Friday June 5

It is wet and we are really cold, well cold from our perspective anyway.  How can that be when it is probably still in the high eighties and the humidity is just as high?  We are soaking wet and have spent the day in the rain forest and yes it really rained, I think we saw some  cats and dogs falling from the clouds.  What were we thinking when we came to Panama in the rainy season.  But as wet as we were, we all had smiles on our faces.  We would have had more photos but we left the underwater case for the camera back on the boat. 

 Our day began at 8am,  when our guide Anne picked us up at Shelter Bay Marina to drive us an hour and a half to Lago Alajuela (Madden Lake). There two young men, wearing only loin cloths, met us with their dug out canon to take us across the lake and up the river to their village.  This is Anne’s home for she is married to one of the Embera people.  The ride was quite and experience, for you sat on small bench stools that were wedged into the long canoe.  Our party consisted of our friends John and Kathy, Hank and me, and of course Anne.  We had a boat man at the bow and one aft who ran the outboard motor. The day started out so beautiful and Kathy and I were snapping pictures as we crossed the lake.  Looking ahead we saw the dark foreboding clouds but we were sure our luck would last.  Wrong!  Maybe an hour into the trip the rain started.  All passengers donned rain gear and hunched down hoping that the rain would lighten up.  Three or four times we had to get out of the dug out to help it over the very shallow spots.  You knew when it was time, when you saw our bow man poling with all his might and we were going no where.  We all sloshed through the water and then jumped back in as Maximiliano, the driver started the motor.  I must say that we got pretty good at the in and out of the canoe.  Once we stopped and we all stood up thinking we had arrived, but alas we were just adding fuel to the tank.  Finally after some two hours in the pouring rain we reached the village deep in the National Chagres Park region.  The Embera were there thirty years before the park was created so they are allowed to remain with very little change in their daily life.

 As we walked up the slippery mud trail to the village we were greeted by smiling people who very much resemble Polynesians.  Dark long hair and brown eyes, round faces with normal foreheads, and they all seemed between 5 feet and 5 feet seven inches.  They are a very attractive people.  We are led to the second story of a thatched house where we took off our wet jackets and shoes.  Since I had worn my backpack under my jacket, things inside the pack were just damp.  I pulled out a towel and we all dried off.  Hank found that his backpack was not water proof for the extra set of clothes he was going to put on were just as wet as he was.  One of the women was cooking lunch for us. We were fed a delicious traditional meal of Patacones (fried plantains) and fried Talapia fish.  The food was very good and it was served warm in a banana leaf bowl.  We ate everything with our fingers!  As we ate we watched the river, it was rising fast.  In fact, we figured it had gone up 6 feet since we had gotten there.  Would we be spending the night in the village?  I asked Anne and she said if need be, it would be no problem for she had extra sleeping mats in her house which we could put on the meeting room floor.

 A little warmer but not much drier, we used an umbrella to explore the village.  There are about 105 people in the village and some 20 houses. We watched little boys playing with twig boats in the rain puddles, and girls dancing around in the rain. We were officially welcomed by Anne’s brother in law who explained many things about their way of life. They all speak Spanish which they have learned in school and they have their own language too.  Next, one of the women demonstrated how they wove their baskets and dyed all the fibers to get the beautiful colors.  I remember teaching similar coil baskets to my fourth graders but these were on a different plain, these were works of art!  They make the most exquisite woven baskets, plates and masks from palm leaf fibers. The men do all the carving, but she showed us how the Cocobolo wood is carved, and she explained how the Tagua seed was used to make something called vegetable ivory.  The tribe shaman showed us many plants and explained their uses.  We were supposed to go out in the jungle for a walk and see the plants, but since it was raining so hard, he quickly gathered samples for us to see while sitting dry in the meeting room.

 We went down stairs to another large open air room and did some shopping for each family had set their things out on a table.  You really felt that you wanted to buy something from each family but that was not possible. These crafts and the tours were the only source of income the people have.  At least we knew that the money we paid would go directly to the person who had made the craft.  I fell in love with a delicate carving of two hummingbirds on a bunch of flowers.  It is so intricate that it is hard to believe that it was made from a branch.  I also found a few baskets that I could not leave behind.  The people were into very low key selling, not standing anywhere near their table, but if you showed an interest, they were there to help. 

  After shopping we went back upstairs to listen to their music and watch the women dance some traditional shamanic dances. Finally the little girls grabbed us and got us up to dance too.  They must really build the huts strong, for this top story had at least 35 people dancing and jumping on the pliable floor. 

The river had receded some and it didn’t seem to be in such a flood stage so we decided it was again time to brave the rain and cold and head back to civilization in the dug out.  The trip down river was like a white water rafting trip except the water was brown.  It seemed that John and Hank got most of the water that came into the canoe from the waves.  Yes, waves, we had some parts that were really swirling but we were again hunkered down trying to keep the rain out of your face.  Luckily the trip back was much faster than the one going and we didn’t have to get out once to get the canoe over the rocks.  Like drown rats we said good bye and headed for Anne’s car.  Air conditioning was not desired on the trip home!  We were exhausted but we all felt that we had had a very special day with some very special people who loved to have their picture taken and see them on the digital camera. Look for more information on this trip at www.emberavillagetours.com