Author: CBT
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How does racialisation work in Panama?
The concept of race is a strange thing. It has long been debunked as a pseudoscience, but has proven to have a long afterlife, with “racial identity” being a hot topic even in countries that don’t classify their citizens by “race” (the UK census notes people’s “ethnicity”, not “race”). Half of this is because the…
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Why do cloud forests have more flowers than jungles?
A curious thing about the cloud forest of Valle de Cocora was that it, somehow, looked even more like a jungle than actual jungles. It had a similar tangle of vegetation to the rainforest in Soberanía, but whereas Soberanía was mostly a uniform green and brown, Valle de Cocora had near-constant bursts of colour from…
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Colombia & Panama
Day 1 The hotel is small and basic. There are few amenities. The lock on the door keeps getting jammed. Showers are shared, and are some distance from my room. The local neighbourhood does not seem friendly. Yet, I could not be more glad to be here. My entire body feels weird from going without…
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Why do Canadian First Nations have casinos?
The coach from Calgary to Banff didn’t just pass through prairie and forest. There were a few settlements on the way too, one of which was a First Nations* village of the Stoney Nakoda, its buildings scattered across a wide area. One of the buildings, I noticed, was a casino. This surprised me. I had…
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Canada
Day 1 The first thing that strikes me about Toronto is the similarity to the New York of the movies. It’s a proper city of skyscrapers, of straight angles of glass that stretch ever upward. I can’t help but gawk a little at the sheer scale of it all, like the country bumpkin that I…
