Heart of Darkness: Panama Style

Monday is a national holiday in Panama and so we gringos had the day off! It is a national holiday in remembrance of a group of Panamanian students who were killed by the U.S. military for lowering the U.S. flag in protest of the U.S. military presence in Panama. Great day to be an American here!

We drove about an hour away to venture into the jungle and see the Embera-Drua tribe. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, all I had been told was that there were loincloths involved. And boy, those were some loincloths. There were 3 long boats waiting for us so we loaded up and the loin-clothed men directed us across the lake. The scenery was incredible and the boat ride lasted for almost a full 45 minutes as we swerved from lake to river and back to lake again. It was very Heart of Darkness-esque. We felt like we were in the middle of nowhere but lo and behold the main guiding the boat in his loincloth soon whipped out his cell phone to call the other boat driver and yell at him for getting lost. Apparently there is no escaping cell phones. Can you hear me now?

Catching the fish for lunch

A group of young Embera boys greeted us with a musical welcome! We hopped out of the boat and were welcomed into the village where we learned the history of the village and the story behind their handicrafts. in 1975 eight people moved from a tribe farther up the river named Darien to the current location. They were seeking protection and wanted to be closer to the city for medical purposes. Today there are over 120 people living in the village. Their primary source of income is tours and handicrafts. They carve wood figures and weave all sorts of bowls and plates. The women of the village made us a delicious lunch of tilapia and plaintains. ¡Que rico! 

Embera woven handicrafts

The young boys also give a variation of henna tattoos (which wash off as soon as they get wet as we quickly learned). It was very interesting to learn about their culture and I was able to ask the boy who gave me a tattoo (its fake mom, I promise) some questions about growing up in Embera. He said there are tourists there every single day. I asked him if they annoyed him but he surprisingly said no because he learns many new things from the people who come. I think I would get annoyed by a bunch of gringos traipsing through my village every day. The constant presence of tourists also made me question how authentic and removed from mainstream culture the village really is and how much of it is embellished for the tourists. Either way it was a very enjoyable day trip.

Getting tattooed by Juan Carlos

As we were getting ready to load up to boats again and head to the waterfall we saw a sea otter! We all began trying to take pictures and our professor was yelling "Don't touch, it bites!" in a high-pitched, Brazilian acccent. Our classmate Donald did not get the message. He stuck his hand over the side of the boat and the sea otter grabbed it and jumped into the boat. This led to mass hysteria and a very topsy turvy boat. Finally the sea otter jumped out when we heard a woman yelling "Gato! Gato" in a very angry voice. (Gato means "cat" for those who don't speak espanol). We were confused and soon realized she was referring to the sea otter as "gato" and that it was her pet! The sea otter came up on the shore with its tail between its legs looking very ashamed and the woman snatched it up by the scruff of its neck and dragged it back up to the village. Who knew sea otters were so domesticated?

Traditional Embera butterfly dance

After our close call with the sea otter, we headed to a secluded waterfall. We swam around before getting back in the boats and taking a very bumpy, wet ride back to shore. I wasn't sure we were going to make it back to shore afloat. But sure enough we survived the jungle! Tomorrow we are back to class, hope we can survive that as well! This begins our last week here and our last week of winter break. I can't believe it is almost time to head back to St. Louis! ¡Hasta la próxima!