Panama: Saved by the Ngöbe

Itineraries are funny things. Going into this trip, I knew the second leg, the South American leg, would be wildly impromptu, but the Central American leg was planned to the day. Now, three weeks later, our “itinerary” has received multiple facelifts, and we find ourselves salivating at the uncertainty of each tomorrow.

This willingness to ride the wave of serendipity brought us to my dear friend Klaus. A boy whom I had traveled with five years ago while doing volunteer work in Costa Rica, now an incredibly impressive man serving two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the poorest region in Panama, La Camarka.

We met him in Panama City and partied like Peace Corps rockstars with he and 6 other volunteers, before embarking on the 7 hour journey to his village, Aguacatal, in the incredibly removed mountains of Central Panama. 5 hours of bus,  1 hour of Chiva (sketch South American truck), and 1 hour of muddy muddy hiking with 50 pounds of gear later, we sat in Abuelo’s hut receiving our first sips of Ngöbe coffee. (Klaus has given us warning of sorts, that went a little something like this, “Now girls, it’s really rude not to accept the coffee so you have to drink it, but you should know they dilute it after it boils so there’s a high chance you’ll get giardia or amoeba’s from it”…the first of many nonchalant warnings from our host).  Of course we drink each cup in its entirety, because we wouldn’t want to displease the Ngöbe, but with each sip I think of my brother who suffered nearly 2 weeks attached to an IV with giardia in Lebanon.

Stomach parasites seem a small price to pay to get to know this incredibly unique culture. They live without running water, electricity, or proper sanitation systems. They travel barefoot through mountain mud, and literally work the land until they die. But they’re culture is warm, their smiles massive, and they welcome us without question, giving us names (Jechi and Bechi) so that we can be proper Ngöbe’s for our week’s stay.

The week is filled with the rice harvest, (an incredibly tranquil process: seriously, I never contemplated where rice came from and the process of taking it from mountain side to eating it from a wooden bowl in a candlelit hut is actually mesmerizing), clearing fields with machetes (that’s right I ROCKED a machete), and attending the independence Day festivities filled with moonshine and inebriation.

I think now I can leave Panama feeling slightly better about its overall character. Even Klaus, who has lived here 2 years said, “Panamanians are a people content with mediocrity” and I have to agree. Nothing about the country or its people moved me terribly until I met the Ngöbe’s. They were genuine and intriguing, and as I head for the boarder of Costa Rica tomorrow, they have left me feeling satisfied with my three weeks in Panama. It is a country that thrives off revenue from the canal, a country whose capital is generic and dull, and a country whose character lies undiscovered, tucked deeply in its central mountains.