Peace Corps Letter

I guess I'm doing this whole thing back-asswards, because I keep pulling out older stuff, but I wanted to post something a bit older to remind myself of what I was doing here a year or two ago. This is a letter I wrote to my old buddies from my Peace Corps Panama training group, so it's filled with several innuendos and acronyms that might not be understood by your average layman.




14-March-2005
Koror, Palau

A Letter to my Compas,

Greetings and salutations from this land to yours, wherever it is you may be. I’ve been reading some of your updates with much interest and gladness, wondering all the while if my old friends of 46 might like to hear a whisper from the western pacific every once in a while. Then I came across the group 46 COS issue of La Vaina in a pile of neglected papers, and I was joyfully reminded of la vida panamenya and so many wonderful people. As I read through esa vaina I couldn’t stop smiling and I burst out laughing while sitting alone in my room listening to the hoots and whistles of the creatures living in the betel nut forest behind my house. While this cemented my resolve to write an update to y’all, I was also shocked! I was shocked to realize that I could forget, or at least so easily re-shelve such an intense period of my life. I haven’t really forgotten though. Every so often I’ll play a few tipico songs; my heart will swell and my eyes will well up and I’ll think to myself “hoo hah what a crazy time.” At those times sometimes I’ll think that maybe I left my heart behind in Panama, or at least a very large chunk of it, which might be why I don’t like to think of it unless I’m reminded by something, like roosters outside my window crowing at 3 o’ fucking clock in the morning.

Anyway, I just wanted to say hello to you all and maybe give you an idea of what my Peace Corps experience has shaped up to be here. Normally I don’t write about this stuff, because, as you may have found since you’ve landed back in North America, most people don’t really care about it, or at least they quickly lose interest because they’d rather talk about W or Janet Jackson’s boobs. Since you all have been there and done that, and are familiar with the lingo and acronyms, I figure that you of all people can at least relate and maybe even enjoy hearing about the life of Spuns (this is my Palauan name).

I’m coming up on 7 months left to the official completion of my Peace Corps service in the Republic of Palau. You may have seen Palau mentioned in Farenheight 9/11 as one of the countries in Bush’s coalition of the willing in the Iraq conflict. It’s one of the world’s smallest and newest independent nations, with approximately 20,000 total residents (15,000 Palauans) and 8 years of independence. The Peace Corps has been here since the late 60’s, and has become fairly ingrained into the local landscape and culture. There’s even a word for us, “Biskor”, in the local language, and there are at least as many former biskor living here as there are current volunteers. I’ve met Micro 1’s and at least a dozen biskor married to and living with Palauans; Palau might just have the highest permanent retention rate of volunteers in relation to total local population, anywhere. The current program is small, with 14 volunteers, 8 of whom are from my training group, the Micro 70’s (Micro stands for Micronesia). Our two sectors are natural resource conservation and development and youth and community development. Training groups arrive one a year, and after spending 10 weeks in the FSM (Federated States of Micronesia) state of Pohnpei, they’re shuttled off to their respective islands (The FSM States – Kosrae, Pohnpei, Chuuk, and Yap, and the Republic of Palau). Apart from my homies here in Palau, I haven’t seen any of my training group since I left Pohnpei for Palau, but we may get together here in Palau for a group COS conference. Since the living conditions are harsher in all of the other island groups, all of the other volunteers always want to come to Palau, and the Palau volunteers are pretty much content to stay put, even though it would be nice to have the chance to see Chuuk Lagoon or some topless women in Yap. Needless to say, Micro 70 pales in comparison to our group, magical #46, but it’s composed of good people nonetheless.

Palau is an archipelago of islands, more than 400 in all, with less than a dozen being permanently inhabited. It’s a beautiful place; a tropical island getaway for the Japanese and Taiwanese, a scuba diver’s paradise, and more recently, the location for Japanese, American, European and Russian Survivor reality television series. The standard of living is the highest in Micronesia after Guam, but Guam is too much like the U.S.A., somewhere in between Honolulu and Las Vegas. It’s also quite possibly the most over-governed nation on Earth, with a national congress and senate, 16 states each with their own legislative and executive branches, and a traditional system of chiefs and clans. I gave up trying to figure out how it all fits together quite some time ago, probably around the time when I realized that being American AND biskor, I’ll be forgiven for just about anything.

Palau was a trust territory of the United States until 1997, at which time they signed a compact of free association, making them independent but freely associating with America. The United States has the right to establish a military base if they choose, and they can bring large military ships through Palauan waters, even if they’re carrying large amounts of nuclear material. In exchange, they give Palau something like 30 million dollars every year. After this huge sum (which funds most of the local government activity, or non-activity as it were), the local tourism industry is the largest income generator, and the capital city of Koror is built to accommodate the large numbers of visitors with plenty of good restaurants, nice hotels, and karaoke bars with Filipina hostesses. My assignment is to work in the branch office of The Nature Conservancy, which was just moved to Malakal, one of the three islands that make up Koror and the financial, population, and entertainment center of the country. The office is across the street from SLC (Single Ladies Club), next door to Watergate (a hostess bar) and in front of a hidden trail that goes back to a marine lake and old cave system from WWII on the small Rock Island we’re stuck to. There’s a nice view of the Peace Corps office, Arakebesang island, and Babeldaob island in the distance from my window.

I chose to live somewhat far away, on the biggest island of Babeldaob, in order to force myself to ride my bike into work everyday and thus strengthen my bum knee. So, I live in Airai state, in the southernmost village of Ngetkib. Since PC Micronesia policy is for volunteers to stay with host families for their entire service, I still live with my nice family, in an old clan house just setback from the road. My host father is single, is the principal of the local elementary school, weighs over three hundred pounds, and lived for twenty years in Wisconsin and Washington D.C. He lives with his mother, his brother and sister and his nephew, who at 19 years of age is the youngest member of the household. They all basically live in an old beaten-down tin house, but most of the time they sleep in an adjacent summer house (kind of like a choza with a tin roof). I sleep in the old clan house, which I share with my younger brother, but because the house is haunted or maybe because I’m weird he sleeps most of the time on the other side. We also share a bathroom with cold, running water and a flush toilet. There’s an ancient graveyard with old, coral tombstones on top of a stone platform between our houses, and there’s an old kitchen with a huge hole in the floor next to my house. I pretty much come and go as I please and cook for myself a lot of the time. When I don’t, we eat a lot of fish, yucca, rice and taro. For breakfast there’s eggs and rice and spam, and there’s peanut butter and jelly for all times of the day. It’s a pretty nice living arrangement, especially since, as I mentioned, there’s a nice betel nut forest bordering the mangroves behind our house. Spending quality time with the family here basically means, sitting around the summer house chewing betel nut, talking shit about Palauan politics, and watching American Idol and Extreme Makeover on t.v. I’ve picked up a minor betel nut habit because of this, as my host grandmother tells me “you chew” every day when I enter her proximity. With almost everyone being older than me, I basically have to do everything they say, so I do a lot of carrying trays of food from the kitchen to the summerhouse, because the rest of the family (except little bro) are so fat that it’s uncomfortable for them to walk 100 feet. They’re very good people though, and are always trying to get me to eat more...”You eat more!”

My neighborhood is small, and right along the road that leads to the airport, so there can be a lot of cars passing by. Nonetheless it’s very peaceful and cool, with a lot of huge, ancient trees in peoples’ yards. It’s very safe and everyone knows me, but it has the reputation for having the most trouble-making young men in all of Airai. These fellows are, of course, my friends, and they form a men’s group called Mli Way which helps the community out however they can. I enjoy taking part in these activities, because it’s almost the only community-related work that I do, and it feels good to get sweaty, dirty, and sunburnt like I used to do all of the time in my old village in Panama. It’s also one of the few ways I can keep my host father from disowning me, because he thinks I spend too much time at my work assignment, too much time with other Americans, too much time having fun, too much time chasing non-Palauan women...in general too much time not learning about Palauan language and culture. Even though I speak more Palauan than all of the other volunteers and have a good reputation for the work I’ve been doing, he’s right.
So why is it I seem to be too busy to concentrate on learning about Palau? Part of the reason is that I came here to learn the skills I would need to help out our NGO, Native Future, so that I could continue to help out the Wounaan, the people and culture that I fell in love with. Part of the reason is that I might be afraid of learning to love something so strongly again when I know that it could be torn away at any moment. And part of the reason is that I’ve become excellent at making excuses, any excuse will do, to have fun. I mean, you can’t work all of the time, and nobody came to the end of their life and said to themself, “Gee, I wish I had worked more.” But don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a busy beaver. Here’s a short list of the projects I’ve been involved with: 1) Kayangel State – Worked with the state conservation officers to improve the management of their marine protected area. 2) Koror State – Wrote a compliance plan for the Koror State Rangers who patrol and enforce the world famous Rock Islands, helped establish the tour-guide certification program. 3) Bureau of Marine Resources – Helped conduct a study to conduct blood samples from local crocodile population in order to look at DNA linkages and establish the number and identity of the species present, planned a field trip to Australia to train Palau’s crocodile manager, and am helping set up Palau’s management program to work with crocodiles and sea turtles. 4) Belau National Museum – Found funding and planned studies to look at the biodiversity and distribution of plants and insects in Palau’s islands. 5) Palau Conservation Society – Am helping conduct a national bird survey and study to determine Palau’s most important bird areas. I feel pretty lucky to have had the opportunity to get involved in such a diverse assemblage of activities which, at the same time, allow me to travel all over Palau and see amazingly beautiful places that most tourists and even most Palauans don’t ever get to see.

So, I’m usually not reluctant to head into work, but as you may know, work happens at its own particular pace, especially in the islands, and it’s usually not from 9 to 5. As I am determined not to ruin my eyes further by staring at a computer screen all day or ruin my lungs by breathing too much artificially cooled air, I’ve become quite good at noticing vacant spaces of time (spaces of time, why that’s ludicrous!) and jumping on them, or rather into them. My favorite thing to do with my time these days is to go sea kayaking, as Palau is an ideal place to do this and my office is within spitting distance (I’ve tried this) of the water. My old boss also left me his old kayak, so whenever I feel the urge, I lug the thing down the stairs, plunge it into the ocean and head off to go exploring some of the nice, nearby Rock Islands with their incomparably interesting mix of hidden marine lakes, old WWII relics, limestone caves, steep jungle groves and rich, coral reef lined fringes. In these explorations I’ve discovered a secret tunnel that leads into a marine lake filled with a breath taking salt-water garden of ancient, multi-hued corals of every shape and a two story cave with a cliff inside that you can jump from (inside the cave) into the underwater chamber below. Even though I have yet to come close to thoroughly exploring even the close-by islands, my friends now seek me out to show them my secret spots. On other days I’ll take off early and ride my bike out to some of the ancient stone paths that used to connect most of the old Palauan villages or to some of the old, mysterious earth terraces in southern Airai which overlook Airai Bay and northern Koror. There are some interesting, if not dangerous, mountain paths with beautiful ocean views that make for some good mountain biking, and when I’m ready to fork over my hard-earned cash sometimes I’ll go diving with my Peace Corps issue dive gear. These are the kinds of activities that lead me to say, “peace corps Palau, the plushest job on Earth.”

Even so, endless fun doesn’t translate into happy-happy joy-joy, and even happiness doesn’t translate into fulfillment or a sense of purpose. It can be very difficult, especially in a place where fun and entertainment are easily found, to find a meaningful balance in life, and this has been my greatest challenge here. Worrying about spending enough time with my host family, anxiously searching for meaningful connections with other human beings, agonizing over past loves and losses; these all kept me from settling down and truly enjoying life during my first year here. Maybe that’s why my best friend was a surfer from Costa Rica, who seemed as surprised as I was to find himself washed up on such a far away isle. Once we ran into each other and he discovered that I spoke Spanish with a Costa Rican accent, we learned to lean on each other and comfort each other with stories and memories of a shared passion, places we both knew and loved. Although it was comforting to have a secret language with a good friend, it was a distraction from what I came here to do, and I found other distractions. I’ve always been good at that. Now I have friends from Bangladesh, Bali, Japan, Taiwan, Canada, Australia, Holland and the Philippines. Palau, especially Koror, is truly becoming a melting pot of different cultures, and I became somewhat obsessed with getting to know people from all of these places. Maybe I’m fulfilling the Peace Corps mission in a larger sense in this globalizing time as I get to know these people and introduce them to each other and my Palauan friends. I mean, I’m helping to spread peace, understanding, and knowledge of geography man! Or maybe I’m just kidding myself as I wander, confused, from one experience to another, trying to remember my reasons for coming here or if they’re even important.

So, that’s my life here in a nutshell. Of course there’s a lot more that I had to censor, because, well you know. I’ve enjoyed reading about yours and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about mine. I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I COS (surprise, surprise), but I may take a job continuing to work with the management program dealing with crocodiles and sea turtles. Or, I may go live with a girl I fell in love with in the Philippines on the frontier island of Palawan. Or I might go fishing on a lake in Bangladesh, or go back to Panama or New Mexico. In any case, I will still miss you guys and wonder what you’re up to. Hopefully this summer I’ll get the chance to hang out with Karlyn and Jenny, si dios quiere. I do like the idea of a #46 mass reunion, which appeals to me a helluva lot more than my high school reunion, which I’ll be gladly missing this summer. Wherever, whenever, just let me know....



Much love and peace from Palau,

Julio

The Wounaan Story

This is a piece that I wrote (borrowing heavily from sources listed at the end) about the Wounaan, an indigenous people that live in Panama and Columbia. I lived in a small Wounaan village for about a year (2002), during part of my service with the Peace Corps, and at present I'm a board member for a non-profit organization called Native Future, which works with a few of the indigenous groups in Panama. This piece was written for our website, and you can read it or download a short movie about the Wounaan, at www.nativefuture.org .

Who are the Wounaan?
The Wounaan are one of seven indigenous peoples (Bribri, Bugle, Embera, Kuna, Ngobe, Teribe and Wounaan) who live within the Republic of Panama. One of the smallest indigenous groups in Panama, the majority of the 6,800 Wounaan live in the Darien, Panama's largest and wildest province. In the Darien province most Wounaan live in small communities, located within and outside the two Embera-Wounaan comarcas, which are indigenous provinces with special indigenous, democratic administrations. They also live in and around Panama City and other increasingly urban neighborhoods along the Pan American Highway, and in three villages in the East Panama Province along the Pacific Ocean coast foothills of the Maje Mountain Range.

Traditionally, the Wounaan were semi-nomadic forest dwellers who lived in elevated thatch houses in small clearings close to meandering forest rivers. They lived in small groups of extended families, and carved special trees into river canoes they used to navigate green mazes of rainforest rivers and mangroves channels. Their villages were often located at the edge of the tidal reach between estuarine mangrove forests and semi-deciduous tropical moist forests, and they would catch fresh fish and shrimps and collect mangrove crabs and clams. They used traps, bows and arrows, spears, and blowguns with frog poison-tipped darts to hunt rainforest animals and birds. They maintained diverse gardens around their houses, gathered wild fruits and medicines, and planted bananas, plantains, corn and root crops in small forest clearings. They wore little clothing but painted themselves with intricate designs using inks derived from jungle fruits. They used various palm and other plant fibers to fabricate baskets of many kinds, for many varied purposes. They carved animal forms out of balsa wood (Ochroma lagopus) and gave them ritual significance. They maintained extensive knowledge of the forests and their inhabitants, learning their natural patterns and rhythms and incorporating them into their stories, dances and cosmological beliefs. They practiced several kinds of shamanism and ritually beat a sacred canoe to resolve local problems and maintain a state of peace and harmony in the world. The Wounaan keep many of these traditions alive today.

Presently the Wounaan are one of the least known and most marginalized indigenous groups in Panama, yet internationally, they are beginning to gain recognition as some of the finest basket makers and carvers in the world. During the past few decades, the Wounaan have transformed their traditions of weaving practical baskets and carving wood figurines into veritable art forms. Nowadays, most of the Wounaan women (and some men) spend days tediously sewing thousands of stitches using naturally harvested, dried and colored palm fibers (Carludovica palmata or naguala for foundation fibers and Astrocaryum standleyanum or chunga for outer design) to make tight rainforest baskets which depict colorful local designs derived from bodypainting or local rainforest animals. Many of the men use the hard, dark wood of cocobolo (Dalbergia retusa Helms or rosewood) or the more easily carved white meat of the tagua nut (from the Phytelephas seemannii palm) to create extremely lifelike rainforest animal sculptures. Several of the most accomplished weavers and carvers live close to Panama City where most of the local markets and buyers of their masterpieces are located, but the palm fibers and natural dyes, the cocobolo wood and tagua nuts (vegetable ivory) still come from the forest.
In the rainforest villages of Panama, the great majority of the Wounaan also weave baskets or carve cocobolo and tagua in addition to hunting, gathering, farming and fishing, because oftentimes their artwork is the best source of economic revenue they have. The Wounaan are one of the poorest ethnic groups in Panama, and many families in the rainforest villages live in conditions classified by the government as abject poverty. Most of the villages lack potable water or sufficient sanitation, and even the few villages that have health centers cannot count on a consistent supply of medicine or the presence of someone to administer it. Most of the villages have elementary schools, but many of the children do poorly because the classes are almost entirely conducted in Spanish, and the subject matter never includes Wounaan culture. For the kids who graduate from elementary school, the financial and cultural difficulties of continuing on to secondary school or college are usually insurmountable, and as a result there are very few Wounaan with the college training or experience necessary to help their own people.

Where do the Wounaan live?
Historically the Wounaan have inhabited the forests and traveled the streams and rivers of the Choco-Darien, a biogeographic region or ecoregion1 that includes Eastern Panama, Northwestern Columbia, and Northwestern Ecuador. Because of the formation of the Panama land bridge approximately 3 million years ago, new habitats were created and a great interchange and diversification of North and South American organisms occurred. As a result, the Choco-Darien is considered to have one of the highest levels of biodiversity on the planet.

The Choco-Darien is primarily a lowland ecoregion characterized by very high rainfall (4-9 meters per year) and large rivers with associated riverine forests that lie within great basins of famously formidable lowland forests. The basins are bordered by isolated mountain ranges up to 1,800 meters high, which are home to mixtures of Central American and Andean montane plants and animals. The rivers flow out into the ocean through large, complex estuaries and extensive mangroves. The mountains are covered in a mosaic of wet forests cloaked in fog and draped with dense layers of moss and tangles of lianas, vines and orchids. The lowland and montane forests both have high beta diversity and endemism, meaning that the biological species composition differs at just about every locale and many forest locations are home to organisms that don't live anywhere else in the world. Luckily, relatively large areas of the ecoregion are still blanketed with forest and there are still many forested corridors connecting lowland and montane forests, which allows for the long-range movements of some larger animal species and altitudinal migration of others, like the jaguar and the Bare-necked Umbrella Bird respectively. Many scientists consider it to be the last place and best opportunity to conserve representative lowland tropical ecosystems of Northwestern South America.

Biologically, the Choco-Darien is outstanding and distinctive. Although the whole region remains relatively poorly studied, it is thought to contain at least 8-9,000 species of plants, with about 20% of them occurring only in this region (Gentry, 1982). The list of recorded animals in the region is also impressive, including 127 species of amphibians (Roa and Ruiz, 1993), 97 species of reptiles (Sanchez and Castano, 1994), and 577 species of birds, 60 of which are restricted range species (Roda and Styles, 1993). In addition to being a major center for unique birds, it is also home to many vulnerable and endangered animal species, including the Choco tamarin, the tapir, the giant anteater, the spider monkey, the puma, the ocelot, the jaguar and the Harpy Eagle. Approximately 30% of the ecoregion in Panama lies within Darien National Park (a Biosphere Reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site) and the Kuna and Embera-Wounaan comarcas, while ~30% is devoted to agriculture. The Choco-Darien is also culturally rich, as numerous indigenous forest peoples still persist here and maintain strong traditional ties to their land.

Where do the Wounaan come from?
The creation story of the Wounaan of Panama tells that in the beginning the creator was carving a Woun (a Wounaan person) out of cocobolo, but his hand slipped and he cut himself, so he molded the first Woun out of clay instead. Interestingly, Panama is the southernmost extent of cocobolo's range, and in the Columbian Wounaan stories, cocobolo is not mentioned. Traditionally, the Wounaan shamans in Panama made their curing staffs out of cocobolo, but apparently the use of cocobolo for making their well-known, lifelike animal carvings didn't start until a few decades ago.

The earliest reports from Spanish missionaries and explorers make very little mention of Wounaan settlements outside of Columbia. In part this could be because many Wounaan (traditional enemies of the Kuna) reportedly moved into areas of the Darien previously inhabited by Kuna people forced out by a Spanish edict. At that time the Wounaan were living in very small, remote settlements along rivers not likely to be visited by early chroniclers, and apparently the Kuna lived in organized villages where the Spanish could interact with them, while the Wounaan were more nomadic and likely to terrify outsiders with their body painting and poisonous blow darts. Good archaeological evidence of habitation in the Darien is scant, telling us only that there was substantial human habitation (but not by whom) in the region at least 3,000 years ago. In any case, the Wounaan seem to have increased their numbers in the Darien during the 18th and 19th centuries respectively, and by the 1960s, their population stretched as far as Panama Province, just east of the Panama Canal (Herlihy 1986).

A Short History of Wounaan Villages in Panama
Throughout most of their history, the Wounaan have lived in temporary dispersed settlements along river courses just above the tidal zone, but they began to reside in more permanent villages in order to improve educational opportunities in the 1950s. The villages formed because a generation of parents who could hardly speak Spanish wanted their kids to be able to communicate with the outsiders with whom they were increasing in contact. These new villages attracted the attention of General Omar Torrijos, who empathized with Panama's rural poor, and initiated a formal effort to improve the plight of indigenous people in Panama. In 1972 a new national constitution in Panama gave its indigenous peoples a right to participate in the political system and considered reserving lands for the economic well being of indigenous peoples. An office for indigenous affairs was created, and it worked with Wounaan and Embera leaders to draft a bill that declared the Embera-Wounaan Comarca. This included 31 of 53 villages inside the comarca, and gave them legal rights to their lands and resources. Apparently, many villages were too scattered to lump into reservations, and presently at least 37 Wounaan and Embera villages are located outside of the legally protected comarcas.

Meanwhile, beginning in the 1970s, Panama began using U.S. funds to extend the Pan American highway, which up until that point had reached a gap of undeveloped forest land between Panama City and the Panama-Columbia border. The highway not only altered the transportation system (previously dependent entirely on fluvial and maritime transportation) of goods in and out of the Darien, it facilitated the creation of additional roads and opened a new colonization frontier. Landless peasants from Panama's western provinces began arriving with hopes of "improving" forested land (by deforesting forty percent) in order to title it and create new farms and/or raise cattle. These peasants often unknowingly or knowingly crossed indigenous trochas (cut land demarcation boundaries), which has resulted in increased numbers of land disputes, mistrust and even violence between the historical populace and the newcomers. At the same time, forested land not protected in national parks and/or belonging to whole indigenous communities, cannot be titled according to current Panamanian law. Hence, nearly all of the Wounaan communities located outside of comarcas find themselves struggling with some kind of land dispute, which they are trying to resolve peacefully and legally by presenting historical evidence of land tenure to the appropriate Panamanian government agencies and authorities. If they do not have success there, they hope to bring their case before an international human rights court.


1 An ecoregion, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund is a "large unit of land or water containing a geographically distinct assemblage of species, natural communities and environmental conditions." "Biodiversity is not spread evenly across the Earth but follows complex patterns determined by climate, geology and the evolutionary history of the planet. These patterns are called ecoregions."

References:
Choco-Darien ecoregion classification - www.worldwildlife.org - Terrestrial ecoregions Ð Choco-Darien moist forests.
Gentry, A.H., 1982. Phytogeographic patterns as evidence for a Choco refuge. In G. T. Prance, editor, Biological diversification in the tropics. Columbia University Press, New York, USA.
Herlihy, P.H. (1986). A cultural geography of the Embera and Wounaan (Choco) Indians of Darien, Panama, with emphasis on recent village formation and economic diversification. The Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University: 306 pp.
Roa S. and R. Ruiz. 1993. Anfibios. In J.O. Rangel-Ch., editor, Informe Proyecto Estudio de la Biodiversidad de Columbia. Convenio INDERENA-Universidad Nacional De Columbia, Bogota. Internal Document.
Roda, J. and G. Styles. 1993. Aves. In J.O. Rangel-Ch., editor, Informe Proyecto Estudio de la Biodiversidad de Columbia. Convenio INDERENA-Universidad Nacional de Columbia. Bogota. Internal Document.
Sanchez, H. y O. Castano. 1994. La biodiversidad de los reptiles en Columbia. In J. O. Rangel-Ch., editor, Informe Proyecto Estudio de la Biodiversidad de Columbia. Convenio INDERENA-Universidad Nacional de Columbia, Bogota. Internal Document.
Velasquez Runk, Julie (2002). "And the creator began to carve us of cocobolo":historical ecology of the wounaan forest use in eastern panama. School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Department of Anthropology, Yale University, New York Botanical Garden

The Palauan Kayak Misadventure

This is my first posting...copied from a letter I wrote to my dad a few months ago. You'll most likely notice a few references and or innuendos which you probably won't understand, unless you're very familiar with Palau. In any case, it's something to start with...


It was Palau's Independence Day and they made the official move into the new national capitol building in Melekeok, so there was a three day weekend and a bunch of hoopla all around. Apparently five thousand people attended the opening ceremonies, which is a heck of a lot of people for a little place like this.

So I decided to go in the opposite direction and go for a four day kayak with some buddies, one of which is going to be leaving next week. All together there were six of us, and we got the short run-down from Ron, because he felt comfortable sending us out with yours truly and one other "veteran" of Rock Island paddles to guide the trip. The weather was looking pretty shitty the day before we were set to leave, but we were a pretty determined group. After all three day weekends don't come along every week. The day we left the weather was still shitty, as a result of a huge typhoon in Southeast Asia making its way north along the coast of Vietnam. In order to avoid paddling against the wind, we opted to get a boat ride down to Mecherchar island, where we dropped off most of our supplies at a nice spot called Clam City Beach and then were dropped off at Jellyfish Lake.

After seeing the lake, which one guy hadn't seen yet, we went to a nearby grove to check out an intact piece of Yapese stone money, and then paddled around a few outcrops into the wind (which never let up the whole trip) to a point we picked out on the map to be the easiest access point to walk to Spooky Lake. I had been there once before so I led the way, and after a 30 minute walk we made it to the edge of it. I may have scared some of the guys in the group when I started smacking the surface of the water to let the crocodiles know we were there, and in the end only four of us snorkeled in the lake, two of which only swam for maybe 5 meters before getting back out. The don't call it Spooky for nothing, as only the top foot or so of the lake is clear, while the bottom of the lake is a murky, pea green colored, bacteria-rich cloud of warm water with zero visibility. The bacteria cause some kind of reaction resulting in higher temperatures at greater depths, so that supposedly if you dive 10 ft. down you can burn yourself. We were satisfied to dangle an arm down perpendicularly to feel a temperature difference of at least 10 degrees F from the surface. I led my old roommate Angus around the edge and the across the lake and back, and excited as we were, we were both glad to exit the water. I still can't get over the other-worldly colors in the water though, especially around the perimeter with the contrasts of the pea soup layer, the upper rainwater layer, the dark sediment and gloomy holes and crevices along the edge, and the mangrove roots dangling down densely covered in brightly colored sponges and seasquirts, with little schools of tiny fish and shrimps looking back at you curiously with their huge eyes.

After a short walk out and a hour of paddling with the wind, we made it to the beach, and slung our hammocks under the summerhouse built there. We didn't have the luxury of the instant gas stove that we had on our trip. Instead we had three whisper-lite stoves which we had to fiddlle with for an hour and a half to figure out how they worked. As it turned out, only one of them really did. The weather that first night was the worst, and as we neglected to hang tarps along the outer edge, I was the wind and rain break for the other fellows hanging inside of me. I probably slept a half an hour at most, and got out of my drenched hammock to more wind and rain to make breakfast.

We were lazy setting off, but did just in time to leave before the first tour boat arrived, and we took a quick look at the giant clams nearby before setting off towards Ngerubtabel Island and the famous Long Lake. The crossing between the islands was pretty rough, choppy with wind-swept waves, but luckily the wind was mostly to our back, so we took a rather leisurely approach trying to get the wind to push us as much as possible. We ended up snorkeling at the same spot that we did as we were headed in the opposite direction. If you remember it was in the morning after we camped at Fantasy Island. The wind was really howling by this point, but it was really quite nice underwater, and I caught my first fish with my new spear gun, a decent-sized unicorn fish which we barbecued that night.

After another long paddle with the wind and chop, we made it to the entrance to long-lake, which had constant three foot waves plowing through the opening in the rocks. This was to be the first sign that the rest of the trip might be pretty interesting, as I was taken surprise by a good 4-5 ft. wave, flipped my boat and was washed through the channel into the shallows. As I would later realize, my boat was pretty poorly packed, with very little weight inside the hull of the boat, and most of it tied and strapped to the top and the sides. I was also carrying an anchor and some small weights for spear fishing, and as a result I was consistently being turned by the waves and current, making it difficult to keep myself straight and safe to either cross over them or ride with them. At least with this wave I had a nice three second ride before I flipped. Anyhow, you know what Long Lake is like, and we enjoyed the relative calm of the shallow clear-water mangrove entrance, but the inside where it opens up was almost as windy as the outside lagoon, and we only stayed long enough to do a little more spearfishing before we turned around, made our way back out, and started the long, choppy crossing over to Margie's Beach.

Margie's Beach, if you recall is just down the coast from the Milky Way, and Paradise Cove where we spent our second night. It's probably the biggest and longest beach in the Rock Islands, and there's a nice summer house there. We slung our hammocks again ,and being a slow learner I again put mine at the edge. We weren't cursed by the rain like the previous night, but we were more in line with the wind, and our tarps were being violenty whipped all night long, which for me again, made for a night with very little sleep. The plan for the next day was to go back along Ngerubtabel and see Milky Way, Einstein's Garden, and Secret Lake, but the wind was blowing so hard against us that we decided not to, and waited for the tide to come up so we could cross the outer reef and make our way around the corner of the island and back into German Lighthouse. Before setting out, this section of the reef (which was pretty calm when we crossed it) was our biggest concern, because there can be some big waves that break there and dangerously close to the jagged rocky coast.

It was destined to be an interesting day, and even leaving the beach was pretty difficult, as there were two to three foot waves breaking consistently along the whole length, whereas normally there's just a gentle lapping if that. Two of the guys flipped their boats going out and had to look around in the foam and surge for hats and the like before we all made it out past the breakers and made our way to the outer reef crossing. At first the waves didn't look very big, and I easily made my way outside of the surf zone, where I proceeded to make my way along the coast. We probably should have briefed the other guys a bit more about what we were about to do, because they kept too close to the coast. If you're not outside of the surf zone, then you constantly have to position and re-position your boat as the waves come at you sideways and threaten to flip you over. Luckily most of the waves were too small to really wipe you out, but occasionally big ones would come through, and often take you by surprise. So I watched as one, then two, three and four of my buddies flipped their boats and struggled to flip them back over, standing on the reef with bare feet and being washed closer and closer to shore. While I was watching, and making my way around the corner, I was swept into the surf zone by the wind and current, and then I was also struggling to flip my boat back over, retrieve my hat and my paddle and get straight back out of those waves. And we all did. Once we regrouped, we took stock; three lost sets of snorkel gear, one lost hat, one lost pair of sunglasses, five slightly damaged egos, and six smiling, happy faces reflecting a fun time had by all. We purposely headed straight back into the surf zone around the corner, surfed a few small sets, and made our way around the corner to the trailhead for German Lighthouse.

The plan was to walk to the top to see the lighthouse and the view, but two of the guys were tired and decided to stick around, watch the boats and go fishing. I wanted to go back to the cave which we only superficially explored, so I took the rest of the guys up the trail, equipped with a few small flashlights and three glow sticks. Due to recent tree falls and obscured markings in the trail, we ended up getting off track and finding a tiny marine lake, bordered by an ancient, enormous tree draped with mossy vines which filtered out the hazy light and made us think of Dagobah, Yoda's planet in The Empire Strike's Back. Eventually I found my way back to the trail and we made it to the cave, which we were able to explore in more depth, and it was incredible. As you may recall the entrance is littered with all sorts and manner of WWII relics strewn all over the place. Mostly we just bipassed these, but we were interested to see an old rain barrel completed covered and calcified by the slowly accumulating minerals raining down from the cavern's roof. We made it all the way to the back of the cave, where we couldn't go before because of insufficient light, and it was really something. The stalagtites and mites were Carlsbadesque in their splendor, and we made it to the rear room, where we were delighted to see a whole crystal cavern of glittering formations as densely packed into the space as possible, and swarming with hundreds, if not thousands of sheath-tailed bats. Once we made it back to the main trail, we decided that it was too late and we were too tired and hungry to go up to the lighthouse, which didn't seem so important anymore anyway, after the wonder that we had just witnessed.

So, after a small snack of betelnut, we headed out again and made the crossing across two channels and a protected reef to Lee Marvin Beach on the East side of Urupthapel island. This time I did a much better job of leading the boys around the worst sections and avoiding the pounding waves, which were the biggest I've ever seen on that reef. One of the guys though, not having enough fun with the previous crossing, slipped into the waves for a little more action, and was flipped end over end by a huge wave, but he was allright. So we made it to the beach and we were quietely satisfied to have made it through the toughest sections unscathed, with only a gentle paddle around the corner and through Nikko Bay awaiting us the following morning. I took a chance and slung my hammock in a little protected forest glade just around the corner from the summer house on Lee Marvin Beach (if you remember that's where we saw all of those lovely rats), and I was rewarded with my best sleep of the trip, being somewhat protected from the wind and snores which plagued the summerhouse.

As soon as the tide allowed the next morning, all the other guys took a short side paddle into Risong Bay, while I lazily decided to stick around the beach for a few hours more and relax. When the tide was high enough, I made my way around the corner to check out Blacktip Lake (where we also went) and spent a nice, silent half-hour looking for baby blacktips before the crew made it back and we headed out to paddle over to the entrance into Nikko Bay. Having made this particular trip many times before, I was expecting to be able to hug the coast the whole way and avoid dealing with any surf at all. From a distance, it looked like the waves were comparable in size to the previous day's, and I wasn't too worried about our abilities to deal with it. As I was pushed into it by the unceasing winds though, I realized that not only were the waves breaking right on the island, but they were pretty big too, and I was already caught up in them. I was doing fine, keeping my balance and heading out of the danger zone, when I spotted a big section of shallow rocks I was headed straight towards, and I tried to steer my way around it while still taking on every set of incoming wave. But once I realized that it was actually a huge mass of floating leaves, my boat had already turned sideways, and I was flipped. I had my boat all geared up to do some spearfishing along the way, so the anchor slid off and kept me in one place, making it difficult to get up and back into the boat and paddling again. To make it worse, my fishing line had come off and was getting tangled in the anchor line. The tie on my shorts had come undone and my shorts were about to go down to my ankles. My hat had come off and was floating temptingly close to me but not close enough. Trying to remedy all of these at the same time while dealing with oncoming waves coming every three seconds, I was pummeled and washed close to shore. I looked back to see two of my buddies, who were following me, in similar dire straights. One luckily righted his boat and made a well-timed, straight shot through the waves to the outside where two of the others had made it and were paddling along slowly in slightly calmer water, watching us. I realized I wasn't going to be able to do anything with such a mess of line and weights dangling from my boat, so I made my way into a narrow, rocky cove where I was able to pull my boat up and sort out my tangles. Five minutes later my buddy, named Julian and dazed-looking, made his way through a hole in the rock next to the cove, and pulled his boat up next to mine. Five minutes after that, my buddy Angus paddled his way not 20 ft. in front of the cove and flipped, and after we yelled at him he washed into the cove to join us. As we brought our boats further and further up to the edge of the cove, which was bordered by a sheer cliff 70 ft. high, we realized that as the tide was coming up, the waves were just getting bigger and breaking closer to shore.

After we had rested for 10 minutes, I proposed that we just go for it and head straight out over the waves to make it out of the reef where our friends were probably waiting. Angus and Julian looked at each other and asked each other if they would go. Both said no. I figured I would try anyway, and I did, but with the waves breaking inside the cove now it was extremely difficult to even get in the kayak before the wave would crash in and knock it and me sideways. I tried in vain for another 5 minutes and then gave up momentarily. The three of us tied our boats together and then to an old, gnarled tree on the edge of the cliff, and sat down to stare at the waves and let our situation sink in a bit. We knew that with the tide still coming up, we wouldn't have much of a chance of making it out of the cove until high tide had passed and gone out for maybe an hour. We figured we had at least two hours two wait, and it was already 4 o'clock. The prospect of paddling out of there into those big waves in the fading light didn't seem very comforting. So we waited, sitting there on a pile of receding cobbestones as the tide kept coming in, transfixed at times by the huge waves crashing into the cove and exploding on the rock outcrops bordering the cove. I'm sure all of us were imagining what could happen to us if we flipped too close to those rocks and had a wave wash underneath the overhangs and both sides of us. But, not wanting to take the situation too seriously, we cracked jokes and skipped stones, and gave thanks that the three of us had ended up in the same spot. And then, luckily, a boat cruised by along the outer reef edge, and we could make out one of our friends riding on the back, waving to us. Then the boat was gone, and we kept waiting for the tide to go down, but it only seemed to keep coming in, the waves getting bigger and bigger. And we wondered what had happened to our other friends, and we hoped that they had all made it o.k. to NIkko and not gotten overwhelmed by the reef crossing there. And then we were saved....by Tarzan.

We saw a boat pull up outside of the break near us, and we realized it was a boat from Sam's, and Ron was on it, scoping the situation. We waved at him and gave him the o.k. sign, and then he put a mask on and jumped into the heaving swells with no shirt, and no fins, no booties. It didn't take him long to swim in with the surf, but he was careful to aim himself into the cove and not into one of the rocks, and it was lucky the tide was high, because the swells were bringing him in right on top of some big coral heads, which he told us later were only a few inches from his chest. So he swam into the cove and immediately took control of the situation. We had to untie the boats and move them even higher up. We had to empty them out of everything waterlogged or heavy, and drain any water that had gotten inside during our previous struggles with the waves. We had one "easy" way out of the cove, and that was to paddle straight out, just as I had thought, but where I had gone wrong was in the methodology of launching. Without all of the weight in my boat, I was a lot lighter, and my boat traveled straighter. I was chosen to be the first to try the way out, and they all helped me bring my boat into the surge. Ron was holding the front and Angus the back. If I were to flip, Ron instructed me to ditch the boat and swim straight for the rescue boat outside the reef. His plan was to watch and see how I did, and then swim out and help me get to the boat if I flipped. I was ready, and after a small wave passed, I jumped into the kayak, only to be knocked backwards and sideways out of it by the first wave that came after. Ron was still holding onto the boat, so I jumped back in. He gave me a strong shove, and I started paddling like hell straight into the waves. The first three were high enough to go over my head, but I just went straight through them and kept going. Then I saw the last wave coming towards me and I knew it was going to be a really big one. I figured my chances were fifty fifty of going over it or of being flipped backwards. But I didn't hesitate. I kept going straight into it, and to my relief I launched over the top with a fine spray of salty water and down the back side, to the cheers of the guys in the boat waiting to pick me up in the deep rolling waters of the outer reef.

It was the same routine for Angus, who went next, but got luckier with his waves, which were smaller. He almost lost it at one point though when he didn't keep his boat straight enough, and later Ron called him the luckiest guy on earth. Julian, being a stronger swimmer than kayaker, decided to swim for the boat and let Ron take his kayak out last. They were both pretty lucky with their sets, and pretty soon we were all on the boat smiling, shaking hands, and patting each other on the back. Much to our amazement, Ron was very pleased with the outcome (we thought he'd be pissed), because we made good, safe decisions and didn't loose our boats or paddles. He told us he would've made the same decisions we did, and went on to tell us several stories about times when he went through rough situations and came out humbled with more respect for the sea. I defintely learned a few things, of which the top was learning to pack my boat better. We were really lucky to come out of the situation stoked and happy, and the only downside of the whole trip was that four of us (including me) lost our snorkeling sets to the ocean, and I got a mild case of poison tree rash. Ron was cool enough to buy us a round of beer when we got back, and I was left deeply impressed with how he handled the whole situation. I'm still slowly recovering from my poison tree, my lack of sleep, a wide assortment of small cuts and bruises on my hands and feet, and the excitement of the wild ending to our trip. Now I just have to go look for a new mask and snorkel so that I can work tomorrow. And maybe take a nap....