The House

The Darien is purported to have one of the highest incidences of earthquakes in the world. It is here that the North and South American plates converge, as well as the Atlantic and Pacific plates. The movement from the four plates causes regular seismic activity. We had noticeable quakes about once a month, and every few months something would hit us that was like a land wave. The earthquakes from my childhood in Southern California were nothing like this. This was an actual visible wave going across the land. You could see it coming from a distance, and when it hit, it was like being hit by a wave, a large jolt and loud boom, and then you would watch as it would head off in the opposite direction that it came from. It was especially noticeable when the wave moved across a river as you could see the water rolling as it was being pushed by the earth.
We cleared out a good-sized area (approximately an acre) and built a main house out of wood about five feet off the ground on stilts. The house had a screened front porch which overlooked the river. Built into the far side of the porch was a wooden picnic bench-style table. From the porch you walked into the living room which had the kitchen off to the left side. A small bathroom, with only a toilet, came off the living room on the side opposite from the kitchen. There was no shower or sink, as we had no running water. We flushed the toilet with a bucket of river water poured directly into the toilet bowl. All waste flowed into a septic tank we had dug and enclosed in cement. A hallway ran from the living room to the back door, and on both sides of the hallway were bedrooms. The beds were all single beds and had mosquito nets draped over them. All of the interior walls were built from peeled cana blanca (white cane). The structure was built for its practical functionality, not for elegance.
About 15 feet behind the main house was the animal house, also raised about 5 feet. This structure was built with cana blanca walls, and had a thatched roof. Inside were large flight cages for birds and a small front room for wooden reptile cages. The floors of the flight cages were made from wire mesh. The bird droppings would fall right through to the ground below. We never had to clean up after them because the mess would be washed away with the high tides. A wooden bridge ran the fifteen feet from the back door of the main house to the front door of the animal house.
After we got Juan on board we let him choose who else would be hired to build the house. He also directed all of the construction and arranged for the purchase of the construction materials. Politically, this assured that we were connected with the right people in the El Real area, and that we were spending our money at the right places.
We also hired on Diego, a light skinned Colombian from Cali, who lived at the house and took care of the animals. He also taught us the ropes, and helped us to learn the correct way to do things in the Darien. He had lived in El Real a good portion of his adult life, but I must stress that his knowledge only extended to the etiquette involved in living with the Mestizos. Like the majority of the Mestizo inhabitants of the Darien he did not know much about the lives of the Chocó, nor did he care to learn anything about the Chocó as a people or their culture.
We were young and inexperienced and really were making everything up as we went along. For example, the materials we used to construct the animal house seemed like a good idea. They were lightweight, sturdy, allowed good ventilation, and cheap. There was only one minor problem; we found out the hard way that birds "eat" cana blanca! This problem reared its head when most of the first load of our birds escaped by eating through the cane.
The early days were difficult, as we had no running water and bathed in the muddy waters of the Rio Tuira. Even though we were well inland the river was still tidal. The river water rose and fell about eight feet each day in front of our house. On the Pacific Ocean, the tides can have up to a 17 foot difference from high tide to low tide. At low tide you could see sand bars, rocks and old tree stumps emerge in various places in the river. At high tide the water would come almost up to the base of the main house. At high tide during the rainy season, the water came up under the house and you tied the dugout canoe right up to the front porch.
There were two kinds of "good eating" fish that we would catch in the river in front of the house. The first were large catfish, and the second (my favorite) were fresh-water sharks. The shark meat was more like a steak than a filet, and was soft and flaky and had no "fishy" smell or taste.
Bathing in the river was always an adventure in itself. The water was so muddy with tidal silt that you couldn't see your hand when you held it just under the surface of the water. The river had many other animals in it besides us. When two of my sisters visited, and bathed in the river, a local boy pulled a small alligator out of the river right near where they were bathing. One of my sisters told me that when she got back to a "real hotel" in Panama City after visiting the Darien, the first thing she did when she went into her hotel room, was to go into the bathroom and kiss the sink!
There are two seasons in the Darien, the rainy season and the dry season. The difference between the two is that during the dry season (December to April) it rained almost every afternoon for a couple of hours. During the rainy season it rained all the time. During the rainy season there was so much moisture in the air that nothing ever seemed to heal. Cuts and minor abrasions never quite seemed to form a solid scab. We ended up getting a special ointment that promoted the drying up and healing process.
The rain would fall in sheets, and the sound in the main house, with the tin roof, would be so deafening that you could not be heard by a person sitting next to you. Then, the rain would stop as suddenly as it had appeared, and when you went outside it was if life had been renewed. Everything was fresh; the air, the trees and the birds singing all around you.
The rivers were easier to navigate during the rainy season because they always had a lot of water and were more easily passable. You didn't have the problems with logs, rocks and sand banks that you had in the dry season. There were smaller side rivers that you couldn't pass in the dry season, but were easily passable in the rainy season.
We had no electrical power at the house. Think about that! No air conditioning in the middle of a very hot and humid jungle, no refrigeration, no lights, no television, etc. When I recount the story to people this is where they find it all so hard to relate.
I became accustomed to a way of life where these modern conveniences were of no necessity. I went to bed every night shortly after the sun went down to a soft, quiet symphony with the background sounds of insects and night birds. I woke up every morning as the sun cast its first rays, to the music of parrots, softly cackling while they fed in the platano fields across the river, a woodpecker working on a close by tree, and the smaller birds chirping and singing; all welcoming the new morning.