Purubiakurú

Forecast: 85°/74° with thundershowers possible after 2 p.m.. 

Humidity:  79%

Sunrise 6:17 am., Sunset 5:57 p.m.

Last week, I got a whatsapp message from a friend here in Panama I think of as "the Adventure Guy" -- he's the same one I hiked in the Parque Metropolitano with.  He asked if I wanted to visit the village of the Purubiakurú, an indigenous group of Embará about an hour or so away from Panama City.  The answer to anything Adventure Guy asks is, as far as I'm concerned, "yes". 

So, last Friday we made the hour-long drive to the Chagres National Forest; after that it's a half-hour boat ride upriver in Cayukas (long canoes).

(I'm in the orange hat at the far end of the cayuka).

There's something really healing and relaxing about being on the water, I think, especially in the midst of such a lush forest.

When we showed up, a group of women were singing a welcome dance.  

For me, though, what I loved most was hanging out with the kids. (We'd all brought toys and food to give to the villagers; I taught some kids to do this twisty thing with our hands that makes some fingers seem to waggle the wrong way.  These kids were super fast at picking it up, and all the rest of the day, they'd run up to me and waggle their fingers at me.)

In the 1960's, this group moved moved here from Darien, where drug cartels had made the area dangerous to live.  The U.S. gave these Embará clans land within the Canal Zone, subject to their promise to maintain and protect the environment.  

During the pandemic, they began tourism trade as a way to bring in resources, as they are allowed to do subsistence farming and hunting but not commercial farming and hunting; tourism is an ecologically and culturally sustainable way to bring in additional resources.  

The group we visited had 55 people in 15 homes.  

The pathway up the hill to the village had lots of rock decorations built in.
These turtles delighted me.

We got a tour of the area, demonstrations of how they did lots of their crafts (preparing palm fronds for weaving, natural dyes, how the carve seeds into animals, and temporary tattoo--like henna, but blue/black), and then we got to see dancing.

I loved the dancing!  So I was especially glad when . . . 

. . . they asked us to join them.  They didn't have to ask me twice!

We also got to go swimming in the river, which was lovely and refreshing.   

A view from the village, looking down the hill to
where our cayukas landed,
and also where we swam.

This eco tourism is not only a way to bring in resources; it's also an attempt to keep the culture and the language alive.  Around the world, many indigenous languages are going extinct, and the main tour guide of this group talked about how sad it makes him to see his own language disappearing.  

I was really glad for this day in nature, and for the glimpse at a really happy community who lives so closely interconnected to the environment.  I wish them success in preserving this treasure!