Ernesto Córdoba Campos

Berta catches the six a.m. bus to the school where she has worked for fourteen years. The ride takes forty minutes through the eastern suburban sprawl — past Pedregal, through Juan Diaz, into the city proper. She earns minimum wage plus overtime, which in Ernesto Córdoba Campos is enough for a clean two-bedroom apartment in a concrete block building with a security gate.

The neighborhood was named after a Panamanian politician, and that's the most interesting thing most people can say about it. It's a working-class residential area that exists to house the people who make the city function — bus drivers, construction workers, store clerks, domestic employees. The commercial strip has what you need: a pharmacy, two mini-supers, a laundromat, several fondas serving three-dollar lunch plates.

Berta's social life is the church — Wednesday evening service and all day Sunday. Her mother watches telenovelas and tends a container garden on the balcony. Her son plays in an after-school soccer league organized by the community junta.

For the SAM audience, Ernesto Córdoba Campos rounds out the picture of Panama City's eastern residential belt. It's not a relocation target, but it's where a significant portion of Panama City's working population lives — understanding it calibrates your expectations about the city's socioeconomic geography.