00:00:08.940 - 00:00:37.060

I'm Carol Mayer, and I first went to Panama in 1968 as a resident in pediatrics after graduating from medical school on Duh. It was such a wonderful environment that after I finished a fellowship in some specialized in allergy and immunology, I went back to Panama and stayed until just before the invasion in 1989.

00:00:42.340 - 00:01:05.760

Well, it is listed as one of the modern wonders of the world. Uh, and I think that that the most wonderful thing as an engineering feat, of course it was great. But it was such a unified effort by a group of workers, and they managed to get that group of workers with that one goal and view to build a canal.

00:01:11.840 - 00:01:34.000

It was, I guess, protected. It was probably the world's most successful socialized society. Uh, if you didn't do what you were supposed to do, you weren't there very long. Eso, uh, that can't do that in most societies. Uh, just get rid of people and send them back to the United States.

00:01:34.240 - 00:02:04.950

Uh, but eso everyone that stayed there and that was most of the people who came down to work, uh, had good jobs made good money, Uh, and, uh, felt very safe and secure on taken care of by the government. Well, the the zone itself waas uh although it was supposed to be in perpetuity became an anachronism.

00:02:05.690 - 00:02:36.630

It was time for Panama to be able to take possession of its own country and not have this 50 mile long, 10 mile wide, uh, area dividing the country in half. The and the transition period was a 20 year period in which Americans finally graduated out and the Panamanians moved in.

00:02:36.630 - 00:03:03.260

Of course, there's always been Panamanians who worked on the canal, But as they moved in and moved up into positions of responsibility, by the time they took over the canal, they were ready. And it's been quite successful since the thing that has the most significance of the friends.

00:03:03.270 - 00:03:38.870

Uh, some of them are still in Panama, but But I have many good friends, uh, that are in the States, and we stay very closely in touch. They are. They have become my family. I left the birds behind that I got into burning, which was a wonderful way to see the country and or any country on, uh, Panama's probably about the fourth or fifth best place in the world to watch birds.

00:03:38.880 - 00:04:03.740

Fortunately, we don't hunt them much anymore. Uh, and they have, uh, Mawr Species just in the one little country of Panama than we have in all of the United States on their mawr, colorful to s o. I got to see the country all the way from slipping over the border into Costa Rica down to the Colombian border in the dairy end.

00:04:03.960 - 00:04:40.980

It's a great way to get to see a country and to meet its people to. Well, actually, housing was a real problem. It's terrible to remember a problem, but it was also funny, and e was single, So I always had to have bachelor housing. Uh, and that basically was supposed to mean one bedroom, one bath and a living room in the bachelor quarters that they first gave you were Bates were large screen porches.

00:04:40.990 - 00:05:00.860

You would put plastic over the screens and then put in an air conditioners to make it more livable. Uh, the however, I was fortunate. Thio actually move into a wing of the hospital that had been converted into apartments, and I had two bedrooms and one bath.

00:05:01.240 - 00:05:19.310

However, when my family came to visit, it didn't quite seem big enough. So they had made an opportunity for people to import double wide mobile homes and put them on concrete pads. And one of those came up for sale. So I bought it, and I actually lived in that mobile home for 10 years.

00:05:19.320 - 00:05:44.070

And it had a complete roof covering a patio and a porch and a carport and an extra room outside. So it was luxury in the last two years, I was there when the Army took over. And this is one of the transition things. My expense for living in my own place on a rented pad went from $50 a month to $350 a month to pay the Army.

00:05:44.440 - 00:06:10.420

And since the Army would give me a lot of money to live on the economy, and I would only have to pay 100 and $20 a month, I decided, Well, shoot, I'm gonna live downtown. And so I moved into grave, which is a lovely neighborhood, uh, in Panama into a beautiful apartment, And it, uh, I loved it, even though that was from 87 to 89 which was during the time of quite a bit of civic unrest.

00:06:10.430 - 00:06:27.230

So you were never quite sure whether you were gonna make it home or not. But, uh, but we had quite a few of us living in that area, too. And it was so convenient. Fruit market across the street meat market, next door to bakeries in walking distance, lovely restaurants.

00:06:27.440 - 00:07:02.450

It was a good taste of city life with the thing most interesting. Tow us is that we had a very well developed training program in several of the medical specialties, and all of a sudden we weren't part of the United States. So the U. S training programs no longer existed, and that was part of the fun of practicing medicine was being able to teach also on.

00:07:02.450 - 00:07:30.140

So that was a great loss. Uh, in our last pediatric resident actually left in about 80 two or three, I think, uh, and, uh, because the ones who were there were allowed to finish their programs. But, uh, there was a You know, a lot of people were very apprehensive about it, and some people lost.

00:07:30.150 - 00:07:55.320

Well, we lost. How we being we are functions were transferred to the Department of Army, so we lost canal Zone housing privileges, whereas people who stayed with the Panama Canal Commission kept housing. But they lost commissary and postal privileges. Uh, a lot of couples were married and one would work for one and the one the other one for the other.

00:07:55.330 - 00:08:25.360

And so they didn't have any problems. They still had all their privileges. Panama is a wonderful place to visit. I recommend, though, that you not go to just the city. You should definitely see the operation of the canal on. It's gonna be really exciting. Thio see it when the new locks are ready for the larger ships to go through.

00:08:26.140 - 00:08:40.500

But you also to really know the country and anything about it need to get out of the city. Uh, many people actually fly in just to the beaches and they don't really see the country. Either They go straight to the beach then did we prepaid everything?

00:08:40.510 - 00:08:57.170

They have a lot of Canadian companies that do this and then they fly back out. Uh, but to get not only to the beaches but up into the mountain communities is really, uh I'm a mountain person S o. I want everybody to go see the mountains