Gardening – Panama style

Normally seeing men in full slickers with machetes would invoke thoughts of a slasher B-movie; however, in Panama it is just a gardener.


In our walks we have seen many gardeners. In the tropical rain forest the trick is not how to grow things, but how to hold the greenery at bay. The only two gardening tools we have seen (except on the the golf course) are machetes and huge, shoulder-slung, double-handed weedwackers.

Everyone here owns a machete. The first time I saw a man walking down the street with one I was a tad nervous. In fact, the first 10 or 20 times I passed a man carrying a machete I felt a flutter. After a couple weeks of not getting hacked to pieces I can now issue a hearty “Hola” in passing and move on down the street without a care.