The plan is that, while I am here, I will also spend some time with the Augustinians who live and work in Panama. Apparently, there are more or less 30 of them, mostly from Panama itself; they tell me that there is one from Costa Rica and there is at least one Spaniard, Fr. Miguel Angel Keller.
Miguel Angel was Assistant General of the Order of St. Augustine when I worked in Ecuador and, when I had completed the Ph.D he asked if I would be interested in helping out here in Panama. After some discussion and toing and froing it was agreed with my Provincial and with the diocesan authorities here that I would come for two months and would teach Theological Anthropology - the area that deals with sin and grace, redemption and justification and all that "stuff"...
I arrived last Sunday, 28th of September 2014 and have decided to try to maintain this blog as a sort of record of how things go here and also as a source of information for those at home who may be interested.
After a rather fraught morning in Boston airport where I went for my United Airlines flight and queued for almost an hour to discover that, even though my ticket said United Airlines, the flight was, in fact, being operated by Copa Airlines which is the national airline of Panama. Unfortunately, this meant that I had to run, with all my bags and baggage from Terminal B to Terminal E and would still have to go through security there. To my surprise things worked out despite only arriving at the Copa check in desk with under an hour to go. The guy at the Copa desk couldn't have been nicer and, with less than ten minutes to spare before boarding, I made it to the departure gate.
The flight from Boston to Panama was a little over 5 hours long. As we arrived to Panama it was absolutely amazing to see all the ships lined up and waiting to pass through the famous canal. They looked like just so many Dinky toys being poured into a funnel. I couldn't see the canal from the plane but the many many ships lined up on the Atlantic side were like an arrow pointing towards it. In fact, from the Seminary, at all hours of day and night, the foghorns of the ships can be heard as they make their way to the canal.
As soon as we left the plane it was obvious that this is one hot country!!! It was a bit like when you open the oven door and the air takes your breath away. The airport is very modern, and very large!!! Immigration was well run and the staff were very friendly although they did send people back to teh end of the long queue who hadn''t filled in their forms correctly. Customs was a strange experience - customs declaration forms were handed in to an official who scarcely looked at them while, at the same time, each passenger had to put their baggage through a scanner. There didn't seem to be anybody monitoring things but who knows nowadays with technology etc.
I was met by Fr. Aquiles (Achilles) and Juan, one of the seminarians who brought me on the short drive to the seminary. First impressions of the city are very positive with no real evidence of litter or graffitti. The Seminary is quite a large building housing just over 50 seminarians and 4 priests, plus me. There is a library (not a whole lot in it - no periodicals!!!), a chapel, and some classrooms as well as a large dining room. While there is certainly no luxury it serves its purpose. My room does have an air conditioning unit but it doesn't work - they hope to get it going at some point.
The heat, and I suspect i will be saying this more than once, is tremendous, with terrible humidity - hopefully it might mean I get to lose some weight!!! This afternoon it rained - like something from the time of Noah. They actually have lage gutters in the ground to take the rainwater away, there is that much of it.
I will be teaching the students in their 2nd year of theology. There are 8 of them and they seem to be really nice lads. We are still getting used to each other but we have already had four classed together and they seemed to go fine. I'm not sure if all the stuff I prepared will turn out to be useful but that's ok - I will have time to work on things while I'm here. Apart from the teaching I have been asked to be involved in the various formation activities here in the seminary - but I drew the line at playing football!!!
During the second half of the week, and at the weekends, the plan is that I will go to the Augustinians and get involved in one of the parishes that the Order takes care of here.
Oh yes, I forgot to mention that the day begins here at 5.30am with meditation followed by mass - still getting used to that one.
Anyway, that's enough for now. I'm off to stand in the rain and try to cool down
