Bonnie Birker has returned to live in Panama nearly 40 years after she served here as a Peace Corp volunteer. She now runs a beach-front bed and breakfast called Casa Del Puerto in the quaint little seaside village of El Puerto in the Los Santos Province, a few minutes away from the village of La Enea in Guararé, where she served for two years in Rural Community Development.

The charm, warmth and traditions of this special area in the Azuero Peninsula are what brought Bonnie, an Iowa native who worked for most of her life in Washington, D.C., back to Panama. She says that the community has not changed much since the late 1960’s. “The same people are there, and they all remembered me!” says Bonnie, “I don’t think they believed me two years ago when I announced that I was coming back.”

Bonnie Birker returned to the Azuero Peninsula 40 years
after her service there as a Peace Corps volunteer.

Now Bonnie is an integrated member of her small community once again. “People remember the work I did, and that of the other volunteers before and after me; the Peace Corps leaves a great impression on the communities,” she says. Bonnie has a bachelor’s degree in Home Economics and a master’s in Social Work. She worked with housewives on many projects including one to improve access to running water and nutrition. Her connection with the people puts her guests in a perfect position to have a very authentic community experience.

The Folklore Museum in Guararé is closed on Saturdays, but Bonnie can get keys to show off the cultural heritage of her home by just making a couple of phone calls. The ladies who sew polleras are Bonnie’s personal friends. Everyone waves to her as she drives through town.

The guest quarters are comfortably appointed and reasonably priced (around $30). The beach, which is better for walking than swimming due to a nearby river mouth, is just steps away from the comfort of hammocks on the front porch. Fishing and shrimp boats provide a constant form of entertainment not far from the shore, with seabirds and diving pelicans in tow.

There are three restaurants located in El Puerto, which is really a strip of waterfront homes, many of which are unoccupied during most of the year. One of them is conveniently located right across from Bonnie’s B&B. It is an open air eatery with its menu painted colorfully on the wall. Fresh fried fish, garlic shrimp and other seafood dishes are the main attraction.

Down the road, one can visit the fishing port for which the the village is named. It is located at the mouth of the Guararé River and offers tourists an authentic perspective.

But the main attraction in El Puerto is perhaps located inside Bonnie’s abode. She has a collection of diablico sucio masks, which are used in the festive celebrations in Guararé, when young men from the town dress up in the bright colored costumes and dance in the street. One of the masks on display is one that Bonnie took back with her to the United States when she finished her volunteer service in 1969. It is distinctly different from the masks of today, and worth a look to see how this notable Panamanian folklore piece has evolved over the years.

What has not changed is the pollera dress. The women in La Enea still make the Pollera dress in the same fashion as they did a century ago, and the dress has gone through little change since the women of this region adapted a version from the traditional Spanish pollera. The ladies of the town gave Bonnie her own pollera when she left La Enea nearly four decades ago, and she has kept it with her since. She also has antique “tembleques”, the pearl-beaded hair pieces used with the pollera dress. “They don’t make them like this any more!” she says. Bonnie can arrange private shows by the diablico sucio dancers or pollera presentations for visiting groups of tourists.

Casa del Puerto is growing. Right now there are three guest rooms available and soon there will be seven. Bonnie recently purchased the neighboring lot and is in the process of remodeling the structure to offer four more rooms with ocean views and an outdoor cooking area. Visit www.panamacasadelpuerto.com or call 994-4982 or 6772-2863 for more information.