OK, so I will pick up where I left off, I hope. As I have said before, when I have no internet, I send these out by short wave radio, and I can't go back to read what I said the last time. So if I am repeating myself, I am sorry but there is nothing to be done. I have no short term memory and haven't for at least the last couple of years.
Anyway, we stayed in the Rio Sambu, with five other boats near the village of La Chunga. The people there are all Embera, and they are indigenous to Panama. After the first day, when we paid for music, dance, dinner, and an exhibition of how to work a sugar cane press, everyone went back to their normal lives, with the exception of us hanging around. The kids of the village spent much of each day visiting the kids on the big catamaran, and in the evening, the adults showed up. One day we found three kids in a kayak hanging around the boat, waiting to be invited on. So we did so, and they were interested in everything. Then Mike started taking them on rides in the dinghy, and letting them drive the outboard. Now most of these kids are really skilled in boat handling, and a lot of their wooden cayucos have little outboards. Then one of the adults from the big catamaran also started running kids about, and soon our quiet river anchorage was filled with the sounds of kids driving dinghies around like bats out of hell. It was really fun to watch, and Mike was having possibly a better time than the kids were. We found out later that Mike was a subject of great interest among the village women - it was speculated that they liked his beard. All I know is that several women women went somewhat out of their way to inquire of me as to whether Mike was my husband. The kids all remembered him, for sure.
One thing the Embera do is to paint themselves (mostly the women) with a dye that is sort of like henna, but dark blue instead of brown. Many of the women paint their entire body - arms, legs, and upper torso. Since tops are not generally worn, the chest designs are pretty interesting. So several of us gringos got ourselves painted up. There are pictures, and as soon as I have regular internet, I will post them. I even got my face done, which I am kind of regretting now, as it has to wear off, and the dye really seemed to take well on my skin. So my arms, legs, upper torso and my lower face are covered with designs. One funny thing - when we were getting this done (it is called jagua, pronounced ha-gwa) we were outside of the woman's house. None of the three of us were really comfortable with taking our tops off in front of God and everyone, including each other's husbands and one girl's father and uncle, so we got someone who spoke really good Spanish (I was nervous and could not figure out how to explain the situation even though I certainly have enough of the necessary words to do so) who happened to be a peace corps guy, to tell the local women that in the US, women are not supposed to go topless in the community. I asked him to explain that I thought we were sort of stupid, but it was the way we were raised and we couldn't really get past it. He said not to worry, they understood. So we got the revealing parts done in a house on stilts that I could have easily lived in if there were a bathroom. The houses are on stilts, with only partial walls, and you climb down a ladder to get down, and they only have outhouses. So if not for that, I could easily live in that thatched roof home with no running water. By the way, there is no electricity in this village either.
The village also has a wonderful swimming hole. While the actual village is not on the river itself, it is closer to a tributary or tidal estuary that is part of a running stream. There is a section that is deep enough for the kids to dive off rocks into it, and it is separated from a shallower part by a tiny waterfall. The water is clear and bracing (Mike would call it cold) and felt so good I did not want to get out. We did this right before getting our jagua done.
Later we met some guys who were riding around in a hand carved cayuco, which is a canoe carved from a single log. They have them all over Central America, and each country has a slightly different version. The ones here are long and skinny, and look sort of like a needle slicing through the water. While many of them have outboards, the others paddle, using beautifully hand carved paddles. Mike wanted one, and these guys came over to negotiate the sale. After we completed that, they offered to accompany us about an hour up the river to another Embera community, called Puerto Indio. instead of simply following the river, they took us on shortcuts that bypassed much of the river and instead went up inlets and tributaries. This town was a lot bigger - there was actually a road leading to another village, two tiny grocery stores, one paved sidewalk, and electricity. The homes were a little sturdier, and some of them had satellite TV dishes sticking out. We met the mayor, and generally wandered all over the place, checking it out. They do not get visitors here - it is pretty much inaccessible except by boat. We saw the chute leading from a corral to the river, where the cattle are herded into the same cayucos I discussed before. You can only get maybe two cows in a large cayuco, and maybe four in a large panga. THe cattle are transported to a place called La Palma on the map, but is called Puerto Quimbo by the locals. I have no idea why that is. Puerto Quimbo is the largest town and the governmental center of this area of Panama called the Darien. We will likely go there before all is said and done.
So this experience has been simply amazing, and I feel like in a lot of ways it was a true cultural exchange, not just us gringos coming to gawk at how other people live. The local people came on some of our boats, saw how we lived, and saw how we take care of our kids, which is not that much different than how they care for theirs. These people are wonderfully friendly, and they are interested in absolutely everything. They would like to have more tourists come to their village, and are working to make that happen. They have a little hut with beds and maybe some mosquito netting - I have stayed in dicier places in Guatemala by far. We are the only group of boats to come, and they are not expecting any more. But I think the secret is out and cruisers are going to want to come. I hope everything works out well. We left this morning, and everyone wanted to know when we would be back. And it was not about how much money we spent there - which was not much - but rather they actually enjoyed our company.
So now we are on our way back to what seems to be our home anchorage, Isla Espiritu Santo. We will spend a bit of time there, then head into Panama City to handle some business and to re-provision. We are not yet out of beer, so there is no great rush to get back. Right now, as I am writing this, we are anchored towards the mouth of the river, awaiting a high tide early tomorrow morning so we don't run aground trying to get back out to sea. Mike wants the anchor up by six am, no problem. I hope we can sail some once we get out of the river, but the weather report indicates little to no wind, so we will have to motor it. Not the end of the world certainly, but I do prefer sailing!
So this is it for now - and the next post will likely be from Espiritu Santo. I love it here.
"We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but is somewhat beauty and poetry." (Maria Montessori)
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment