Trick-or-Treat in the Tropics

Halloween in the Zone didn't look like Halloween stateside, and nobody tried to make it. Houses sat farther apart, screened porches instead of front stoops, and the humidity meant a costume made of anything heavy was a bad idea by the second block. Kids still went out — down the quarters streets of Balboa, Diablo, Los Rios, Gamboa — trading candy with neighbors who'd known their parents since the Canal was still new to everyone. It was small-town trick-or-treating transplanted into the tropics, with jungle on one side of the fence and a Panamanian neighborhood on the other.

That mix — American tradition, tropical setting, two cultures close enough to borrow from each other — is the same mix that shows up everywhere else in Zonian life, just in a lighter key this time of year. We put a few new Halloween tees up this week on the Ancon Hill side of the store, a little later in October than planned, but there's still time before the 31st if you want one.

For the longer version of what Zonian life actually looked like day to day, the CZD Substack keeps digging up the real history behind the Zone's neighborhoods and schools — worth a look if this is the kind of thing you want more of.