatus/stagehands added much to the menacing atmosphere of the play. They hypnotized the Count’s opponents; performed the seductive dance of the veils that lured Lucy into Dracula’s arms; induced fear in the hearts of the audience with their wicked, behind-the-scene giggles; carried off Renfield’s corpse in a timely, comedic fashion; and, alas, died in a fiercely loyal and striking fashion when the stake was driven into their master’s heart.

The Nosferatus did all this in addition to changing the sets between scenes.

What more could the directors of the play ask of the Nosferatus?

Although the speaking cast of Dracula gave superb performances, particularly during Saturday evening’s show, I’d like take this moment to acknowledge those who work diligently in the shadows, without expecting any recognition: the stagehands.

Nosferatus, without you, those delightful evenings wouldn’t have been possible.

Bram Stoker would have been proud.