Dinner in the Jungle
I have sailed through hurricanes, fallen overboard, rode 30 foot waves, had masts snap in two and come crashing down around me in a tangle of ropes and cables; the 25-minute boat ride to Almirante was as white knuckled a passage as I ever care to endure.
The wind plastered Lisa’s hair back from her face. Oblivious to the impending doom, she forged ahead through the waves at full throttle.
Her real name wasn’t Lisa; I overheard her friends refer to her as something else which I could not quite pick up on. When we met that morning in Bocas Del Toro, she was bringing me coffee and Carimanola (fried yucca stuffed with beef and boiled eggs).
“I love this coffee.” I said to break the ice. “What kind is it?”
It worked. She immediately sat down and taught me a lesson in Panamanian coffee.
The way her tone separated the classes intrigued me; her reference to the “Indians” that picked the coffee had an inflection on the word Indians as if she were saying something dirty.
I was admittedly confused by this young woman of indeterminate age. She was a beautiful girl of Hispanic decent with an obvious dose of indigenous DNA in her genetic makeup. Compelled to ask her if she were part Ngobi, I thought better of it and held my tongue.
Luckily I was the only customer in the four table restaurant, which gave me the opportunity to listen to her fascinating account of life in the archipelago of Bocas Del Toro, Panama. She asked me about my reason for being there and I explained that I had sailed down from the Bay Islands of Honduras by way of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. She jumped at the opening to inform me she also had a boat.
“Poor people take water taxi back to Almirante. I have my own.” She boasted.
Hanging around for another hour, I picked at a coconut pastry and thumbed through a week old copy of La Prensa while she finished work after accepting the offer to visit her home and family via her “own boat.”
The rotten little skiff slowed and pointed towards an overhanging patch of bushes. We tied off on a branch next to a mud road. A half hairless dog crawled out from under the bushes and followed behind us. Head low to the ground, an animal that may have been a rat at one time hung from the despicable canine’s maw. I almost asked if it were her dog but decided I would prefer not to know. If the beast were not diseased I am pretty sure its prey was.
I wondered if any vehicles travelled the road. It was pocked with holes several feet deep; puddles so old that tadpoles with leg buds swam in them. We passed one section where more than half the road had been swallowed by the cove like a giant sea creature had taken a crescent bite before slipping back into the abyss. We trekked on with the mangy beast in tow and 10 minutes later she announced that we had arrived.
Red letters, two feet wide, spelled out “bruja” on the unpainted concrete blocks and across the front door. The tiny cinder block home supported a rust ridden patchwork metal roof. A chicken darted out of the way with chasing chicks as the dog found a cool spot under an Angel Trumpet bush. A young Ngobi-Hispanic boy scrubbed at the letters with a brush, sloshing soapy water from a child’s pink beach pail onto the dirt entrance.
“It say witch. They call my mother witch. She no witch. They jealous at my family.” Lisa told me as we approached her home.
She introduced the little boy as her brother, Clari. Greeting me with a big toothy smile, he happily went back to work removing the graffiti. Entering the house, the floor felt strange beneath my wet sandals. Looking down at the heavily stained indoor/outdoor carpet, I noticed the bulges similar to the floor inside a tent. The carpet was apparently supported by a bare earth.
Lisa pulled a hard backed chair from the wall, facing it toward a 12-inch black and white TV that wore a tin foil sculpture that posed as an antenna, and gestured for me to sit.
My eyes scanned the unpainted concrete block walls, covered from top to bottom with photographs, drawings, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place ribbons, Popsicle stick figures and an uncountable number of postcards from Spain.
The 12-foot by 12-foot room was separated by a dark blue sheet hand embroidered with white frilly vertical stripes that acted as a door to whatever was hidden beyond. I was impressed with the decorating attempts with such limited resources. Although it seemed condescending to think of the décor as childlike, I couldn’t help but to perceive it that way.
Garbled voices in rapid Spanish leaked through, obviously announcing my visit. Lisa returned with a beautiful woman with long raven hair and eyes as green as the neighboring rain forest. -a rarity in that part of Panama. Recognizing her from one of the photographs on the wall in which she stood next to a man of Native Central American decent, I accepted her outstretched hand as she introduced herself, in remarkably good English with a hint of a Castilian accent, as Graciela. She invited me to dinner and asked if I would mind walking to the market with Lucilia to pick up a few things.
“Lisa!” the girl corrected her mother with a bit of color rising in her cheeks.
The market was a 10-minute walk through trash strewn streets. Mangy dogs and half naked children stood staring as we passed.
The conversation was light but with an air of her superiority over the other local residents. Amused with her sense of keeping up with the Jones of the Jungle attitude, I took her attempt at impressing me as a compliment. I wanted to let her know that there was no need to try to impress me. I loved where I was. Looking at other cultures like animals in a zoo for amusement just wasn’t me. I put myself in other cultures to learn and live as a global citizen. Different did not mean uncomfortable or a rung on some mythical social ladder. I couldn’t think of a way to do it without offending her, so I let her continue.
A handful of Ngobe children stood outside the bodega; the boys in short pants and the girls in colorful Pollera dresses.
Lisa picked out vegetables that her mother requested while I grabbed a bottle of Seco (a rum type liquor) and enough orange sodas for the children outside, Lisa and myself. After paying for the lot, we walked outside and took a seat on the steps with the children. I passed out the drinks and was generously repaid with laughs and smiles all around. One little girl climbed into my lap as if she were my own child. We laughed for a common language, they spoke no Spanish or English and I knew no Ngobe.
The interaction with the children seemed to ease Lisa’s need to impress upon me that she was not an Indian. Obviously, I did not share the regional prejudices.
Entering the little house once again was a remarkably cool relief from the hot Panama sun. I presented the bottle of Seco to Graciela. She thanked me, opened the bottle and began to pour it on the floor.
“Oh damn. I screwed up.” I whispered to Lisa. Shaking her head, she laughed.
“No. She make a blessing.”
Graciela mumbled a few words incoherently to the spirits and took a good long pull straight from the bottle. Unfamiliar with this ritual, I wondered if it had something to do with the reference to bruja painted across the door.
I relaxed and thought that these were definitely my kind of people. I offered to help with dinner and was graciously led through the second room containing a beautifully ornate dining table, antique hutch and extravagant china, to the kitchen, which was an un-walled area covered by a pieced together metal roof, behind the house. Dumbfounded, I noticed that the ceiling was made up of corrugated tin and road signs. It was the sign that read “Caution: Bridge Ices Before Road” that left me speechless. This place was an enigma. A makeshift worktable acted as a food prep area. I felt a sense of belonging while chopping, washing and peeling.
We feasted on colorful dishes; tender polpo (octopus), corvina fish with a variety of spicy and sweet sauces, steamed vegetables and cold fruits. Graciela explained that she had moved to Panama as a teenager from Spain because her father was an engineer with the Panama Canal when the US gave back control in 1977. Against her families better judgment she fell in love with a Ngobe man. She had moved to Bocas Del Toro with the clothes on her back and the dining room furniture that had belonged to her grandmother in Spain. He ran off when she was pregnant the second time with Clari, leaving them to their own devises.
The reference to the witch was gnawing at me. The pouring of the Seco on the floor – little multicolored worry dolls scattered around the house. The diminishing glass of Seco loosened my inhibitions enough to ask when I was distracted by a palmetto bug, big enough for a saddle, scurried across the table. No one seemed to notice or care. I decided to forget about questions and let the conversation continue on its natural course. I learned about the simple life on Bocas Del Toro and they listened to exaggerated tales of my adventures at sea.
Hunger for food and companionship satiated, I slipped into a state of euphoric relaxation. The empty Seco bottle, lying on its side, played no small part I am sure. Lisa suggested, with a look of regret, that since it was getting dark we should start back to Bocas Del Toro. Visions of clinging to rotted planks in shark infested waters with nothing but stars to navigate by, jolted me back to reality.
If I left soon I could make the last water taxi. I would sleep in the jungle with the howler monkeys and poison arrow frogs before I stepped back in that dinghy of death.
Lisa wrapped some leftover food in newspaper insisting I take it with me. Polite pleas from Clari that I take him sailing the next day sounded wonderful; I extended the offer to everyone. Excitedly, they agreed to meet me at the marina in the morning. With hugs and both cheek kisses all around I left the modest but loving jungle home for my reliably lonely sailboat.
1 Comment
Thanks for sharing you adventure at Bocas. Very detailed and inspiring! I was at the Isla Colon last year, went surfing with my friends at Paunch Beach. The place is spectacular and yes, the locals are very hospitable.
Great blog and awesome articles!