Panama: Embera Indigenous village

Day 3 Jungle Expedition 

One of the greatest outdoor adventures of my life happened unexpectedly on a simple jungle hike through the Panamanian Jungle led by a small, muscular indigenous guide in a bright orange beaded loincloth. Without question, a must to fully experience Panama is a trip to the Embera Indigenous village. This will be an all-day excursion, including being wet regardless of cloud cover. I recommend bringing a rain jacket, wearing slick shorts (not something that will soak up water), good tennis shoes, or hiking boots.

Why all of this? How else do you get to an indigenous village hidden by the rainforest through dug-out canoes and jungle trails? When you make it to the pickup site, you will be greeted by big smiles, slightly distracting from the previously mentioned scant, elaborately beaded loincloths worn by your tour guides. Most young men are eager to speak to guests and know enough Spanish to get by. Even the less fortunate, non-Spanish speaking guests, like myself, can communicate with a few Spanish words mixed with charades.

If you have not felt small before, being tucked into a dug-out canon, slowly winding through the ever-curving meanders of the Chagres River, will ensure that experience. The jungle seems untamed from the boat and dense enough to hide anything beyond the wall of green. There is truly nothing like being in a wild jungle. It takes your breath away to see nature so enveloped, with so many plants and animals coexisting. 

 The highlight before arriving at the village is a detour to visit roaring waterfalls. The journey there is what calls for those hiking boots; let’s just say this is the road less traveled. While the majority of the path is clear and continually walked, you may find yourself ribcage deep in a torrent of water as you and the rest of your party form human chains across the turbulent river. This was the case for my TCU group last fall. While on the “bumpy” but clear path, we had to travel over a shallow part of the river to get to the other bolder-less side. After that, everything changed. We pushed forward until we reached the waterfalls, treading through hip-deep water here and there as we held on or reached out for one another. We knew it was slightly dangerous, but it didn’t seem like anything we could not handle.

After taking a few quick pictures to document our grand achievement in front of the waterfalls, heading back, we realized the path we had traveled was no longer an option. The situation had dramatically changed, and we were unsure we could “handle it.” As we pushed forward, the water behind us continued to rise. As we looked back toward our canons, an hour or more hike, we found ourselves threatened by a flash flood. Two more students and I searched with our guide for a “graspable way out.” After 20 minutes or so of searching and strategizing, we slowly sent out the strongest male students into the river as anchors as the rest (and the majority) of the female students were sent across and “caught” and then “thrown” until they reached the guide on the other side and pushed up onto the bank. This was repeated several times at different crossing points. At one time or another, everyone in the party was swept under by the current and spit up downstream. Many cameras were lost, but everyone was fine. Thankfully, my long, gangly arms gave my camera just enough length to stay above water as my feet were swept away and my head went under... a time or two.      

Of course, your jungle adventure to these falls is far more likely to be absent of flash floods and human bridges, but it will still be an adventure. The waterfalls are incredible. These are the types of places you can feel gleeful about visiting because of their rareness and beauty.

Back into the boats, hopeful of no rain but sunny skies, relax, and you are about to have the best fish of your life. Of course, I am talking about corvine (sea bass). When you climb up the wooden staircase towards the village, you will see most of the “natural, typical” livelihoods of these people cleaning their homes, chatting outside doorways, etc. Once you reach the inner part of the village, you are being entertained and, therefore, likely seeing a wishful rendition of their lives. Before “the show’ begins, you will be treated to a traditional meal. From Panama City to the Embera Village, that means fried corvine and fried plantains. I consumed this meal at least once daily on this trip, but both dishes in this village seemed like a four-star dinner. It was the best fish I may have ever eaten (with my hands) and undoubtedly the best plantains I had ever eaten. It is all served on a wooden plate after watching the cooks quickly fry it.

With a full stomach, the introduction of the tribe can now begin. For the rest of the afternoon the chief, his/her family, and other important elders will greet you and fill your heads with stories. Do not be afraid to ask them questions, with three geography professors in their village they found themselves talking about everything from acculturation with the city dwellers, youth issues dealing with globalization, and even gossip about the resident Peace Corp representative teaching the village school.

There are numerous souvenirs hand-made by the women for sale. They are displayed in booths like an American antique shop, with each stall having similar but unique gifts. The day ends with dances performed by the youth, and then, if you are brave enough, you are welcome to join in the fun! Its vacation! Don’t hold back. While this may not have been the most authentic routine for these people, at some point, you have to let go of your conflicted globalization banters in your head and simply know that today, for these types of places to stay connected to their traditions is through some kind of tourism to economically support them. I think this group of people seems to be dealing and balancing their traditional lives with outside interaction very well.

When the boat arrives back at your bus, you will feel like you have been on vacation for a week. The day is filled with so many memories for me, I honestly can’t wait tell I have a family of my own and can (hopefully) take them on this journey. 

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I want my students to THINK!

Making Big Connections: Geography Assignment 
 
As a geographer, I see how everything connects. From the way the natural landscape molds the way we live to the way anti-immigrant policies in France impact the EURO, I seek to understand the networks. This is my number one objective while teaching World Regional Geography: for students to critically think about what they learn, read, and hear and ask themselves how it connects to other phenomena. 


I strive to achieve this not only by continually keeping discussions open about the topics we cover in class and asking, “What will the result be,” but also with the three mandatory assignments for the semester. I am continually collecting academic articles, editorial stories, and news stories about current topics in the world regions we cover in my class. Examples include “The Flight of Japan’s Immigrants” from Bloomberg BusinessWeek April 25-May 1, 2011; “Investigations: Africa’s Elephants” from The Informer 2011; and “Is the EU taking its over-fishing Habits to West African Waters” by John Vidal in The Guardian.  I have at least 11 articles for each of the nine world regions I teach. The AAG Smart Brief is a fantastic resource for these types of articles.

Students can choose to pick three articles to write individual responses to. The three responses must be from different regions, and each region’s response due date corresponds with the second day of the lecture related to that region. This is in hopes that students will share what they read with the class and relate it to the class material. Essentially, three times in the semester, every student will have something concrete and interesting to share and relate to the class that only one or two other students will also know (because of the multiple due dates and a large variety of articles).

But the response itself is where I am pushing students to do something they rarely do these days in college, much less in the liberal arts: critical thinking. Summarizing and interpretation are the typical requests for these types of assignments, but not here. I give students the benefit of the doubt that they can summarize a 1000-word article. What I do not expect them to do, at first, is to “find” a multidisciplinary interrelationship. What in the world do I mean by that? 

An example is probably best here; after reading the article “The Year of the Dragon” in Bloomberg BusinessWeek that does not mention migration, urban change, or cultural tensions, this student wrote this paragraph showing the reader a multidisciplinary interrelationship between the article material and the ethnic tensions in China learned about in class. 
 
 “As family size in China increases, due to the Year of the Dragon, parents will predictably seek more income and larger homes.  At some point, affordable urban housing will become scarcer and more expensive because of the increase in demand. The Year of the Dragon will contribute to China’s already overly crowded eastern cities, which could lead to a steady urban-to-rural migration of middle and upper-income families. This would contrast with the massive rural-to-urban migration by poor Chinese.  Specifically, people might move to the western part of China, which is less crowded and developed, resembling a “go west” mentality in the US. One of the negative outcomes of this change in migration could be an increase in cultural problems with ethnic minorities, such as tensions between Han Chinese and both the Tibetans and Muslims in the western part of China. This may lead to a major conflict between China's coastal and western parts.”

The actual core directions are: Examine at least one multidisciplinary interrelationship (political, economic, geopolitical, military, social, ethnic, etc.) that relates to the article. For example, an essay on Russian weapons sales to Iran can consider the interrelationships from (1) its geopolitical consequences to the US and/or (2) the benefits to the Russian economy (explain to me how this relates to different countries/regions of the world). This information is not in the article, after reading the article I want you to ask yourself, “what does that mean for the people, cities, region, neighborhood, or country in the article or those not mentioned?” Once you latch on to an idea of what will change on the ground due to what you just read, ask yourself more detailed (small-scale) questions. For example, how will this affect family size, cultural exchange, globalization, tourism, food prices, migration patterns, acculturation, homogenized markets,  local or regional health, city layouts, population patterns, and so on? You will be on the right track when you start to answer these questions. Show me you can think geographically.

For the first time in the semester, when my Dropbox fills with student responses on various topics with different connections, I prepare for a long week. This type of critical thinking activity asks students to sit back and take the time to explore with their minds what the implications of what they just learned might be “on the ground” is, unfortunately, minuscule in their college careers. For their first of the three responses, students almost always turn in a summary with a few predictions without any strong supportive reason; thus, I give excessive feedback and direction. I truly want students to “get it!” When I have a student make a big connection, and I can read their enthusiasm for their accomplishment, I am satisfied. By the third response, 90% of my students had knocked me off my socks! I think, “Wow, that is cool, that is absolutely possible!” Nothing is more exciting than a student unleashing their own exploratory thought process and coming up with something new and exciting.

I somewhat dread grading/commenting on the 1^st responses, but I get giddy to read their 3^rd responses! 

Check out that divergent boundary! 

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DCC Preliminaries Audition Advice

How to Arrive at Cowboys Stadium

The weather is unpredictable, but spring in Texas means moist mornings. The last thing you want to do is stand in line for over two hours in humid air and let your hair-sprayed hair; you woke up two hours early to curl and fall. I suggest arriving with your full makeup on and your hair nicely straightened or blow-dried. I say that because this is the only day you do not need to be “practicing” a routine, either DCC choreography or your own solo, once you get inside Texas Stadium. Therefore, you will have at least an hour of time to do nothing except "fluff & puff," i.e., curl your hair and even have help from all the other hopefuls. This means your hair will not look like it has too much product from having to do it twice. Many also arrive in curlers and don't take their hair down until inside, which is another way of avoiding doing it twice.

One way to get that perfect Texas Hair is to tease your roots (don’t overdo it) and then curl the bottoms. You want to curl AWAY from your face; this will give your hair lightness and help if stay curled throughout the day. Since I am not a talented teaser, my favorite product is the new hair-body boosting powder by Aveda. I lift an inch worth of hair from my natural part on both sides and sprinkle a line of the powder evenly. Then, gently run your fingers front to back to activate it. This will boost your hair and also help keep it dry and high.  Whatever makes you look best and stand out is the hairstyle you want to go with.

Remember, it is not about everyone else, it is only about you. Do not compare yourself, your hair, or your outfit to everyone else; it is only about what you do on the dance floor and how inspiring your smile is. You got this! 

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Tour of Panama: Casco Viejo & Casco Antiguo

Day Two!

Each day is packed, so wake-up calls are always at or before 8:30am. Without this early start, you will not be able to see all that Panama has to offer. To start the week, visit some less intensive tourist destinations first, starting with a tour of Casco Viejo, a World Heritage Site, and thus a treasure trove of history. Visiting this site will allow you to stand where all the goods and resources plundered by the Spanish past through on their way back to the motherland.  One of the most famous incidents of its history was the one that left it in ruins, the sacking and consequent fire led by Henry Morgan, the infamous pirate. The history and remaining fragmented buildings are not all this area offers. The entire area is now a place to experience the cultural mixing that takes place in the Caribbean and coastal areas of Central America, as geographers say, “the Rimland.”  

 

The area designated Casco Antiguo is distinguishable by its urban complexity. The tightly packed and varied buildings resemble the streets of New Orleans’ French Quarter. Hanging balconies with cascading tropical flowers complement the variety of colors of each building. Within every block, you can see French, Caribbean, Art Deco, Spanish, and other types of architecture. 

 

 One of the colonial legacies clearly depicted is the Plaza de la Independencia. The idea of the central plaza is a Spanish colonial legacy seen throughout Latin America. This particular square also contains the other frequent elements of a beautiful Catholic church, and at their time of central importance, government buildings and elite housing also line the plaza. 

 When you are facing the church, turn to your right, and at the corner there is a small restaurant. Inside, you will find only a few tables and an open kitchen to the right. Delight in this local culinary charm and have whatever they tell you to have, as there is no menu. But, as you will repeatedly read… have the Corvina! Or, as we know it, Sea Bass. It is served everywhere and was always incredible. 

 The wonderful restaurant with the wonderful Corvina!

Just stay if you cannot pull yourself away from the historic Spanish settlement and old colonial downtown. Walking the streets and looking down the alleyways, there is enough entertainment to fill any one’s day, watching women hanging up laundry and children paying alongside all the other daily activities of this community.

 

 If you are ready to move on it is time to visit the Canal. Even though the Panama Canal has two entrances, the visitors’ center’s locks, or Miraflores locks, get the most attention. This is the side you can visit today, based on its proximity to Panama City. Because these locks are the most visited expect lines and crowds, the museum is well worth it. 

Because this day you are staying close to Panama City take this as your opportunity to get dressed up and hit the town. My favorite nightlife area was Calle Uruguay, for a lack of a better word it’s “happening!”  This strip of new and eclectic restaurants and bars was fun to walk down, but the natural pull for me was the dancing. I love to dance socially, and salsa is second on my list. Venture down this street and let your adventurous side do the guiding.

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Tour of Panama: Bring Caution

In the Fall of 2011, I was fortunate enough to take students and two other professors to the vital country of Panama. The essential part between Panama and the United States through the construction and eventual release of the Panama Canal made for the perfect destination when evaluating the critical role the US plays in so much of Latin America’s past and present. 

Exploring everything between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Panama left us all, with an unbelievable trip, both in terms of education, cultural interaction, and adventure. This will be a recap of the trip, riddled with tips and commentary to intrigue your travel interests and hopefully benefit anyone planning a Panamanian experience. 

Day 1. When your plane starts to descend, have your cameras ready. You will be startled by the incredible sand bars that make for the ideal Caribbeanesque pictures. Still, the real spectacle is the uncountable number of tankers waiting in the wings for their turn to enter the Panama Canal.  Travel days are never the best; however, make the most of it. Once you get to your hotel, walk the streets to get a feel for the city. Often we forget the spaces in between the tourist destinations and forget to wonder among the actual hustle and bustle of foreign cities. Walk until you find an exciting restaurant and just go with it. This is usually the only day not planned, so take advantage of your freedom. 

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