The second day we spent in Alto Playon, Panama, was the best one of my short little life so far. We canoed down the river in a hollowed out tree canoe. We reached the shore and saw some of the natives bathing in the river. There was this one little girl with a cooking pot on her head. Precious. We went to the Embera village the day before and we were back now, just to visit. They had never seen running water, electricity, nothing. Most of them were Columbian refugees that had been driven out when the drug lords came in and raped the women and killed the men. So they came to Panama without visas, birth certificates, passports, no proof that they ever walked this earth. They still live in huts with banana leaf roofs that if you ask really nice, they'll teach you how to hold on to one roof and swing to the other "Como uno mono" or "Like a monkey." Then they'll laugh as the crazy white people (they had never seen white people) scream and hang 10 feet above the ground with one arm on each hut. When we reached the shore, a little girl was waiting for us. Her name was Sylviana and she took my hand and stayed beside me all day. At one point she went and got her baby sister for me to see. When she put the 4 year old in my arms, I knew something was wrong. The little girl had bees all over her and she wasn't strong enough to swat them away. You could tell she was sick. I stood there looking at her for so long, she never spoke, she never moved. She just looked at me with this look that I can still see so perfectly in my head. She knew she was dying. I knew she was dying. Even more, I knew there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I sat her down and she never moved on her own. She just looked at me, dead in the eyes, without hope. Without any chance of surviving. We couldn't get her to a hospital because the indians barely understood us. We were supposed to be on a mission to break the ice to these people and convince them that white people can help them--we couldn't start leaving with babies right away. So, for the next 5 hours, I sat there looking at her. I would put one little hand on my knee and she would leave it there until I moved it again. I washed her off and combed her hair. We forced her to drink gatorade and eat peanut butter crackers. I remember Ashley and Aundreya and me talking about helping her and making her better, all the time knowing that she was going to die. We didn't talk about it for weeks. I don't remember who said it or what they said but it was something along the lines of "that baby isn't alive is she?" We already knew the answer. We knew the answer to that when we were looking at her. Even as I'm sitting here writing this, I can remember exactly how she felt when I took her to her mother that last time.
I hope I never forget the way that baby looked. It brought everything in my entire life into perspective in that one instance. I'll never forget trying to "fix her" trying to make her bettter when the inevitable was just around the corner. I don't know if she lived through the night. I honestly doubt she did.
I can't believe I'll be back in 4 days.
God is good.
jg
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