The First Step

Following the acquisition of the land we first had to clear the undergrowth. Up to ten local labourers under the command of a foreman, gathered each morning six days a week equipped with machetes. The instructions were quite clear. Leave everything standing which is larger than a man’s wrist.

We wanted to be in a position to select the specimen trees which would remain and those which would have to be removed at a later date. The short term aim was to provide a clear field of vision for the surveyor to take sights and prepare a topographic map.

The clearance process took considerably longer than envisaged and therefore cost 60% more than it should have done. I had a clue to the reason for this at the end of the first week, when I was surprised to find that according to the time sheets, the same men had turned up for work every day of the week and worked identical hours. This would be practically unheard of in the UK at this level, and a sure fired certainty here in Panama. This was confirmed to me some time later by one of the disgruntled labourers who enquired how much he should have been paid for an eight hour day.

It came to light that not only was the foreman booking for more men than had been working, but on occasions he had taken them to work on another property altogether. Worst of all was that he had been withholding 30% of the men’s pay for himself over a three month period. I short sighted act that signalled an end to his brief period of employment and did nothing for his local popularity.

The silver lining in this particular cloud has been that by placing me in the same position as the local labourers, Sr. Julio has ensured the co-operation of all in the locality who are as smiling and friendly as can be; plying me with delicious freshly squeezed orange juice to slake my thirst on a hot day.

On a recent occasion, I borrowed a pickup truck on a very wet Saturday to erect the ubiquitous green sign, which signals to any enquiring official that the earthworks you have embarked upon have met with the necessary approvals.  They deserted their recently prepared lunch, turning out in force in flip-flops and shorts in the pouring rain, to help push the bogged down truck out the ditch into which it had slithered.

Perhaps Sr. Julio did me a favour after all.

Introduction

Obtaining planning permission in Panama can be a time consuming, tortuous and frustrating business, with any number of unpredictable obstacles along the way. When it comes to weaving your way through the intricacies of the planning process, it is hard to establish at the outset what the whole of this process is going to involve. Panamanians are known for being non-confrontational, which is a charming facet of their personality, but often impacts negatively when you are trying to acheive a specific objective. There is a tendency to feed you the bad news little by little, so as not to offend you by confronting you with it all at once. The cynic in you might suggest that this stems from the belief that if you had been appraised of the total costs from the beginning, you might have baulked at ever embarking on the process in the first instance.

However well intentioned or otherwise their methodology might be, it tends to make a mockery of any budgetary forecasts that you might have made. Furthermore, any time scale that you might from the outset have been led to believe, is likely to become extended; if for no other reason than that someone somewhere along the way manages to dream up an obscure technicality or supposed law change which has been enacted since you embarked on the process, and which you didn’t find out about until much later on.

The good news is that as long as you can maintain an advanced sense of humour or indeed sense of the ridiculous then all is not lost.

Indeed, in spite of the aforementioned frustrations, the many hours of work that I put in to this process were actually quite enjoyable, because before I had even purchased the land I was given an introduction to my architect, who has acted as my agent throughout and has proved to be a joy to work with.

Ulises Quiros, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and his staff work with great professionalism, always to an acceptable time scale, and show the unerring attention to detail of people who clearly enjoy their work.