Visiting Chiriquí: a math/tourism scouting trip and an inspiring host

Last week, I did my first real within-Panama travel.  Why and how did this come about? It was really a combination of three things: math, tourism, and amazing hospitality.  Here's a bit more on each of those three things.

Where I went

Chiriquí is a province on the western side of Panama, near Costa Rica.  I visited the Autonomous University of Chiriquí (abbreviated as UNACHI) in the City of David, with a side-trip to Boquete: a famous haven for expats and retirees.  

I wrote about the air travel there and back in this post. 

Math in Community

The main reason I went was math, of course: both to give a talk, but also to scout out whether it might make sense to do longer workshops at UNACHI in my future months here in Panama.  I've tried to make contact with mathematicians here in Panama City, but I have been surprised how difficult it is to get people to return my calls or emails.  So I was thrilled, thrilled I tell you, at how showing up at UNACHI felt like landing in a little math community again. 

My first stop on campus -- the night I arrived, even before we went to get dinner -- was this giant pyramid made of three Sierpinski Triangles and decorated like a Christmas Tree. An amazing math professor named Aisa Castillo--who I'll describe more below--had her students build this nifty structure (hollow on the inside) with rescued aluminum cans that were glued together and supported minimally by a wooden frame behind them. They've decorated it with lights for the Christmas season, and Aisa has fended off requests to donate it to the museum because they want it in front of the math department.

The next day, I gave a talk about the geometry of perspective to an engaged and appreciative group of people.  Beforehand, Aisa had told me she expected about 20 people, which was an entirely reasonable number since I'd only first contacted her two weeks before.

So many people!

I brought 46 handouts anyway, and boy, was I glad I did, because the crowd was more than double her estimate, and all of the handouts got gobbled up.  

Looking at the handout of the dumpster/cube, up close.

There were students and department heads from a variety of disciplines on campus, including math, computer science, and architecture.  At the end of the talk, each of the department heads got to stand up and make a little speech, per the protocols of respect here.  

And the post-talk photo, with a subset of the audience. 

In addition to the post-talk speeches and photographs, we also did a little instagram video. If you want to hear me speaking Spanish, here's a short insta clip: Aisa does the most talking, but in the middle I get to say how happy I am to be sharing my work on optical illusions with students who are really excited about it. https://www.instagram.com/share/reel/BABki6uGc9

Annnnd . . . people seemed excited about possibly doing even more.  Yay!  We're looking at two options, one of which would be a one-week workshop for faculty in February.  [Note that February is their summer break, but of course,  which is a standard time for professional development here.]. Another possibility, much more iffy, would be to do a workshop-like thing with students in April, after the new school year has started up.  

Also, the students who did attend this talk were super excited; one of them has proposed translating one of my already-published books into Spanish (she's working on getting her degree/certificate in translation as well as math, so this'd be an awesome project, I think).

So that's the math side of the trip, which was great.  And the greatness continues . . . 

Scoping out Boquete

Only a few weeks after I'd arrived in Panama, my sister-in-law sent me an email with only one line: a link to a description of how awesome it is to retire in Boquete.  And every time I'd hear about Boquete--from Panamanians, from expats, from anyone really--I'd hear gushing about how lovely it was, how beautiful the scenery is, how fresh the air is, and how it's full of ex-pats retiring there.  

I did not want to fall in love with Boquete; I'm really not a fan of touristy things, nor of places where rich people move in and take over the nice places and then make life too expensive for the previous inhabitants.  Aisa (the mathematician who I'll describe more, I promise) shared my dilemma: she wanted to show me this beautiful place and is glad that it's admired, but feels uneasy about foreigners moving in and altering the cultural landscape.  

Still, I'd told Aisa that one of the items on my "To Do" list while I'm in Panama is to hike the dormant volcano that's in Boquete, and so scoping the place out for a future hiking tour was one part of my Chiriquí visit that she was glad to help me with, while she also showed me some of the loveliness of this little portion of Panama.

A restaurant where we ate strawberries.

I didn't want to fall in love with Boquete, I repeat; and yet I did.  

Strawberries in cream.

Fortunately for Aisa and for my kids back home, I fell in love only to the extent of wanting to visit again with my husband, not to the extent of wanting to relocate here forever.  But it really is a beautiful place.  Everyone in Panama describes the weather by saying the air is "fresca" -- fresh -- which really means both that it feels fresh in the clean sense, but also the temperatures are much more mild than elsewhere, which is why this is a strawberry mecca.   There are beautiful hiking trails, a fast-running river dotted with round boulders that had been flung there by the erupting volcano back when it was active, a walkable and quaint downtown full of coffee shops and galleries, parks with koi ponds, and more.

A bit of rain didn't diminish the beauty of the place.

On our way out of Boquete, I turned and saw the largest rainbow I'd ever seen in my life.  And that's not entirely a coincidence; Boquete is apparently known for producing rainbows, too.  

My host: amazing, generous, organized

There's nothing like being in a whole new country, a whole new culture, unfamiliar transportation and language and food and social circles and all of that . . . to make us realize what a difference it makes to have an awesome host.  I am saying this partly in awe of Aisa, and partly to remind myself that when I get back to the U.S., I want to try to be a bit more of an excellent host myself.

One of the things that doesn't sound like a big deal, but actually is, is that Aisa actually responded and followed through. I've reached out to numerous mathematicians and deans at a bunch of different places, and I've gotten a variety of vague- to nonexistent responses.  Aisa wrote back to me almost immediately, when I asked if she'd like to collaborate on a visit, saying "I'll get in touch with others here", and then she followed up two days later with options, asking when I could come.

Her organizational skills spill over into other people-honoring ways; the Sierpinski sculpture that her students built is one such example; she also proudly showed me this painted mural in the math office that she had her students design and paint.  

And there were other examples -- a pillar along the hallway she'd painted with math designs, inspiring the other science departments to each follow suit by painting their own pillars, so the whole hallway is a celebration of the life of the mind.  In that sense, Aisa paved the way for making newcomers feel welcome by creating a community where the students are already engaged with each other and ideas, and were delighted to share what they'd done while learning even more. 

Aisa also bent over backward to make me feel cared for.  She described several times that when she'd traveled overseas, she was terrified of these new (to her) places, and she therefore wanted to make sure that all her visitors felt "safe".  She did all the driving (picking me up from the airport, taking me to the university and to Boquete); she took me to restaurants and paid for everything; she asked what I was interested in, and she offered me true Panamanian experiences.   

[Here's one example of a true Panamanian experience: a "raspado". It's like shaved ice with flavoring, plus other stuff -- granola, malt, marshmallows, and more. It truly was amazing. I say that even though . . .

Raspado de Maracuya

. . . it's in a plastic cup, with a plastic straw, and a plastic spoon. Also, we ate it in an SUV, sitting in a parking lot, with the engine running and the air conditioning going, too. I am such a total Aisa Fangirl that I loved it in spite of all the non-Annalisa aspects of this treat.]

Aisa also took gazillions of photos; she sent me -- I kid you not -- nearly 100 photos from this trip. The reason there are so many photos of me in this post is because I'm sharing a small, small portion of what she's shared with me.

So the Chiriquí experience was a truly lovely one, both for a bunch of math-tourism-scouting reasons and also for reminding me anew of the power of graciousness and hospitality.  I'm looking forward to the next visit!