A Message from (Panama)Jack Hairston . . .

Impressions of Panama

Panama City cannot be Damascus, Syria, because there is no street called Straight. The streets follow watercourses, and run around any unevenness, rather than the straight and level cut-and-fill that I am used to. During morning rush hour, counter-commute traffic is as terrifying as commute traffic. Instead of two lanes in each direction, it becomes three in the busy direction and one lane in the other. Each direction is as crowded as the other, with no passing in the single lane. The surface of most streets was constructed by that French contractor, Mssr. deTour—very rough.
We are all immersed in Spanish day and night. Our speech rhythms will be ruined for weeks after we return home. Hearers will think we are talking down because we speak so slowly and distinctly. We are so used to acting out each word for non-English speakers that it is dangerous to stand too close while we are talking. I will have to sit on my hands for the first week after returning. Last night all my dreams were in Spanish—didn’t understand a word. Here, it does not matter, because everyone is both friendly, and too polite to point out errors in our pidgin Spanish. Well, some errors are so funny (or embarrassing) that the hearer cannot stifle a laugh.
The English readings are all taken from the Bible. Every day we discuss how we plan to explain unusual words in the next lesson, and in the process we have many disagreements about vocabulary. As a result, we spend several man hours daily gaining new insights into stories we thought we knew well.