Panama
PANAMA - When I arrived in Panama City I was struck by how much it reminded me of other up and coming Central American metropolises, with touches of Miami thrown in. I was on assignment for AES, the electric company, and the next phase of my project would be far from traffic and lights. I made plans to visit one of their social responsibility projects upstream from their hydroelectric plant located on the Bayano River in the eastern part of the country. We traveled by motored canoe on a tributary of the Bayano from the plant for 40 minutes to reach a settlement of the Embera people, an indigenous group that AES was working with through their local social responsibility program. We spent the afternoon with the elders and children as they danced ceremoniously for us, shared their local food and hosted us in their thatched homes. As dusk approached we boarded the canoes and began our trip back down the river to our jeeps.