So that didn't go as well as planned.
Last time I posted, I was awaiting the arrival of University of Panama biologist Ariel Rodriguez for an interview on fresh water salinization.
Well, it's 8 p.m., and I'm still waiting...
I'm not quite sure what happened, but it seems that Rodriguez isn't going to show up. Natalia and I hung around in the lobby for nearly an hour after the scheduled meeting time, but it was of no use. And, conveniently, the cell phone number that we have for him did not work. I don't know how that happened.
I do know that Rodriguez was out of the country and flying back into Panama this afternoon, and was going to drive straight to the hotel from the airport to meet us. In fact, according to Natalia (who spoke with him over the phone last week to set up the meeting), he was quite excited about it. But, I guess this just goes to show that things happen and, in this profession, you have to be prepared for the unexpected.
While the lack of this interview is definitely a setback and will surely affect our visual presentation of the story (we were planning on producing a video), I'm confident that we can still reach Ariel once returning to Miami by e-mail or phone (we're leaving tomorrow morning so rescheduling is not possible). We won't have the video footage that we hoped for, but we'll just have to make adjustments as journalists all over are forced to do each and every day.
While I'm not exactly thrilled that this, our final interview of the trip, did not work out, it was definitely a good lesson to learn early on in my career. Things happen and you have to be prepared for the unexpected.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Panama Day 4: A sightseeing break
After what was an emotional and eye-opening day of work yesterday, we took the first part of today off and switched roles from journalists to tourists, making our way to the colonial section of Panama City known as Casco Viejo.
It was pretty neat to walk along the narrow brick streets of old Panama City and imagine what it must have been like just 100 years ago when the new, modernized section of the city did not exist and Casco Viejo was the place to be.
Here are some pictures from our trip over to Casco Viejo:
Vendors along an oceanside street in Caco Viejo. Yes, they sold the infamous 'Panama hats.'
A shot of the narrow brick streets that make up Casco Viejo.
No, that's not downtown Miami. It's downtown Panama City from across the ocean in Casco Viejo.
Luis, Alcione, Ligia and Prof. Garrison walking along a sidestreet.
Four young girls singing and dancing on a Casco Viejo sidestreet.
That's me.
Yup, more water issues (even when we're not working). This flooded street (it rained a bit earlier in the day) was shot from the car as we are making our way back to the hotel. While the Panama City sewage authority likely isn't happy, the local children were having fun with it.
Unfortuantely the day won't be all play as Natalia and I have a interview scheduled with University of Panama biologist Ariel Rodriguez in about 50 minutes. He's supposed to be meeting us in the hotel lobby at 6:30 p.m.
Rodriguez figures to be a key source in our first story, focused on fresh water salinization associated with the widening of the Panama Canal. He has been quite outspoken about the issue and, unlike the Panama Canal Authority (as we found out Thursday), Rodriguez believes the addition of the Canal's third lock may pose a serious threat to the quality and supply of drinking water in Panama's future.
I'll check in later and let you know how our meeting goes. Adios!
Friday, November 14, 2008
Panama Day 3: Harsh reality
First off, on a totally unrelated note, the 'Canes are officially 1-0 in games that I watch in Spanish after taking out Virginia Tech 16-14 last night. I guess I'll have to start making more frequent use of the SAP button on my remote control.
Now to the real stuff - today's work...
The day started off with a 6 a.m. wake up call to hitch a ride to a nearby village said to be without running water. Natalia and I hitched a ride to the scene - arranged by our fixer Luis - with a photographer and journalist from La Estrella who were also covering the story.
The approximately 30-minute drive from Panama City to the secluded village, and what I would come to see and feel in that village, exposed me to a part of Panama that I had not yet seen in my two days in the country. In fact, it exposed me to a harsh reality that I had not yet experienced at all in my life.
The poverty and hardship I witnessed just 20 miles outside the sultry skyline of Panama’s thriving cosmopolitan capital of Panama City borders on unimaginable. And to experience it is incredibly powerful.
Forget the internet, cell phones and television. These people aren’t worried about obtaining these luxuries (and, yes, that’s what they are – luxuries). Rather, the people I would come to meet – the subjects of my story – are forced to worry about something much more basic; something that most of us take for granted – water (and where and how they’ll get it).
The people of this village, which is tucked away in the rolling hills of the Panama countryside, are without running water. When they turn their faucets, nothing comes out. Their only source of fresh water comes from the rain that they collect in buckets. They are forced to wash their clothes in the streams of the nearby forest.
And in what seems to be the cruelest of all irony, this close-knit village is known as Tierra Prometida (translated: The Promise Land) when it is truly anything but that.
Rotting wood and rusty scrap metal make up the small, dirt-floor shacks that line the rocky and windy dirt roads of the waterless shantytown.
Even without being able to communicate directly with the people of Tierra Prometida due to the language barrier between us (Natalia did all of the interviewing in Spanish), I could still see the pain of the people simply by watching them and feeling their emotion.
According to them,
their pleas to IDAAN – the government agency responsible for water distribution in the region – have gone unanswered and no end to their waterless woes seems to be in sight.
After spending a couple of hours with these people and taking hundreds of pictures, Natalia and I returned back to Panama City where we met up with our classmates Alcione and Ligia, our professor and Luis, and made the five-minute drive over to IDAAN in search of answers to what we had just witnessed in Tierra Prometida.
The two IDAAN officials with whom we met (again Natalia conducted our part of the interview in Spanish) said – almost too casually – that they didn’t have a solution to the problem, offering no hope that the people of the village would receive water anytime soon.
Leaving the IDAAN, I found myself feeling quite angry at the response of the officials and their apparent lack of care for the situation. It is their job to distribute clean, quality water to the people in and around Panama City, and they are clearly not doing their job in the case of Tierra Prometida. And for what reason? What have these people done to deserve such neglect?
I know that as a reporter, it is my job to stay neutral and not to bring my own feelings into a story. However, I’m finding it quite hard to do that in this situation. Seeing the conditions that these people are forced to live in, and then on top of it they are without clean water due to the incompetence of a government agency, it is hard not to sympathize with them.
Reflecting back on today, I think this experience has allowed me to see the true power we can have as journalists. We have the power to bring issues to light that would otherwise go unnoticed and ignored.
Hopefully that is what I can do through this story. Hopefully someone, somewhere, with the authority to do so, will take notice and make this injustice right.
Now to the real stuff - today's work...
The day started off with a 6 a.m. wake up call to hitch a ride to a nearby village said to be without running water. Natalia and I hitched a ride to the scene - arranged by our fixer Luis - with a photographer and journalist from La Estrella who were also covering the story.
The approximately 30-minute drive from Panama City to the secluded village, and what I would come to see and feel in that village, exposed me to a part of Panama that I had not yet seen in my two days in the country. In fact, it exposed me to a harsh reality that I had not yet experienced at all in my life.
The poverty and hardship I witnessed just 20 miles outside the sultry skyline of Panama’s thriving cosmopolitan capital of Panama City borders on unimaginable. And to experience it is incredibly powerful.
Forget the internet, cell phones and television. These people aren’t worried about obtaining these luxuries (and, yes, that’s what they are – luxuries). Rather, the people I would come to meet – the subjects of my story – are forced to worry about something much more basic; something that most of us take for granted – water (and where and how they’ll get it).
The people of this village, which is tucked away in the rolling hills of the Panama countryside, are without running water. When they turn their faucets, nothing comes out. Their only source of fresh water comes from the rain that they collect in buckets. They are forced to wash their clothes in the streams of the nearby forest.And in what seems to be the cruelest of all irony, this close-knit village is known as Tierra Prometida (translated: The Promise Land) when it is truly anything but that.
Rotting wood and rusty scrap metal make up the small, dirt-floor shacks that line the rocky and windy dirt roads of the waterless shantytown.Even without being able to communicate directly with the people of Tierra Prometida due to the language barrier between us (Natalia did all of the interviewing in Spanish), I could still see the pain of the people simply by watching them and feeling their emotion.
According to them,
their pleas to IDAAN – the government agency responsible for water distribution in the region – have gone unanswered and no end to their waterless woes seems to be in sight.After spending a couple of hours with these people and taking hundreds of pictures, Natalia and I returned back to Panama City where we met up with our classmates Alcione and Ligia, our professor and Luis, and made the five-minute drive over to IDAAN in search of answers to what we had just witnessed in Tierra Prometida.
The two IDAAN officials with whom we met (again Natalia conducted our part of the interview in Spanish) said – almost too casually – that they didn’t have a solution to the problem, offering no hope that the people of the village would receive water anytime soon.Leaving the IDAAN, I found myself feeling quite angry at the response of the officials and their apparent lack of care for the situation. It is their job to distribute clean, quality water to the people in and around Panama City, and they are clearly not doing their job in the case of Tierra Prometida. And for what reason? What have these people done to deserve such neglect?
I know that as a reporter, it is my job to stay neutral and not to bring my own feelings into a story. However, I’m finding it quite hard to do that in this situation. Seeing the conditions that these people are forced to live in, and then on top of it they are without clean water due to the incompetence of a government agency, it is hard not to sympathize with them.Reflecting back on today, I think this experience has allowed me to see the true power we can have as journalists. We have the power to bring issues to light that would otherwise go unnoticed and ignored.
Hopefully that is what I can do through this story. Hopefully someone, somewhere, with the authority to do so, will take notice and make this injustice right.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Panama Day 2: Getting to work
Today was our first real day of "work" here in Panama.
And it was a long one.
After a 7 a.m. wake up call, my classmates and I, along with our professor and trusty guide Luis, made our way to the offices of the IDDAN, the agency responsible for water distribution in and around Panama City. This trip - to meet with IDDAN officials to discuss problems with water distribution in certain parts of the country - was somewhat unplanned and it showed in the outcome as no one was available to meet with us. However, the stop wasn't entirely useless as we did set up an interview for tomorrow afternoon.
From the offices of the IDDAN, we made our way to the Panama Canal Authority headquarters where my partner Natalia and I had a 10:30 a.m. interview scheduled with ACP environment department head Oscar Vallarino.
*This would probably be a good time to tell you about the two stories that Natalia and I are investigating...
*The first deals with the widening of the Panama Canal (a project that is already underway and is expected to be completed by 2014) and what, if any, affect it might have on the quality of drinking water throughout the region. Basically, fresh water and salt water mix each time a
boat is raised in the locks of the Canal and if too salinization occurs (salt water moving into the fresh water bodies of the Gatun and Miraflores Lakes), it can make drinking water untreatable (without the construction of a new water treatment facility). Some (the ACP specifically) say that the level of salinization that occurs now and will occur once the new lock in up and running is not nearly enough to affect the quality and subsequent availability of drinking water. But, others (such as local biologists and hydrologists) believe the new lock will cause serious salinization issues.
*The second story is about a community located about 30 minutes (by car) from the heart of Panama City that does not receive any potable water. The residents' only means of obtaining water is from the small streams in the surrounding jungles (this water is obviously not treated for safe consumption). The people of the village say that their requests have been ignored by IDDAN, the agency responsible for distributing water in the area.
We finally made it back to our hotel about 45 minutes ago, just in time for me to get cleaned up and ready to watch the Hurricanes football team take on Virginia Tech in a 7:30 p.m. game with major Atlantic Coast Conference implications! So, now I'm going to sit back, relax (yeah right, not with the importance of this rivalry game) and hopefully watch my 'Canes take down the Hokies!
Vayamos Canes!
And it was a long one.
After a 7 a.m. wake up call, my classmates and I, along with our professor and trusty guide Luis, made our way to the offices of the IDDAN, the agency responsible for water distribution in and around Panama City. This trip - to meet with IDDAN officials to discuss problems with water distribution in certain parts of the country - was somewhat unplanned and it showed in the outcome as no one was available to meet with us. However, the stop wasn't entirely useless as we did set up an interview for tomorrow afternoon.
From the offices of the IDDAN, we made our way to the Panama Canal Authority headquarters where my partner Natalia and I had a 10:30 a.m. interview scheduled with ACP environment department head Oscar Vallarino.
*This would probably be a good time to tell you about the two stories that Natalia and I are investigating...
*The first deals with the widening of the Panama Canal (a project that is already underway and is expected to be completed by 2014) and what, if any, affect it might have on the quality of drinking water throughout the region. Basically, fresh water and salt water mix each time a
boat is raised in the locks of the Canal and if too salinization occurs (salt water moving into the fresh water bodies of the Gatun and Miraflores Lakes), it can make drinking water untreatable (without the construction of a new water treatment facility). Some (the ACP specifically) say that the level of salinization that occurs now and will occur once the new lock in up and running is not nearly enough to affect the quality and subsequent availability of drinking water. But, others (such as local biologists and hydrologists) believe the new lock will cause serious salinization issues.*The second story is about a community located about 30 minutes (by car) from the heart of Panama City that does not receive any potable water. The residents' only means of obtaining water is from the small streams in the surrounding jungles (this water is obviously not treated for safe consumption). The people of the village say that their requests have been ignored by IDDAN, the agency responsible for distributing water in the area.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, our interview with Vallarino went very well. He gave us just what I expected - the ACP's side of the story which is that the canal's new lock will not affect the quality of drinking water and that the level of salinization that might occur is not nearly enough to cause a problem. Vallarino also showed us a detailed presentation explaining the widening project, which was very helpful to my understanding of the project. He also talked extensively about the huge economic benefits that the widening is expected to bring to Panama (again, the ACP's side of the story).
After leaving the ACP, we grabbed a quick lunch and then went on a private tour of the Miraflores Filtration Plant, which was arranged for us by Vallarino. The tour allowed us to see just how the water from the Miraflores Lake is collected and treated and then transferred on to the pipes and aqueducts of the IDDAN for distribution throughout the region.
We finally made it back to our hotel about 45 minutes ago, just in time for me to get cleaned up and ready to watch the Hurricanes football team take on Virginia Tech in a 7:30 p.m. game with major Atlantic Coast Conference implications! So, now I'm going to sit back, relax (yeah right, not with the importance of this rivalry game) and hopefully watch my 'Canes take down the Hokies!
Vayamos Canes!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Panama Day 1: We made it!
Greetings from Panama!
We arrived safely and on time (thank you American Airlines) at the Tocumen International Airport this afternoon and made our way over to our hotel in Panama City.
What should have been about a 30-minute drive to the hotel turned into a 1-hour and 15 minute adventure due to some very heavy rush hour traffic in and around the city. But, no worries, as the prolonged trip allowed us to take in the area a bit more and get a better feel for where we will be working over the next five days.
Upon arriving at the hotel, we got settled into our rooms and then met with an editor, Luis, from La Estrella, a Panama City-based newspaper (Here is a link to the paper's website).
This is when I experienced what I expect to be the first of many times I will have difficulty communicating with someone here in Panama.
What do I mean exactly?
Well, I don't speak Spanish, and Luis doesn't speak English. While I wasn't able to communicate with him directly (which I'll admit was frustrating), my three classmates (Natalia, Alcione and Ligia) were each born in Spanish-speaking countries and are each fluent in both English and Spanish. They were very helpful with translating both ways and allowing me to at least have some sort of interaction with Luis.
From what little I could understand and what I was told by the girls, Luis was very helpful and will be an integral part of our trip. He will be setting up appointments with sources and even traveling to some sites with us. It really is a blessing that someone so well-connected to the area is willing to help out so much. It should really improve the quality and depth of our work.
After dinner, Luis led us on a walk around the city (which is somewhat similar to downtown Miami) and educated us a bit on the local surroundings.
That's all for today. Tomorrow the real work begins as we're heading to the Panama Canal Authority for an interview with the ACP's head of environment, Oscar Vallarino. He is a big part of my and Natalia's first story dealing with the widening of the Panama Canal and how it might affect the quality of drinking water for residents of Panama City and the surrounding area. More on that tomorrow...
Buenas noches!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Blogging from Panama
I just wanted to give a "heads-up" and let you know that I'll be traveling to Panama City, Panama tomorrow through Sunday with three other UM students and a professor for my Media Convergence class.
We're going as a team of reporters working for the website www.1h20.org, part of the One Water project, "aimed at engaging the media to bring public awareness to the global water crisis."
While our assignments for the 1h20 site are aimed toward print and visual media, I don't see why I can't add an element of online journalism (blogging) to the project through this class blog. I plan to post daily updates of our work and experiences in the Southernmost country of Central America, and welcome you to follow along. I'll even post some of the pictures that I take.
Check back over the next five days for updates on my travels. If I don't a new post each day, it's likely because of limited internet availability. If that's the case (which I won't really know until I get there), I'll be sure to have each day's log posted by early next week upon my arrival back in Miami.
Adios! (just practicing for the next five days...)
Monday, November 10, 2008
Finally, a text!
I don't know whether someone at the OD read my post from yesterday, or someone just decided to take charge and do their job, but I finally received a "News Alert" message from Text Me OD this morning!
The message, sent at 11:25 a.m., said, "A missing hunter from New Jersey was found alive this morning in the town of Webb. Visit http://www.uticaod.com/ for details."
This appears to be good news on two fronts:
1) A missing person was found alive (here's a link to the story on the OD's website).
2) The OD is actually sending out text alerts.
The message, sent at 11:25 a.m., said, "A missing hunter from New Jersey was found alive this morning in the town of Webb. Visit http://www.uticaod.com/ for details."
This appears to be good news on two fronts:
1) A missing person was found alive (here's a link to the story on the OD's website).
2) The OD is actually sending out text alerts.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Still no texts...
We're now going on five days and I still have yet to receive a text notification from Text Me OD about the results of the Presidential or the local congressional elections.
In fact, I haven't received ANY text AT ALL from The Observer-Dispatch's text messaging service.
This is troubling for two reasons:
1) I signed up for text message "News Alerts," touted by the site as "breaking local or national news." There has clearly been breaking news both nationally and locally (Presidential election and congressional election among other things) since my signing up for the service, yet I have not been notified of anything via text.
2) I also signed up to receive texts of "Local Sports News" for my alma mater New Hartford Senior High School. According to the OD's website, with "Local Sports News," users receive "up-to-date sports scores from your favorite local high school and college teams." However, that doesn't seem to be the case as my former high school captured the Section III football championship Friday night and I never received a text with score updates nor a message indicating the final results. In fact, if I had not been following along on the OD's website throughout the season, I would not have even known New Hartford was playing in the championship game.
It seems like this experiment of signing up for the OD's text messaging service has turned out to be quite revealing in a rather unflattering way...
In fact, I haven't received ANY text AT ALL from The Observer-Dispatch's text messaging service.
This is troubling for two reasons:
1) I signed up for text message "News Alerts," touted by the site as "breaking local or national news." There has clearly been breaking news both nationally and locally (Presidential election and congressional election among other things) since my signing up for the service, yet I have not been notified of anything via text.
2) I also signed up to receive texts of "Local Sports News" for my alma mater New Hartford Senior High School. According to the OD's website, with "Local Sports News," users receive "up-to-date sports scores from your favorite local high school and college teams." However, that doesn't seem to be the case as my former high school captured the Section III football championship Friday night and I never received a text with score updates nor a message indicating the final results. In fact, if I had not been following along on the OD's website throughout the season, I would not have even known New Hartford was playing in the championship game.
It seems like this experiment of signing up for the OD's text messaging service has turned out to be quite revealing in a rather unflattering way...
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