From Paris To Panama

The morning I met Dalys, she presented herself like a solider reporting for duty.

Arms at her side, head high, eyes wide, she smiled at me brightly through a mass of dark curly hair.

“I can carry a bag of cemento and use a machete as good as any man,” the young woman blurted out unprompted.

Dalys appeared that morning unannounced. She’d come to Los Islotes, the oceanfront community Lief and I are developing on Panama’s Veraguas coast, because her cousin had mentioned the evening before we were hiring.

“I am a woman, but I am abnormally strong,” Dalys continued that morning. “I can show you,” she said. I thought she might drop to the floor and do push-ups.

Dalys imagined we needed work crew, but we also needed someone to manage things. Dalys spoke English. She’d taught herself watching MTV music videos. She also knew how to use a computer. Those are uncommon skills in this remote region.

Lief and I saw something else in Dalys. I’ve hired hundreds of people. Experience helps, but a can-do spirit outweighs everything in my book.

We offered Dalys a position on the spot. I consider that decision one of the smartest I’ve made.

Dalys is our right hand when Lief and I are at Los Islotes and the one in charge when we’re not. It’s no small thing, a woman in charge of dozens of men, most her senior, but Dalys was smart and strong enough not to turn down a chance she’d likely never get again.