PANAMA CITY, Panama -- The Isthmus of Panama is the only place in the world where the sun rises over the Pacific Ocean and sets on the Atlantic. But since the U.S. invasion toppled the country's 20-year-old military regime, the sun rises over a very different Panama.

Many Panamanians lost family and friends in the fighting and about 5,000 lost their homes in subsequent fires. And, when looting wiped out hundreds of stores and factories, thousands of jobs were wiped out with them.

Still, many Panamanians see the invasion as a new beginning, a chance to build up from the ashes of a corrupt regime.

Also in ashes lay one of Panama's poorest neighborhoods. About 5,000 residents of El Chorillo lost nearly all their belongings as fires swept through that section of town. Most had lived in squalid wooden houses built in the late 19th century, when the French were attempting to build the Panama Canal.

The U.S. Army quickly set up a refugee camp on an athletic field at Balboa High School, supervising the camp and distributing food.

The Chorillo refugees seemed strangely out of place in the middle of the old Panama Canal Company town, with its neatly planted palm trees and rows of red-roofed white houses. Laundry hung from hibiscus bushes along the street to football goalposts inside the stadium.

Sixty-six-year-old Francisco Camargo Arrocha and his family went to the camp Dec. 21 after their house burned down. Arrocha, who had retired in 1984 after working 25 years for the U.S. Air Force, lived about 150 yards from the Comandancia, the headquarters for deposed dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega's Panamanian Defense Forces.

"I lived somewhat far from where the fires started, but by late morning, everything was burnt," Arrocha said, sitting with his wife outside the actual refugee camp. "According to what I've heard, the Dignity Battallions started the fire," he said, referring to Noriega's paramilitary squads.

Arrocha's four sons, four daughters and 32 grandchildren also lost their homes.

His wife, Ediria Macias, 54, spent one night in the actual refugee camp but decided to move out and sleep beneath one of the houses outside the camp, seeking shelter from the wind and rain. Catholic relief agencies provided the refugees with clothes and some food. Arrocha acquired a propane stove so his family could supplement its daily rations of U.S. Army meals-ready-to-eat with oatmeal and tea.

Arrocha said he holds no anger against the U.S. for the invasion and is optimistic about his family's future. However, he described the ordeal as "the saddest experience I've lived."

"I have paid dearly for that advantage we will have for democracy," he said. "I just want a place that I can house my wife, because my sons are men and they can fend for themselves."

But while Panama rebuilds, life is difficult.

"I only have faith in God that things will get better. Those who live with faith in God will always have hope," he said.

The noon sun drilled holes through the thin cloud cover and its heat soaked into the concrete walls and sidewalks, sifting up through the grey asphalt. A U.S. soldier, with grease-painted face and cloth-festooned helmet, slurped down a grape raspado, or snow-cone, that left his tongue and lips purple.

A few blocks away, about five employees of Micro Data Panama, a desktop publishing and printing company, had just returned from their lunch breaks and were sitting on the office's front stoop.

"Lunch is always the big meal here," said Elizabeth Rodriguez, a secretary with the company. "There's rice, of course, and beans or lentils, or spaghetti. And that goes with chicken or hot beef stew . . ."

"And then you go home and have more of the same for dinner," said local Latin musician Guillermo Harris.

Inevitably, the conversation slipped into talk of the invasion and the discoveries at Noriega's luxurious homes across the country, such as torture chambers and photographs of Noriega's own sexual atrocities. The torture chambers had been documented on local television shows, but Noriega's escapades with his mistresses had become popular folklore.

Rodriguez was incensed at the news that at least one key Noriega aide was given asylum in the Peruvian embassy. Most Latin American countries, such as Mexico, blasted the U.S. for invasion.

"To hell with the rest of the Latin American countries," she said. "Let the (Organization of American States) say what they want. Where were they when we asked them for help (in deposing Noriega)? They withheld their opinion, and now that we're free, they've suddenly got opinions."

Rodriguez said many Micro Data employees had joined the anti-Noriega demonstrations in 1987, and she had seen the Dobermans -- the PDF riot squads -- ruthlessly beat women and children.

"Our symbols were white handkerchiefs, white clothes, pots, pans and car horns. We had demonstrations right in the street out here, and you should have seen how the Dobermans lined up with their shotguns and chased everyone inside," she said.

"Nobody likes having their country invaded. . ." Harris said.

"I love my country, but you have to be realistic," Rodriguez interrupted.

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On Tuesday, Jan. 9, the U.S. Army opened the Comandancia to the public. Almost immediately, people swarmed to the battered, crumbling and bullet-pocked structure -- some seeking souvenirs, others scavenging for building materials.

One man in his early 20s hefted four two-by-fours onto his shoulder. "I need these for my house," he said, smiling.

An old woman made off with a wheelbarrow full of copper wire. Several people were trying on PDF uniforms. One young man found a colonel's shirt and hat, and proceeded to run outside to salute to his friends, showing off the two silver stars on each red epaulet.

The scene was reminiscent of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall last November; the people were striking out at a hated symbol of repression, no longer in fear of retaliation.

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The oldest part of Panama City proper contains its most elegant buildings: the presidential palace, the Church of the Golden Altar, the French Embassy and the National Theater. Lucia Viuda de Garban walked past the massive white theater building and sat on her park bench to watch the sea.

"I always come out here in the late afternoon. It gets too hot in the city," said the 89-year-old widow. "Feel that breeze? You'd never catch me playing dominoes with those old men in that plaza. It's too hot."

At an adjacent bench four men in shorts mixed rum and Cokes, joking and sometimes singing along with the salsa music straining out from a new boom box. "I've lived on this earth 89 years. I've seen presidents come and presidents go, and come again," she said, squinting into the Pacific breeze. "But I've never seen anything as terrible as this man," she said of Noriega.

Still, she did not vote in the elections. A devout follower of populist former-president Arnulfo Arias Madrid, she pledged not to vote after Arias died in 1988. Arias was president of Panama four times and was finally ousted in the 1968 coup that put the country under military rule.

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Night life since the invasion has been starting a bit earlier each day; the U.S. Army-imposed curfew, which requires all persons to stay indoors from 11 at night to 5 in the morning, has forced bar and nightclub owners to find new ways to recoup money lost from the shortened hours.

Accustomed to staying open all night, many bars began opening as early as 4 in the afternoon.

Bacchus, a posh dance club with valet parking and a $7 cover charge, was especially hit hard by the looting that followed the invasion. About $200,000 worth of sound equipment and recordings was stolen, according to one employee's estimate, and the bar had been completely dried out.The looters had sprayed "Noriega 2000" on the walls, indicating that the Dignity Battalions were behind the mayhem.

Owner Estes Hasky said the bar was trying a new promotion : "Curfew at Bacchus," in which patrons could arrive at 11 at night and leave at 7 in the morning. Hasky said he had spent about $25,000 to make the club at least workable, but he was afraid there were rough times ahead for his business.

The club was half empty at 9 p.m., and most of the patrons swayed beneath colored lights to Madonna's "Like a Prayer," while other patrons sat aside with their drinks.

A bar directly below Bacchus, however, was rollicking with a near-capacity crowd; there were no valets or bouncers in shiny black jackets or cover charge. Instead, Cubares, owned by a Cuban family, offered plenty of $1 drafts of Atlas beer, spicy Cuban munchies and hot, pounding salsa music. The working-class crowd boogied zestily on a cramped dance floor.

At about 10:30, the bar began clearing out. By 11, the curfew was in effect and the streets lay still and quiet beneath a cool tropical night. Groups of five U.S. soldiers fanned out about the city, quietly patting the sidewalks with their boots.