From Panama to Dundalk: Familiarity feels strange, since it’s my first time taking a bus to the town

While stepping down from the bus at Dundalk Long Walk, I feel the early morning cold. Well, it’s cold for me, but to others the day is already warm. After a year and more of Irish weather, I still can’t get used to the cooler climate.

Something interesting about feeling far away from home is that even when you find things that make you feel closer to wherever that is, you know it’s still far away. I realised the power of an object, a place or a person to prompt homesickness as I sat in Panama Coffee, a coffee shop in Co Louth, run by Anna, a Panamanian woman and her Irish husband, Stephen.

Panama is about 8,120km from Dublin, crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and about 16 hours on a flight, with a layover of two hours if it’s short. It is a long trip, one that I’ve taken a few times, and it doesn’t get any easier. Aside from the cross-Atlantic journey, the fact that I rarely find any fellow Panamanians in Dublin pushes nostalgia in my head as I walk alongside the river Liffey while hearing any salsa or merengue that my parents would play in the livingroom on a Saturday morning.

The express bus taking me from Merrion Square in Dublin to Dundalk on a Sunday morning goes through a route that is familiar to one that I would take in Panama, except here in Ireland there are not so many cars on the motorway. Familiarity feels strange, since it’s my first time taking a bus to Dundalk. The clouds disappear as we go along observing the sun shine on a blue sky, very much what I would expect from Irish weather, and from Panamanian too.

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The music reminds me of my dad’s salsa playlist, sounding almost like a lullaby now. The last time I felt this close to home was walking around the Docklands in Dublin for the first time

Arriving in Dundalk, I step off the bus and take in the cold breeze and the sunny skies. Yes, I am still in Europe, in Ireland, keeping my raincoat on. A few steps in, plus my observations since the entrance, and the easy, comfortable feeling of being in a small town makes me relax and breathe in.

Finding the coffee shop doesn’t take long. It’s open and fills the air with the smell of morning coffee. Besides, I see Panama’s flag through a glass. Taking a seat, I look around and feel the familiarity of the place even though it’s my first time here. The place is decorated with coffee sacks, traditional textiles on the walls – they’re called “mola” – and Panamanian car plaques from different years.

The music reminds me of my dad’s salsa playlist, sounding almost like a lullaby now. The last time I felt this close to home was walking around the Docklands in Dublin for the first time; the sky was cloudy but not rainy, and I felt, strangely, as if I was looking at the ocean near my own home, Panama.

The staff at the shop welcome me. A Spanish girl offers to take my coffee order and I sit. Stephen greets me and we talk for a while about what brought me to Ireland and how he used to teach at a university in Panama. Later Anna joins me, we switch to Spanish, and it feels nice hearing a Panamanian accent in person after so long. We talk about my experience in Ireland so far and the origin of the idea for their coffee shop, which was awarded by the Panamanian Ministry of Culture for promoting Panama abroad. When Anna needs to go, we hug and she tells me I’m welcome any time.

The people come and go. There are many who speak in Spanish with the staff. There is laughter and sunshine. It feels like I’ve found a place where the warmth my country’s culture comes alive

Both of them have a background in finance, and used to live in Luxembourg before returning to Ireland with their two children. I tell them how my idea of coming to Ireland developed during the pandemic, and the story of one time, when I went through security at the airport, a guard looked at my passport and said curiously: “Panama. Oh, I’ve never seen one.”

Both tell me how the Panamanian and Latino communities have grown in Dundalk since a few years back. When I checked the 2016 census, it said there were fewer than 50 Panamanians in Ireland. I wondered, “Where are they?” The only few I met were studying English for a short time, and, unlike me, they came with other Panamanians.

Turns out, as Anna and Stephen tell me, there are lots of them – of us – in Dundalk. They study in Drogheda, or at Dundalk Institute of Technology. One even works with them at the coffee shop. He is from Chiriquí, the frontier province with Costa Rica.

I spend the day at Panama Coffee in Dundalk, because I want to hold on a little longer to how homely it makes me feel. The people come and go. There are many who speak in Spanish with the staff. There is laughter and sunshine. It feels like I’ve found a place where the warmth of my country’s culture comes alive, honouring the coffee shop’s name. It feels like I can enjoy my summer here, if the weather allows, of course.