The Ruined Man

On a random afternoon in February or March, I found myself sitting in the waiting room in Albrook Bus Terminal in the city, heading home after being out of site for some time. My friend had gone to the bathroom and so I was sitting

A man sat down behind me and began to make small talk, in English. I was impressed by the way he carried himself, he was a clean cut, well dressed, tall black man, with a nice watch. We made small talk about Panama, and Peace Corps and what it's like to live abroad. He then went on to explain that he'd just gotten back from Afghanistan and he was passing through Panama on his way to Costa Rica to meet his family for a cruise. He hadn't seen them for almost a year. He continued on explaining that he'd let a thief get the better of him and someone had walked away with the bag containing all of his electronics and identification.

I felt a crushing sensation in my heart for him. He was supposed to fly out that night and had no way to get on the plane. It doesn't happen often but I able to quickly and completely put myself into his shoes and nearly had a panic attack. His situation seriously sucked.

He continued to talk and luckily he had a cell phone which a security guard had lent him to try and get in contact with his commanding officer. Things seemed to be working out but a little bit of money could go a long way in helping him out.

I’ll save you the rest of his story, which was really good acting, but you can probably figure from that last sentence where this story is going. At this point my friend sat down and she leaned over and whispered that a guy matching this man’s description had been pulling this stunt a few weeks prior and scammed a few volunteers. We would later learn that he’d been pulling this scam in Albrook, the complex where the Peace Corps office is located, and the main tourist strip. 

Quickly after that his whole scheme fell apart as I started to examine his story over again in my head and saw several holes that didn’t quite add up. We quickly grabbed our stuff and left without confrontation or a request for money.

For the several-hour bus ride, I sat and thought solely about this man and the strong emotions he’d been able to pull out of me. Frustration among other feelings continued to follow me very closely for the coming days.

Peace Corps has its ups and downs. I expected this, we were warned of it. My lows were mostly attributed to lack of integration, comprehension of Spanish, and slowly moving projects. However, I never expected an American scam artist in Panama to be the cause of one of my lowest of lows.