November 11, 2011
On this morning I met my guide, Christian, for a visit to one of the several Embera settlements on the Chagres River.
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| The heavily silted Chagres River after the storm |
The Embera peoples originated, and for the most part, still live in the Darien province, which borders Columbia. In the middle of the last century a number of them settled along the Chagres, living in communities of 50 to 100 individuals. They established their settlements much like they had lived in the Darien; based on their traditional subsistence farming using a slash-and-burn model along with fishing and raising chickens.
The jungle receives so much rain that the nutrients are literally washed out of the soil. Slash and burn farming is an age old method of clearing a parcel of land by burning much of the trees and vegetation, which has the effect of adding nutrients to the soil, and then moving on to a new parcel of land in a year or two when the soil becomes depleted and will no longer support growing crops. The land quickly returns to jungle and the cycle is repeated. This is not that dissimilar to crop rotation farming employed by more modern farmers around the world and has been practiced by tropical tribes for eons.
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| Our ride finally arrives |
Unfortunately for the Embera, that all came to an end when the Panamanian government chose to create a large nature preserve where the native population had taken up residence and their slash and burn crop rotation scheme was banned. The only alternative for these people was to become a tourist attraction while making a valiant attempt to retain their culture, traditions and dignity. By charging tour groups to visit them, putting on a demonstration of how they live and selling native crafts, they now eke out a living. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I was picked up at 8:00 a.m. and it took about an hour for our drive to the Chagres National Park where we would be met by community members who would take us upstream by dug-out canoe for a tour of the settlement, a demonstration of their craftsmanship, dancing and a typical meal. When I booked the tour, I was given the price for a 1:1 guided tour with the assurance that if others joined the tour, the price would drop commensurate with the numbers in the group. As it turned out, I remained the only one booked for that day and that suited me fine; the chance to ask as many questions as I wanted and get that individual attention was good.
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| A heron on the river's edge |
I’m a bit skeptical of so-called folkloric tours because too often I think they have turned into little more than a modern circus side-show. I hoped this would not be the case and was assured on the site of Embera Village Tours that they were sensitive to my concerns and that the woman who ran the company is in fact married to an Embera tribesman.
Christian is a trained naturalist and native Panamanian who had married a woman from California. He has traveled widely throughout Central and South America and has a natural curiosity of places and cultures that matches mine. We hit it off instantly and had a great day. Christian shared that his family owns a farm in the southern Azuero Peninsula and he visits often. The road to the park is pretty bad compared to the roads to which I had now become accustomed. In fact, in parts it was quite bad. We went through an area that contained a cement plant and I was struck by the irony of having the materials to make a good road right at hand, yet the area remained underserved with respect to the streets. Christian told me that this area was filled with squatters and that since they don’t actually own the land or rent it, garbage and utility services in the area are either terrible or non-existent.
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| Passing another village |
We arrived at the park and went to the water’s edge to find our transportation. Various dug-outs arrived… but not ours. While waiting for our transport to arrive, we talked about the history of the villages, other tours he conducts and a bit about Panama in general. Nervous that something had gone awry, Christian made several calls to the office to find out what had happened to our guides. After waiting for well over an hour, Christian found out from the members of other villages that it had rained very hard the night before and the river rose more than anticipated, causing all of the dugouts from our village to be washed downstream. When they discovered this in the morning, they naturally had to go out to retrieve them, causing our pick-up to be delayed. The other villagers were having quite a laugh over the event and our group eventually showed up from down river with three dugouts and towing two others. During our wait I had my own laugh over the seemingly incongruent picture of men dressed in little more than a loin cloth pulling a cell phone from their waist packs to check their text messages as soon as they hit the shore. Stone age meets the modern age.
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| Arriving at "our" village |
Once under way, it took about 45 minutes to motor upstream, passing other villages on the way. The trees along the banks of the Chagres held countless birds and the river itself revealed a few crocs and caimans, although for the most part the river was so heavily silted it was hard to see much. We heard the occasional howler money making their presence known as we passed by. There were lots of large trees, roots and all, floating down the river towards the canal and the river banks were collapsing in places, a result of the previous night’s deluge.
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| The assistant chief gives his presentation |
I generally avoid other Americans when I travel because it seems most of them are there to take a couple pictures and buy their cheap souvenirs while not showing a genuine interest in the country and culture they are visiting. I find myself embarrassed by people like that, whose actions are insulting to the host country. I prefer to seek out locals or travelers from other countries. I know, that’s a gross generalization of Americans, but unfortunately my experience has taught me that is closer to the rule rather than the exception. It is as if they are just collecting stamps in their passports and bragging rights at the next cocktail party instead of really experiencing the country they have travelled to see.
So with that wariness (not sure that is a real word) always in the back of my mind, I of course ran into a retired ophthalmologist from Houston who wanted to trade Panama City restaurant tips instead of learning about the village and its people. Although Christian was not their guide, he and his trophy wife were on the same dugout with me. After brushing him off three times when he tried to strike up a conversation, he finally got the idea that I wasn’t interested in chit chat.
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| The communal kitchen fire |
We were greeted upon our arrival by a goodly number of the village -- men, women and children all came out to welcome us. The village sits on a low bluff overlooking the river and is made up of individual homes on stilts (although basic, I hesitate to call them huts because they are not small and appear to be quite sturdy), a school, a public kitchen used for cooking meals for the tourists and two open air lodges at ground level that are used for cultural demonstrations and lectures for the tourists as well as a place to sell their wares.
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| Lunch is served |
I wandered around the edge of one of the lodges, viewing the positively exquisite woven baskets, plates and masks from palm leaf fibers and other crafts carved from Cocobolo wood and Tagua seeds. There were also drums made of turtle shells, the typical animal carvings and bowls made of wood. I was drawn to several of the masks and as I considered which one to buy, was beaten out by the ophthalmologist’s wife who grabbed the nicest mask; an elongated monkey’s face with an exaggerated nose. I ended up getting the next best one. She then had the gall to bargain over the price. I think I was more disappointed over who had beaten me on the purchase than the fact that I had not gotten the one I really wanted. The more I thought about it, the more disturbed I was about her aggressive discussion over the price. $5.00 clearly meant nothing to this woman but meant a tremendous amount to the young girl who sold the mask. No doubt another story to be shared at the club. For some people, winning is more important than living a principled life.
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| My new friend Christian |
We were waiting for other tour groups to arrive before the assistant village chief (I'm not sure that is his real title, but it is at least descriptive of his role) would officially welcome us and describe their culture and manner of living. Christian took me on a quick tour of the communal areas of the village. One of the most interesting things was the public kitchen. Here, women and older girls were working on preparing us lunch. The “kitchen” was an open air affair on stilts with a roaring fire slightly off-set to one side. The fire is on a raised area created by a square of logs containing a pounded sand hearth. The sand creates enough insulation to keep the fire from burning through the wooden floor. The smoke helps to preserve the thatched roof by creating a natural insect repellant against carpenter ants and termites. Christian said that the individual family lodges also use a fire on a regular basis to control insects.
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| World Cup here we come! |
Once all the tour groups had arrived, the assistant chief gave his presentation in Spanish and it was interpreted by the various excursion leaders. He spoke about the materials used in their crafts, how the fibers were dyed using natural pigments and methods and a bit about community life. This was followed by some dancing and time to walk about the village and even receive a tattoo (similar to a Henna tattoo, not permanent but they last a week to ten days). I enjoyed watching a group of boys (half of them naked) who struck up an impromptu soccer game with a partially-inflated ball. This was certainly more interesting than watching the other tourists scramble for souvenirs.
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| Girl with a face tattoo |
We enjoyed the dug-out trip back to the park and Christian and I continued to chat about what we had seen. As we drove back to Panama City, I confided in Christian my apprehension about the drive to the airport on Sunday morning and having to be there by 6:30 a.m. When we got to the hotel, he did a u-turn back to Avenida Balboa to show me the way I would take on the way to the airport. This certainly was not something he needed to do and this took an extra 40 minutes out of his day. In retrospect, I should not have been surprised since this was a rather typical show of the hospitality I had been afforded by the vast majority of Panamanians.
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| A typical Panama City bus |
I spent part of the remaining day light watching the ships navigating out from the Canal and into the Pacific beyond. The following day I would do a partial transit of the Canal and I was really looking forward to it. That night I sought out a new restaurant further up the Amador Causeway on Isla Flamenco and had a great dinner of whole, grilled Corvina.
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