Panama 2012: Emberá Drua Village

    Chris, our guide for the week, and the driver picked us up at our hotel in the van early for the one-hour drive from Panama City to Puerto El Corotu near the village of Las Cumbres.

Handwoven Emberá Drua Canasta (basket).

Before leaving the city, we stopped at an El Rey supermarket, where Chris showed us the best coffee beans to take home. Next was a drive-up Venta de Frutas.

Drive-up fruit shopping.

We also explored a Venta de Plantas.

Our guide, Christian, and my friend Sally with purchases.

    En route to Puerto El Corotu, we passed what is unfortunately the usual crowded slums and mounds of trash.

We also passed a newer, more upscale housing development.

A huge cement plant dominated the skyline. Panama grass, imported to hold the sides of the canal, grew rampant along the road.

    At the dock, a 10-person wooden piragua (dugout canoe) waited to take us 4-mile, 45-minute ride up the Chagres River to an Emberá Drua Village.

Chagres National Park HQ; our tour van on left.

    Our guide, Angelo, and assistant, Julio, were both clothed in traditional dress of loincloth and bead bandelerias.

Angelo & Julio readied the piragua (dugout) for the 4-mile, 45-minute trip up the Chagres River. 

A 5-gallon plastic gas container on the floor powered the dugout.

Piragua power.

Once aboard, we were off on yet another adventure we could not have imagined.

Leaving the "dock" at Puerto El Corotu.

Sometimes, despite the motor, Angelo had to pole the dugout through shallow water.

Others, the river current carried us.

Angelo getting a break from poling.

We motored along a river that was at times glassy smooth and at times took us through rapids. Judging by the downed trees, the Chagres River is not to trifle with in stormy weather.

Rapids & downed trees along Chagres River.

A family passed in their dugout canoe.

At times, Julio had to get out and push. 

Note the line from the gasoline "tank" to the motor.

Time to relax.

Emberá men at a village we passed.

    About halfway to the Emberá Drua village, we left the dugout followed a barefoot Angelo about 20 minutes through the jungle to a waterfall. We took a refreshing swim in the warm water under the waterfall, Sally in a bathing suit and I in my clothes, as I was already dripping with sweat anyway.

Sally, Marilyn, Angelo.

    When I asked Angelo his Emberá name, he responded that one name is enough. Despite their modern-day reliance on tourism, the Emberá are a private people. 
    As we neared the Emberá Drua village, we heard music. A man on shore was providing the lovely sounds of a traditional flute. 

The village botánico (red arrow) played a traditional flute as we arrived. 

Piraguas tied at the river bank.

    The Drua, numbering about 100, and other Emberá groups, left their homelands in Darien Province near the Colombian border in the 1970s. Guerillas and drug traffickers had made their homeland dangerous. As well, their new villages along the Chagres River were closer to the education and medical services of Panama City.

Map of Panama showing former Emberá homes in Darién Province & home of Emberá Drua northeast of Panama City since 1970s.

       The Chagres River had been dammed to form Gatun Lake for the Panama Canal. The rain forests of the canal zone were eventually made national parks, as the water is essential to the operation of the canal.When the jungles were nationalized, the Emberá and Hispanic groups were allowed to remain in their new villages along the Chagres River, but the Emberá were forced to change from hunter-gatherers to farmers. Several villages then turned to tourism to raise income for necessities that now must be bought. 

Communal Hall.

Houses are built on stilts due to flooding.

One of many village dogs.

Home under construction.

Fútbol is worldwide!

Banana palm.

Basketball hoop—the Emberá are said to be good at both soccer & basketball.

Playing jacks with stones & rubber ball.

Moth as big as my hand on railing.

"Benjamin," the village's pet iguana.

No coops for these chickens!

    One villager had a cell phone. Once a day he went to the top of the hill to check for messages from tour companies. Otherwise, there was a phone booth, an unexpected sight, for sure.

"Cable & Wireless Panama."

Tents for campers in hut behind bathroom.

Solar panels on tourist bathroom.

Bathroom brightened by fabric.

    The village has a government school to grade nine. Teachers, usually beginners, as two years of service in indigent communities is required of all Panamanian teachers, typically live in the village during the week and go home on weekends. Some villagers go to Panama City to finish high school and attend university, but most continue to live in the village, where life is calm and safe, following the traditional Emberá lifestyle. The Emberá Drua seemed a content people, and we were fascinated by our day with them.

Village school.

    The village botánico took us on a walk into the jungle to his garden, where he explained the medicinal use of each plant.

Village botánico.

Chris holds a plant while the botanicó explains its medicinal use.

It was definitely a jungle out there!

    We were treated to an amazing lunch in the Communal Hall, cooked on an open fire and consisting of plantains, beef (not the usual fish), bananas, pineapple, and mango. 

Emberá Drua women cooked our lunch on an open fire.

Bananas, covered with leaves to keep bugs off.

Plantains & beef. The usual lunch is fish. We also had bananas, pineapple, & mango.

This large wooden bowl in the shape of a fish was set on the floor for rinsing our hands.

    There was a demonstration of Emberá basket weaving.

Nahuala palm fiber is used to weave the base of baskets.

Chunga palm fiber is used for weaving the rest of the basket.

Dyes: chunga - ivory, cocobolo wood - brown, brown submerged in mud for 2 weeks - black, achiote berry - red, hukia root - yellow.

Me with the Emberá Drua woman who wove the baskets I bought.

    There was a demonstration also of traditional woodworking.

Cocobolo wood is used for carving.

Tagua nut & a carving made from a tagua nut.

Artisan shop.

    Julio and a young woman from the village introduced an informative presentation on Emberá culture, village history, and traditional dance.

Presenters of culture program. Julio, who came with us in the dugout, is holding cucua bark, used to make loincloths, skirts, baby carriers, & sleeping mats.

Embera women wear a collar of beads & coins for tourists. Silver bracelets & earrings are common.

Julio in traditional dress of both fabric & beaded loincloth & bead bandoliers.

Men & women presented a traditional dance.

Women also danced & sang separately in traditional paloma uhua (Emberá skirt). Woman in center is drumming. Men also provided music with percussion & flute.

Youngster copying the dancers' movements.

    Too soon it was time to leave the Emberá Drua village. But we were in luck as two teens and another man from the village accompanied us in the piragua. 

Jagua fruit body paint lasts 10-12 days.

The two teens disembarked at the next village for a soccer match.

Angelo & Julio were able to relax a bit on the way back.

    When we reached Puerto El Curotu dock, the other man entered the restroom in loincloth and exited in polo shirt and jeans. He was going afuera (outside) for classes at the university. He would stay with "family"—all Emberá are family—for a week, then return to the village. He was training to teach uneducated adults in the village.

Going afuera to study.