Darien Days

I am sprawled in front of a large fan, giddy with heat, the story of my summer. How can people live in heat like this?
In midwinter, 2008, my friend Bronwyn and I packed up our tropic-weight sportswear, polarized sunglasses, and insect repellant and went to Panama for a romp through the nature preserves with the Vermont Nature Conservancy. The trip lasted only a week, hardly enough time to justify the great length of time in the nightmare grip of the air travel industry, so I softened the blow by finding a side trip down to Darien Province and badgering Bronwyn into coming with me. This is the southernmost tip of the country populated largely by Embera Indians, poisonous snakes, jaguars, and drug smugglers. We were to spend 3 educational days living in an Embera village, living in their houses, eating their food, slapping their flies. We were to leave from Panama City on Sunday, the day after our return from our final Nature Conservancy stop, a very fine, white, virtually unpopulated beach up to the north.
We got back to our hotel around 5 in the evening and I picked up our itinerary for our personal trip extension to Darien. Imagine my dismay upon discovering that what they meant by a Sunday departure was that we were to be picked up a minute past Saturday in the lobby, leaving seven hours in which to unpack, repack, enjoy a festive farewell dinner with our traveling companions of the past week, and get a couple of hours of actual sleep.
I broke the news to Bronwyn and we immediately started the process. Mirabile dictu we did get down to the lobby punctually at midnight, bleary and bad-tempered, and met our guides: Roberto, a lumbering 300# of good cheer, and his silent & wiry sidekick, Mario, who was brought along to carry things. We were loaded in minutes into a Hyundai 4 x 4 with not a nickel’s worth of spare room after our baggage was added to theirs along with 2 giant coolers. And so it was that we set off just as the Panama City night life was getting under way, friction-fitted into the back seat with wistful hopes of a snooze or two before our transfer to The Boat, which was scheduled for about 6AM so as to get to the Mogue River at high tide.
Once we were clear of Panama City the road was bad and narrow and grew worse as the night wore on, finally degenerating to a continuous series of large deep potholes and coarse gravel, effectively ending any hope of naps. The final lap was a long narrow lane lined on both sides by parked vehicles and knee-deep trash. This was Puerto Quimba where we were to meet our boat, but first, the boys sidled up to the edge of the parking lot to relieve themselves while Bronwyn and I sought out a gap between a couple of trucks with the same idea, the first comical moment of our trip being when Bronwyn, standing ankle deep in chips bags, candy wrappers, and pop cans, wondered what to do with her little wad of toilet paper.
There was a little concrete bunker near the water with soldiers in it, some with machine pistols. I would have been a bit more jumpy about them if they hadn’t looked half asleep and also ignored us entirely. Knowing how close we were to Columbia I, as a well-indoctrinated American, assumed they were there to ward off drug smugglers, but Roberto explained that they were on hand to fend off refugees and other illegal alien riff-raff.
By and by our boat arrived- something like a Boston Whaler – and we dumped our stuff in and headed down the river. It wasn’t long before all signs of habitation vanished and we had the sea to ourselves. For about 15 magical minutes we got to watch the velvet dawn grow pink and bright behind the silhouetted mangroves and jungle and then suddenly it was day. And the sea smelled wonderful and there were porpoises and pelicans and frigate birds and terns.
It was an exhilarating ride, and then we got to the Mogue River right at high tide, as promised, and we came to understand why this was important and could not be done at night. We swooped and ducked up the narrow winding river between encroaching mangroves and fallen trees, which I am guessing would have been impassable at low water, for half an hour or so, passing a thatched hut or two and a dugout, but nothing else. Flights of parrots passed overhead on their daily commute somewhere. Egrets ignored us.
Finally we nosed into a concrete protuberance and one of our boatmen jumped out followed by the rest of us. Our welcoming committee comprised one fine-looking fellow named Leonardo, clad only in a bright red scarf and some beads, who, it transpired, was responsible for the care and feeding of all four of us during our stay, a couple of women who apparently had just come to look, and a flock of little boys delegated to carry our stuff. The little boy who got my pack wasn’t much larger than it was, but managed it gamely, and he and the rest of our straggly band trudged up through the banana grove (actually, more likely plantain), through the near side of the village and up the hill to Our House.
The reason we got the house rather than the Downtown Hotel was that another group had the hotel, but were expected to decamp tomorrow at which point we could have it. The advantage of the Hotel was that there was an actual toilet nearby with a door that could be closed along with a sink and a shower, which amenities were not available at our assigned digs.
It was also located right in the center of things so we could gawk at the doings of the neighborhood (and they could gawk at us) which would have been a good bit of fun, but once we got our tents up, our stuff unpacked, our camera clap-trap located, our cooks established in the basement and our hammocks hung, it didn’t seem worth the effort, so we stayed put throughout. I think Roberto was much relieved by this decision.
Our toilet, which Roberto referred to as “the Structure,” was located, mercifully, at a considerable remove from our house across a cleared area that, Leonardo blandly informed us, had snakes at night, so we made sure to do what could be done before dark and toughed it out until first light. What it was was a drainpipe upended above a hole which contained the excrement of the surrounding households enlivened with a boiling mass of maggots the hatchlings of which flew out in great numbers when you lifted off the cover. We used the hotel facility as much as possible. The shower, which adjoined the Structure, was simply a tap mounted about 5’ up. If you took your shower at the end of the day the water would be piping hot from the supply line having been in the broiling sun all day; if you had a morning shower, it would be considerably cooler. Both of these were surrounded on 3 sides only by a pretty sketchy wall not quite as tall as I am, and entirely open on the fourth side and the top. Luckily there was no snow while we were there.
Anyway, the house itself was a thatched affair on stilts with a carving of a Harpy Eagle at the peak. And the living area was about 7’ up. You got there by clambering up a chinked log propped against one end. At night you would lean a board over the chinks so that dogs wouldn’t come up. In the interests of a bit of privacy as well as nocturnal insect control, we had tents set up on the platform, but apart from our tents, a single long table with associated benches, and a few stools, the place was unfurnished.
By 10AM we were Officially Entrenched, and we, having had 2 hours sleep, and Roberto not that much, we were none of us frantic to dash off into the woods. So Bronwyn improved each shining hour by distributing pads of paper and colored pencils among the numerous small children who had followed us up onto our platform. The idea was that they were to draw pictures, but at first they didn’t seem to understand what was wanted. Finally one of them got the idea and our quarters were quickly filled with shapeless drawings of butterflies and cats and flowers. The second greatest thrill for the younger set was to have their picture taken and then view the result. The upshot of this was that the greater part of the photos taken at the Mogue village feature children. The arrival of lunch marked the end of our morning rest period.
We had two cooks who set up a fire or two down under the platform for cooking purposes. They would then clamber up the log carrying pots and plates and spoons in an impressive display of balance and coordination. They always cooked up a huge volume of stuff, and we quickly discovered that the idea was that Bronwyn and I, being the Honored Guests, got first grabs at it, and what we didn’t eat, which left a great deal, was to be offered to anybody else who happened to be around, including Roberto and Mario, of course, and usually Leonardo, and whatever children hadn’t been chased off home, and El Jefe, who came by occasionally, and the cooks, and the local guides, and random people who had come to help fix the hammocks, or who just happened to be in the neighborhood, etc. Mealtimes were always a lively affair, and in the end, there were never leftovers. The protocol was, though, that the food had to be offered. If they were not expressly invited to eat, they would sit stoically on the bench and slowly starve to death. And of course in some cases, like El Jefe, for example, it was desirable that the food be served up and delivered. Not sure we figured out all the niceties of this procedure, but we did our best.
Breakfast was Crema which seemed to be various grain type things boiled up in milk to the consistency of thick soup. It was served in juice glasses. There were also maybe sausages, eggs, plantain, and, of course, coffee grown and roasted locally. Other meals featured chicken, sausages, pork, yuca, plantain, potatoes. There were some bananas once, but we never saw a green vegetable. I have to say our diet was bland, but the process made up for any shortfall.
At some point somebody’s wife clambered up the log with tattoo ingredients and offered to decorate us. We were told that the dye used in this process would not only make us look like cannibals, but would also repel insects. Bronwyn and I both got leggings and bracelets, but Roberto went right to town and got neck-to-butt ornamentation, which, considering his bulk, was quite a lot of tattooing.
After lunch, and feeling somewhat revived, we wobbled down the log and took a stroll downtown to see what there was to see. We found the hotel and its luxurious bathroom. There was a concrete school and ditto health center, but everything else was much the same as our house. And there was a tiny pigling patrolling the town center, oblivious to the perpetual stir of children and dogs. It always seemed to have important business, no time to stop and fool around. And sitting in solitary splendor among all the thatched houses on stilts there was a single phone booth. The urban center contained not only the Hotel, but also a Supermarket which actually did sell things apparently, notably 4 bottles of beer which we obtained one evening after a long hike in the virgin timber and chilled in one of our coolers whose ice was largely gone. The resulting meltwater was an unwholesome brew of dribbled milk and neutrally buoyant cold cuts, but was cooler than the beers. After a day tramping around in blood temperature heat, that was the best beer that ever passed my lips.
The area under the houses was used for various things including miscellaneous storage, pigpens, and chicken coops, in which were raised the ugliest chickens on earth, with bald necks and patchy bottoms, complete with ugly babies. We thought at first it was some dermatological condition, but apparently not.
One day we got the local harpy whistler, who I gather was also the local parson, and tramped off through the steaming jungle in search of adventure and eagles. We didn’t find any harpies, alas, in spite of some very impressive whistling on the part of our guide. The feeling was that the eagles had moved to the next mountain over because of too much disturbance where we were. So we had to content ourselves with Oropendolas, noisy birds that live in bags high up in large trees, which had set up a lively colony surrounding a hornets nest, or the hornets had moved in among them. Who knows?
Our sweaty trudge was not entirely unrewarded, however as there were some very large trees still standing in spite of the snarl of distant chain saws, and a vast assortment of quaint and beautiful insects and bizarre and prickly plants. We stepped over and around countless skeins of leaf-cutter ants streaming across the path. Each swarm focussed on a single task: carrying leaf fragments, carrying yellow petals, deadheading back to the source. They had worn paths around the roots and talks in their way.
We walked down to the village after dark one day, keeping a sharp lookout for snakes, to sample the night life. We quickly discovered there was none. At least one reason for this was that there was a generator down there that came on at about sunset and stayed on for a few hours and this generator provided just enough power to run however many televisions there were in the neighborhood, and so it came to pass that for this electrified period everybody with a television was home up there on their open-sided, thatch-roofed, platforms sitting on the floor watching Three's Company or whatever the single channel might offer.
So that is how people live in heat like this. They wear no clothes worth mentioning, they live in houses with thatched roofs and no walls, they don't do much of anything during the heat of the day, and since there are no clocks in the place, they are never in a hurry.

What's in a Name?

The most recently publicized mass murder by a heavily armed lunatic took place in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. The murdered murderer, it develops, was known to the FBI as one of these white supremacists who strive to establish their intrinsic superiority by behaving like enraged hyenas with assault weapons. Unsurprisingly, news reports surfaced almost immediately with whatever was known or believed, namely that there had been a shooting in a Sikh temple.
I first heard about this episode on Public Radio. An excitable young man was breathlessly describing the situation in the Sick temple, interviewing members of the Sick community, including a Sick man who briefly outlined Sick beliefs and so forth. As he carried on in this rather long tale, referring to Sick this and Sick that I cringed, wondering if National Public Radio had really sunk so low that there was nobody within earshot of the newsroom who knew how to pronounce the name of this respectably well-known and widespread religion.
It seemed to me, though, that this had all the earmarks of the common practice of expressing contempt through mispronunciation. To refer to these people as Sicks is to dismiss them as insignificant, not worth the minute effort it would take to broaden the “i” into the term they use to describe themselves. I expect that if you suggested to the eager young reporter that the word should be “Seek” rather than “Sick,” he would roll his eyes and reply “What-Ever.”
The same technique is used by certain right-wing windbags who refer to the president as “Obaama.” There is no shortage of broadcast journalists and commentators who speak his name as he does himself, and again it would take no effort worth mentioning to broaden the “a” into “Obahma,” but again, the sneering speakers are making a point which is that President Obama is not worthy of the simple courtesy of remembering his name.
But shortening vowels is not the only way a name can be used as an insult. Just changing it a little will also do the trick.
There is a plumber who comes to clean my furnace once a year. He is a short, dark, Bosnian muslim named Hamdi. Last year when I phoned to get an appointment, the dispatcher named a date and told me Hans would be there first thing. Naturally, I assumed this was Hamdi's replacement, Hamdi himself having been promoted or sacked or relocated. However, it turned out that Hans was actually Hamdi repackaged. The dispatcher was unable to remember or pronounce his actual name so she decided on Hans as a suitable replacement, being, on the one hand, foreign, but at the same time acceptably blond.
I am especially sensitive to this sort of slight since I have spent all of my adult life trying to convince the world at large to call me Deborah rather than Debby which latter I tolerated up through grammar school since it was suitable for that time. The name evokes a cute freckle-faced moppet with pigtails, which fairly well describes me as a very young thing. I was undeniably cute.
At first I thought the rush toward Debby in my later life, well after I had given up pigtails, was a result of everybody and their dog having a niece or a babysitter named Debby and being unable to heave themselves out of that rut. I finally figured out that people who insisted on insulting me with this designation were people who wanted to diminish me for one reason or another. People who saw me as competition, for example, or struggling little junior executives making sure that I knew I was inferior. Or people who just simply disliked me.
Eventually I stopped being irate when this happened and started using it as a sort of litmus test that indicated fairly accurately whom I could or could not trust. In short, Sicks or Obaama or Hans or Debby are just another way of calling the target an asshole without actually offending the public sensibility. It is a deniable way of offending the target while maintaining a “golly, I had no idea!” wide-eyed innocence.
So next time your boss or colleague or some semi-stranger calls you Sweety or Stud or some diminutive of your actual name, sit up and pay attention. This is not your friend. Secure your wallet and run.