Kindness matters
A Few Words
By Renae Bottom
She looked stunning in bright orange lipstick. That alone set her apart from most mortal women. Her name was Danja and she mentored me when I worked for the Panama Canal Commission.
She grew up in what she referred to as a “tiny village” in the rain forest. When coworkers teased her about being “from the sticks,” she took it in stride and kept right on office-managing the nonsense out of us. She was gracious, capable, down-to-earth—a young woman to make her family proud.
In the early 1990s, my husband was stationed at Ft. Clayton, a 10-minute drive from the Panama Canal. We attended chapel on base. Hugh, a department manager for the Canal Commission, was among the ex-pats who attended there as well. He and his wife took us out for dinner one night. Over ceviche, we talked about work. My last project had been to redesign, of all things, a client’s telephone directory for reprinting.
Hugh wanted to redesign, of all things, the Canal Commission’s telephone directory. I had a job.
Orientation included OSHA briefings and classes on Canal operations. I learned that individuals who worked for the Commission were often second or even third generation employees. Some could produce photos of family members who were on hand when the locks were built.
During my brief stay, Hugh ensured that my work was rewarding. Danja ensured that it was fun.
She shared office gossip and warned me not to eat raw cashews. She told me which empanada vendors were safe and which ones I should avoid. She introduced me to plantain and made me a fan of red beans and rice. She taught me how to manage the hapless geckos that wandered into base housing, and how to locate the best local beaches.
When I told her I planned to go Christmas shopping in Panama City, she insisted on coming along to chaperone. The retail experience in Panama was new to me. Store owners shouted from their doorways, trying to hustle us inside to buy something. My less-than-marginal Spanish would have left me floundering, but Danja was a master at running point.
She greeted legitimate sellers and stopped shady ones in their tracks. With her black hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail, she was all business, speaking more words in one minute than I could in three. Her lipstick intimidated the meek.
I miss Panama. I miss snorkeling with friends in the clear water on the Atlantic side of the isthmus. I miss Sunday morning coffee at Miraflores Lock and waving at passengers on the decks of passing cruise ships. I miss our lawn guy, a wrinkled Kuna grandfather who edged our grass with his machete.
And I miss my office conversations with Danja, a friend who could relate to growing up in a village, where the neighbors tell your parents every dumb thing you ever tried. You can leave small-town life behind, we agreed, but a part of it always stays with you.
The department threw me a party when I left, complete with sheet cake. The frosting was airbrushed to look like the cover of the new telephone directory.
Thirty years later, it still makes me smile.
I smile when I think of Danja too. It didn’t matter to her that I was an outsider who looked ridiculous in lipstick, no matter what color. (We tried.) It didn’t matter to her that my hometown was situated on the plains and hers under a tropical canopy.
Kindness doesn’t count differences, nor does it diminish over time. It simply grows.