A new section is open in downtown Anton’s public market!
At long last! Visible progress on the
Anton public market expansion
photos and story by Eric Jackson
Work was underway forever, it seems. For this writer, a believer in buying locally, a micro-business guy who supports other such, but by now a default skeptic about public works in Panama, it was something that I could have just ignored. However, the market has long been there and for years during my residence in one of Anton’s semi-boondocks corregimentos I have been a customer. Fresh fruits and vegetables, spices, herbs, the occasional medicinal plant and — like this time the yield turned out to be — seeds for my tiny farm. No telling how they may hybridize for next year, given things already planted, but there should be a good bean crop this year.
Anyway, it was a mandatory dog food run into town, with some laundry to do and breakfast to eat while reading the day’s hard copy newspapers. The investigative work of others jumping out from the pages of La Prensa in particular fed my skepticism about public works projects here. After breakfast it was time to take the clothes, sheets and pillowcases out of the washer, put them in the dryer, and take a stroll with camera at the ready to see what might be seen.
WHAT’S THIS? The meat and seafood section of an expanded public market is now open, with a few people working the stalls. Yummy gout food on this day. I passed on the langostinos, but had someone been selling the right species of fish I might have bought some for the dogs and cats at least. No such luck, but the promise of better days to come.
Wow! Fondas to come. There is, however, a great deal of competition in town already. Much probably depends on how much rent is to be charged. You’d expect a slow start to this food court.
You look at the picture, however, and there are promises, or at least hints, of grander things to come. Like those stairs to the upper left, leading to a whole new second story of the old market. What’s going to go in there? And the glare on the right — a glass door to the back. It could be just a nondescript alleyway, but with the right fence and vines could be a beautiful little courtyard for outdoor dining and little meetings of many sorts.
Oh yeah! By way of a little passage to the back, the long-open section where they sell fruits, vegetables, root crops, herbs, spices and seeds. It was slow on a Tuesday morning.
Not quite there yet, and I might imagine some political and business games to come here. Well informal vendors elsewhere in Anton be told “You can’t park your truck there” or “You can’t set up a stand there — but you CAN set up in the expanded public market. The price would matter if that tack gets taken, but on the other hand, some established little fondas might find it attractive to get away from oppressive rent by downsizing to the public market food court. And will the area’s artists and craftspeople find profitable places to sell upstairs?
It’s all a bit hard to say right now, but the basic infrastructure of a bigger and better Anton public market is now more or less in place.
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