CZM Rewind: We Are All Brothers: How the Emberá Community of Bajo Chiquito Welcomes Migrants in the Darién Gap

Summary

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It Could Happen Here: CZM Rewind: We Are All Brothers – How the Emberá Community of Bajo Chiquito Welcomes Migrants in the Darién Gap

Date: December 29, 2025 | Host: James Stout, reporting for Cool Zone Media

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the complex reality of migration in the Darién Gap—one of the world’s most dangerous migration corridors—through the lived experiences of the Indigenous Emberá community in Bajo Chiquito, Panama. James Stout provides an intimate look at how the village, long marginalized by the state, responds with resourcefulness and hospitality to the daily arrival of thousands of exhausted, desperate migrants en route to North America. Through on-the-ground interviews and personal reflection, the episode highlights the social, economic, and humanitarian dynamics at play, countering dominant media narratives and examining both the challenges and resilience found in Bajo Chiquito and neighboring Emberá villages.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Introduction to Migration in the Darién Gap

Timestamps: 02:11–05:15

• For the past two years, Bajo Chiquito’s population has tripled daily as migrants arrive, rest overnight, and continue their journey.
• Migrants approaching from the jungle arrive exhausted—many without money or supplies.
• The village’s economic and social infrastructure struggles to keep pace with the overwhelming human flow.

2. Initial Community Response & Institutional Gaps

Timestamps: 05:16–08:23

• Local Emberá initially welcomed migrants without charge but began asking for modest fees (about $5/night for a bed, same for a meal) as numbers swelled and resources stretched.

• “We saw how they arrived, injured, sick, with vomiting, diarrhea…We had to speak for the government. It wasn’t easy. We told them that we needed a doctor. And finally, now, thank God, we have doctors here.” – Embera Community Member (05:16)

• The community built homes for doctors and migration officials, yet basic infrastructure (roads, electricity) remains absent.

3. Risks Facing Migrants in the Region

Timestamps: 08:23–12:03

• The river journey is perilous; sudden storms can transform safe beaches into deadly rapids. Recent disasters have seen sleeping migrants swept away.
• Violence is a grave issue: “In every country there are criminals…there are some young men who engage in robbery and even rape.” – Embera Community Member (07:15)
• Authorities blocked safer travel options, exposing migrants to more danger.

4. Community Leadership and Support Systems

Timestamps: 08:56–11:56

• The current village leader—the first woman in her comarca to hold the position—has focused on empowering women and implementing systematic procedures for arriving migrants.
  • “Since I’ve had my administration...I have put some women to work. They are waiting for the migrants there.” – Village Leader (09:25)
• Migrants are checked for criminal records, then given access to free essentials (toilets, camp areas) and options for paid lodging or comfort upgrades.
• The community, not the state, funds three free daily boats for those who can't pay (especially women and children).

5. State Absence and Grassroots Governance

Timestamps: 12:03–13:46

• State presence is minimal: the only government activity is migrant registration at the official camp; all welfare falls to the Emberá or NGOs.
• Lack of state investment is an old problem, persisting before mass migration.

6. Comparison with Neighboring Emberá Villages

Timestamps: 16:28–20:48

• Stout contrasts life in Bajo Chiquito with Maraganti—another Emberá village less affected by migration but similar in communal ethos and limited state services.
• In Maraganti, open doors, communal child-rearing, and informal play stand in sharp contrast to more individualistic, anxious norms elsewhere.

7. Culture and Identity Amid Change

Timestamps: 20:48–22:34

• Despite outside perceptions, locals insist migration has not eroded their culture; any changes are attributed to education, not transient populations.
  • “Let this be clear, that is not because the migrants came here.” – Village Leader (21:27)
• The migration experience resonates with the community's own stories of mobility; they view migrants as fellow humans facing hardship, not outsiders.
  • “The journey that the immigrants make is out of need…it doesn’t affect us having them within our community, because they are. They’re people, they’re humans.” – Embera Community Member (22:34)

8. Historical Context of the Darién Gap

Timestamps: 23:21–28:33

• The region has long been a crossroads of migration—dating back to Spanish colonization and, even earlier, as a pre-Columbian trade route.
• The treacherous geography of the Gap, its historical resistance to colonization, and the enduring resilience of the Emberá people are woven into the narrative.
• The area's difficult environment has repeatedly thwarted outside infrastructure ambitions, from canal schemes to road projects.

9. Economic Impacts for the Emberá

Timestamps: 31:29–33:40

• Migration has become a multi-village industry: on busy days, nearly a thousand migrants may pass through, each spending $25+ each on transport, food, and lodging.
• Economic gains have led to improvements in housing, occasional satellite internet access, and other incremental quality-of-life gains.
• Not all communities wish to emulate Bajo Chiquito’s approach; some prefer to shelter migrants outside town to maintain community tranquility.

10. Community Justice and Safety

Timestamps: 34:59–35:13

• The Emberá rely on traditional mechanisms—like stocks (public shaming/restraint)—to address petty crime and misconduct within the community.
  • “Three days ago, someone behaved very badly and we had to put them in the stocks. The man who mistreats women, we also put in the stocks. The woman who gossips, we also put her in the stocks.” – Village Leader (34:59)
• Major threats (robbery, assault) in the jungle remain unaddressed due to lack of state enforcement; NGOs eventually re-admitted after advocacy over migrant violence.

11. Final Reflections: Shared Humanity and Hospitality

Timestamps: 38:30–39:09

• The Emberá view migration through a lens of empathy and shared experience.
  • “This is a belief that we have. We are all children of God. God made the world and humanity, and we are not that different. We are all brothers.” – Embera Community Member (38:30)
• Despite centuries of marginalization and outside misunderstanding, the people of Bajo Chiquito embody a profound ethic of welcome and mutual aid.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On initial response to migrants:
  “We saw how they arrived, injured, sick...We had to speak for the government. It wasn’t easy. We told them that we needed a doctor. And finally, now, thank God, we have doctors here.” – Embera Community Member (05:16)
• On risks and violence along the route:
  “...there are some certain young men who engage in robbery and even rape.” – Embera Community Member (07:15)
• On supporting the vulnerable:
  “The community takes responsibility for sending them, not the state.” – Village Leader (11:12)
• On migration and identity:
  “The journey that the immigrants make is out of need…it doesn’t affect us having them within our community, because they are. They’re people, they’re humans.” – Embera Community Member (22:34)
• On economics and change:
  “At a conservative estimate that’s a little more than $33,000 per day, roughly the GDP per capita of Panama. That’s a lot of money down here, especially for community which has been alienated and exploited for so long.” – James (31:46)
• On justice in the community:
  “The man who mistreats women, we also put in the stocks. The woman who gossips, we also put her in the stocks.” – Village Leader (34:59)
• On the wider lesson:
  “We are all children of God. God made the world and humanity, and we are not that different. We are all brothers.” – Embera Community Member (38:30)

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Suggested Listening Timestamps for Important Segments

• Intro & Context: 02:11–05:16
• Response to Migrants & Resource Gaps: 05:16–08:23
• Risks & Dangers: 08:23–12:03
• Leader’s Perspective – Organizing and Gender Progress: 08:56–11:56
• Community Autonomy & State Failure: 12:03–13:46
• Maraganti Comparison – Lifestyle Reflection: 16:28–20:48
• Cultural Resilience: 20:48–22:34
• Historical Context of Migration: 23:21–28:33
• Economics of Migration: 31:29–33:40
• Justice & Security Mechanisms: 34:59–35:13
• Empathy & Closing Reflections: 38:30–39:09

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Tone and Atmosphere

James maintains a reporting style that's sincere, observant, and deeply empathetic—blending journalistic objectivity with moments of personal reflection and warmth for the communities he visits. He plainly acknowledges hardships and violence without sensationalizing, giving a voice to community leaders and long-term residents while challenging stereotypes and simplistic crisis narratives.

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Summary

This episode offers an immersive exploration of the ongoing migration crisis in the Darién Gap from the perspective of the Emberá of Bajo Chiquito. Through firsthand accounts, the listener learns of the ingenuity, resilience, and hospitality that the community brings to bear—despite deep-seated neglect from the Panamanian state. The episode underscores a central truth: in a world increasingly divided on questions of borders and belonging, some of those with least power have most fully embraced the radical ethic that “we are all brothers.”

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Transcript

[James]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Embera Community Member]

Were you?

[High Key Podcast Host]

I had. I was amazing and I was better than you would be if you went. This is exactly why Bob is a good drag queen, because she won't back down. She's not gonna go double back on that lie. I felt like you came in real hot, real strong, and that is just not the game, girl. Yeah, I'm gonna tell you why you're wrong. And I can't wait to do this. Please listen to High Key on the iHeartra app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[James]

This is when mindset comes in.

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[Bajo Chiquito Village Leader]

Media.

[James]

Hi everyone, it's me, James. And before we listen to this episode today, I just did want to make you aware that I conducted these interviews in French and Spanish, mostly Spanish, and then transcribed and translated them. So what you're hearing is a translated interview that's been edited for brevity and content. Hope you enjoy the episode. Every day for the past two years, the population of Bajo Chiquito has more than tripled at 6 in the morning, Paraguas come from Aduembra villages along the river, dozens of them, all filled with orange life jackets. Migrants form a line so long that it stretches from the beach north of town all the way through the village and out the other side. And in groups of 15, they hand over their $25 each and get onto the piraguas. Each one puts on their bright orange life jacket, sits with their legs around the person in front, and they take off for the first official migrant reception center in Las Blancas. As the last boat leaves, those who can't afford the trip begin a walk, which could take eight hours. I couldn't walk with them, but I handed the group my water filter and one of those overpriced energy bars that are basically trail mix in a rectangular format and wish them the best of luck. As they forced their tired legs and sore feet to walk again. The population of Bajajiquito dropped back to the 500 or so Indigenous people who live here, and the usual background noise of chatter in dozens of languages gave way to crowing chickens and barking dogs. By the next morning, as migrants came walking in from the south, it would grow again to 1500. For the last 10 years or so, fewer than 2000 people crossed in a year. But numbers have been steadily increasing, and now the residents of Baja Chiquito see the numbers that they saw in a year. In a single weekend, while you listen to this series, thousands of people will take their lives into their hands as they leap into mud colored rivers, ascend towering mountains in the pouring rain, and desperately fight the urge to drink from a river polluted with human waste and decaying corpses. All of those who survive will walk out of that jungle, up the riverbank, along a muddy path and into Bajo Chiquito, where they'll buy themselves a cold drink and enjoy the hospitality of the locals for a night before leaving to head north. At first, the locals told me they didn't charge people at all. They were shocked to see the migrants and wanted to help them. But as numbers grew, they had to start asking for money as they couldn't afford to feed and house all the migrants arriving. Over time, they said, the costs rose, and now a bed costs about $5 for a night and a meal's about the same. As they pointed out, that's less than half what I paid in Metatee, the nearest town, and Metatee doesn't have to haul its supplies up a river in a canoe using $7 per gallon fuel. In Bajajiguito, I sat down with an older man whose front room I just had lunch in. I wanted to get a sense of the change he'd seen over his lifetime in his community and how he felt about it.

[Embera Community Member]

We saw how they arrived, injured, sick, with vomiting, diarrhea. Then there was no health care here. What did we do? We had to speak for the government. It wasn't easy. It was not easy. We told them that we needed a doctor. And finally, now, thank God, we have doctors here.

[James]

The community, which has long been socially and economically marginalized and acutely under provided with government services, had built a house themselves for the doctors and another house for migration officials. It was the only way to help migrants access services, which in turn allowed them to move on with their journeys quicker, he said. However, like almost every other Mbara person I spoke with, he felt that the government should be doing more here. Even after all these years serving as the first Panamanian village, many thousands of people enter every year. They still don't have electricity or a road that's accessible year round, both of which would make their lives and the transit of the migrants much safer. But that doesn't mean the state's totally absent here. It used to be possible for migrants to take a piragua from come Gallina a little further south upriver and avoid some of the most dangerous river crossings. Bonillo told me that authorities in the comarca, which is like a state in the usa, have prohibited this. I wanted to see more of what was going on further south and what made it so dangerous. But I wasn't permitted to join a center front patrol going out that way, despite my request. I asked Bonillo what made things more dangerous in that part of the river first. He explained that the wide and low lying beaches often seemed like good points for migrants to sleep, but that any rain in the mountains above would result in a rapid increase of the water level, turning those beaches into rapids in minutes. He told me, looking down at the table, that not so long ago a storm had washed away sleeping migrants, drowning them in their sleep and washing their remains towards his village. But terrible as it is, that isn't the only risk.

[Embera Community Member]

You know very well that there is not a single country that does not have criminals. In every country there are criminals.

[James]

Yeah.

[Embera Community Member]

So what happens at that point in the river? As I was saying at that point, and clearly it is not everyone, but there are some certain young men who engage in robbery and even rape. So that's why in this community, in this village, in coordination with the community and the leaders, we, while the leader spoke to the national government to ask for a chance to transport people from Komegaina so that nothing would happen to them. The government talked and talked, and for a while it was possible and it was safe and nobody died, nobody robbed. It was all going well. But what happened? We have a leader, Akasique. I don't know if you've heard about it, but the regional leader, he put a barrier, he stopped it. Look, to be honest, these people with their degrees, this class of person, they're not humanitarians.

[James]

Despite the struggles and the relative absence of the government, overall, he felt that the migration had been a positive for his community. He'd learned a lot from the migrants, he said, and enjoyed learning about their cuisines in particular. There's a common narrative in media that mentions Bajo Chiquito, that this village has been somehow stripped of its culture or ruined by migration. But the locals don't seem to agree with this. I also spoke to the village's leader. She's the first woman in the whole comarca to hold such a position.

[Bajo Chiquito Village Leader]

I'm chief of the community, police and leader of the community.

[James]

She explained to me that Baojiquito was just one of several communities along the river, each with its own leader. Those leaders meet in the council and answer to a cacique of the comarca. She also explained that as the first woman in the position, she'd made sure to advance the cause of women in her community.

[Bajo Chiquito Village Leader]

Since I've had my administration, which has been seven months as noka or leader, I have put some women to work. They are waiting for the migrants there.

[James]

After that, I asked her to explain to listeners what exactly a migrant encounters when they first set foot in her village and the various steps that they might go through before leaving the next morning.

[Bajo Chiquito Village Leader]

There is a check in at first, verification of whether they have a crime in their country. From there they go to immigration, their documents are checked, and then they are free to choose where they're going to wait and rest for the next part of their journey. On behalf of unicef, we have free toilets from the community. We also have a free place where they can camp or rest. That's theirs now. If they want better things, better rest, they can find accommodation available in almost every house here. The next day, we prepare everything together with the centerfront security. We go to the beach there. And at the beach we also coordinate with a coordinator from each village. I also want to make it clear as well that the boat driver must have their ID and be of legal age.

[James]

From there, the migrants pay $25 a head and take the five hour boat trip north to La Ha Blancas, which is the UN and government run camp and the first official migrant welcome centre outside the Darien. Having boat drivers who are of age is important. Migrants who can't swim trust their lives to these boat drivers in high water. Once they're at Las Blancas, they're close to the Pan American highway and the beginning of the rest of their journey north. They don't have to walk any further unless they run out of money for buses. I asked what happened when someone couldn't afford the ride to Las Blancas.

[Bajo Chiquito Village Leader]

What does the community do? The community takes responsibility for sending them, not the state. The state migration center front. They don't pay for the fuel or the transport of these people.

[James]

Specifically, she told me, the community sends three free boats a day. Most of these are filled with women and children. And in my time there, it seemed that these people paid whatever they could. Those leftover, usually men, would have to make the walk on their blistered feet and tired legs and risk further sickness, robbery and heat exhaustion. I also wanted to ask Alida about the problems with theft and sexual assault that the migrants encountered on their walk into Bajo Chiquito. And she was pretty forthright that this was an issue for the state, not for her community to fix.

[Bajo Chiquito Village Leader]

But then where is center front? Aren't center fronts supposed to be on all the banks of the river? Yes. So where are those thefts?

[James]

Despite being able to prevent the Embraer from using their boats on their river to transport migrants, the government at any level above the village isn't really present in Bajo Chiquito Centre front. Panama's combined border patrol and military receive migrants and register them there. But all the services provided to the migrants come either from the Embera or from non governmental organizations. This pattern of the state failing to provide basic services, Bonille told me, is one that goes back a long time before the migrants began arriving here.

[Embera Community Member]

So now, before the migrants began arriving here, we had a town. A town that the government is supposed to give what it has to give us as Panamanians. But it doesn't. It was a town without anything. All we did was sell our products and sell stuff here. For us, we grow rice, corn, plantains, everything. Well, it was a lot. But products that we grow are not enough to get by.

[James]

Even Today, in late 2024, the village doesn't have mains electricity, nor does it have a connection to telephone networks or a road that it can take year round to connect it to the rest of the country, and the few clean water taps in the town come from UNICEF, not Panama City. Doctors here come from European NGOs, and even the policing of the community is largely done by the community via a group called the Zara. In an effort to better understand Nebera communities both with and without migrants, I wanted to visit another Embera village, and after the break, we'll hear about that.

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[James]

This is where mindset comes in.

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[James]

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[James (Narrator in Emberao Village)]

All right, so I'm just in my hammock now, kind of the end of the day. We we're staying in another Emberao village today. Just probably, I mean about it's a kilometer or two kilometers away, you know, probably a decent walk, but it was pretty fast in the just bits of little more peaceful here and boat driver asked us to stay at his house.

[James]

So we said we would.

[James (Narrator in Emberao Village)]

You can probably hear like I don't know how much of this is getting picked up.

[James]

It's a nice little village, you know.

[James (Narrator in Emberao Village)]

The I can wait till the dogs.

[James]

Have stopped, I guess. When I wasn't in Bajo Chiquito, I took a boat every evening to Maraganti. Maraganti is only a couple of kilometers away on a different branch of the river, but the walk might take hours through the thick jungle. Aperaguero had invited us to stay with his family and to see another emperor village. I'm always down to sleep outside, so I gladly accepted his invitation and slung my hammock across his front porch. After a long discussion on whether the dyneema cordage I was using would actually hold my weight and on my part, a probably ill advised free solo onto the roof of his house to find a good anchor point for my hammock. In my time in Marragante, I found myself growing fonder and fonder of this little community. Everyone's doors were open and the village's children enjoyed unsupervised playtime everywhere. There was never not a pickup game going on at the concrete football and basketball court, and despite the fact that they were on average several feet shorter than me and playing on concrete without shoes, local kids humiliated me at a wide variety of sports with no electricity other than generators, one WI fi connection in the whole village as far as I can tell, and a few hours to myself in the evening, I happily settled into a routine of washing in a river along with everyone else in the hour before sunset, walking around town chatting with the inhabitants who seemed surprised but happy to see a gangly British man ambling around their neighbourhood and petting their dogs. Once it got dark, I'd spend my evening sitting in my hammock as the grandchildren of our host asked me how to say various things in English. I played with the little toys I always bring along in case I run into children on my work trips. Being in Mariganti made me think a lot about my own life and the US in general. I certainly have a lot more possessions here, but my neighbors don't let their kids run around in the streets, and cars would hit them if they did. People in my community, if the Nextdoor app is anything to go by, spend seemingly countless hours bitching about the unhoused and other people's children. But here everyone had a roof over their heads and other people's children ran in and out of my host kitchen without anyone batting an eyelid. Aside from laughing at my paleness when I was washing in the river, nobody here seemed that concerned that I was different. They let me hold their babies while they cooked. They didn't overcharge me for the bottles of water or snacks that I bought from their front room convenience stores, or seemed that bothered about sharing their meals and their homes with me. At night we sat on tiny plastic chairs and talked about our shared interest in woodwork and what they wanted for their children. We talked about their boats and the river and about how terrible things must be for the migrants to risk their lives making the journey across these mountains at the Embera and their Guna neighbors call home. Ever since I left their village, I've been thinking a lot about the part of the dawn of Everything in which Graeber and Wengro detail how many indigenous people were adopted into colonial society but chose to return to their communities. However, settlers in indigenous communities often chose to remain among the indigenous communities. I don't wish to romanticise the very real struggles Yambara have with their economic marginalization and lack of access to basic services compared to other Panamanians. But I just want to reflect on the fact that there was something really special about the Little river community, where dogs and chickens and ducks woke me up in the morning. Little children welcomed me back every evening. They told me what they did at school, or tossed a little ball back and forth and seemed entirely comfortable chatting to an adult from across the world. The people of Bajaquito have shown that same hospitality to migrants and indeed to me, and so I wanted to ask the village leader how migration had changed her community. Like everyone else I spoke to, she insisted they had held on to important parts of their Culture, which he illustrated by giving me a history lesson.

[Bajo Chiquito Village Leader]

The town of Bajo Chiquito was founded in 1965. At first there were three families. The Vaporizo, the Rosales, the Chagos. They came here for education reasons. Before, everyone lived on their own. The education came and that is why we grew this town.

[James]

It was the education, she said, that had changed town, not the migrants. They have night school now for adults and a school for all the children. With seven teachers, the children speak embarrassment and Spanish and have a chance to get more education in Metate or even in Panama City.

[Bajo Chiquito Village Leader]

Yes, it's due to education, not because the migrants travel through here. Let this be clear, that is not because the migrants came here.

[James]

Clearly, though, the perception of change in their community is a concern. She told me that if a local woman marries what she called a Latino man, they can't live together in the village. And she wanted to make sure I knew that the children learn in embarrassment as well as Spanish. They also still knew dances and ceremonies, Bonillo told me. But some of the changes, she said, were positive, including one in gender relations.

[Bajo Chiquito Village Leader]

It's an ongoing struggle, I'll say that, to show that we women have the same capacity for thought and creativity as men. We are fighting every day and as you will see, it's not easy.

[James]

One thing that surprised me was that the amber out would always remind me that they themselves have been migrants. They migrated to Panama City sometimes, it's said, and they have little choice if they want post secondary education or higher level medical attention. Some of their kids even make the journey to the USA to study. What kind of hypocrites would they be, they said, if they looked down on people making the same journey?

[Embera Community Member]

I'm going to tell you that before the immigrants arrived here within this community, we lived in the same way. I mean, we came from the countryside, we worked in agriculture, and we still continue working in the agriculture stuff. Fishing, hunting, so on. We liked it a lot. Now, after the immigrants started to come, we are still the same. And it doesn't affect us having them within our community, because they are. They're people, they're humans. The journey that the immigrants make is out of need. It is a need. So really we too, for example, if we were to deal with problems like them, since we are just like them, we also have the right to emigrate as well.

[James]

This is not the first influx of migration into Embera guna land. In 1501, a wave of undocumented immigration from Spain in the form of settler colonial like Francisco Balboa arrived in the Guna and Embera territories. Ever since these Europeans first saw for themselves what the Embera already knew, this area was part of a narrow strip of land between two great oceans. People from around the world have been coming to what is now Panama as part of their journeys from north to south or east to west. The thin strip of land that joins the two American continents has been at the crossroads of the world for half a millennium. Archaeological digs in a region show that there were once roads and that gold and jade came here from afar. This rich civilization is one that Vasco Nunez de Balboa first encountered. And it was they who first told him that their land lay between two oceans. It was somewhere just to the south of where I was staying that exactly 511 years ago to the day, Balboa became the first European to set eyes upon the Pacific. Since Balboa, many other colonizers have come to Dalienne to pit their notions of superiority against the might of the rainforest. The Kingdom of Scotland sent a group of settlers here in the 17th century. Mounted aside, this isn't a place with any similarity to Scotland. And it's easy enough to see why. The plan failed. Killed three out of four colonists and essentially bankrupted an entire nation in two years, forcing it into a colonial relationship of its own with its neighbour to the south. After the Scots left, having failed to create what they'd hoped would be a quote Scottish Amsterdam of the Indies, and the Spanish found a flatter and easier connection between the Pacific and Caribbean, the Darien region returned to its indigenous people whose home it remains. But over the course of several hundred years, many empires have come to the daddy end to die. The French tried to build a sea level canal not so far from here, a canal without locks, but they ultimately failed. The US tried in the 1850s and 1870s to forge a route to build a canal to get east coast banks access to west coast gold, before eventually finding an easier route further north. A century later, the US and Panama openly discussed dropping nuclear bombs on the jungle to make it passable and to allow the construction of a road. The US offered to shoulder two thirds of the cost of building such a road and hoped to have the Pan American highway completed in time for its 1976 bicentennial. But the Gap's hostility in the growing environmental movement, as well as a desire to protect US livestock from the foot of mouth disease that's endemic in South America, won the day. The Gap remained a gap largely without the influence of the state in the 1970s, a British army expedition traversed to Dalian in two Range Rovers. Assisted by horses, parachute drop resupplies and a team of engineers, they crossed the jungle in 96 days. They had to make their own bug nets for their horses out of the parachutes that were used to drop corn cobs for the animals and rice for the humans. Expedition leader and seasoned explorer, as well as possibly the most British man in history, Lieutenant Colonel John Blashford Snell. Without doubt, it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Calling the Daddien a godforsaken place. The Daddy Inn is one of the wettest places on the planet. A particularly cruel twist for the would be colonisers from Scotland. In the months before I came here, I spent hours trying to work out how to waterproof my podcast equipment. And most of what you're hearing is recorded on a voice recorder that I sealed up with gasket maker shoved inside a condom, inside a dry bag, inside a pelican case. This rain causes flash flooding, the kind which sweeps whole villages away. The rivers in the Gap aren't bridge, largely because they simply wash away bridges after a storm. On our journey to Bajo Chiquito, I saw the remains of bridges that had dared to try. That's why my hosts built their houses on stilts. And it's on those stilts that I slung my hammock in Marragante. Ever since the failed Dalian scheme, the Gap has been constructed in the Western imagination as the deepest and darkest jungle. The Gap today is home to every type of malaria and numerous other diseases. There are deadly vipers, deadly spiders, big cats. And as if the natural threats were not enough, the US dropped bombs here in the Cold War to test its destructive might against one of the few areas of the planet that hadn't been made amenable to capitalism. Many of them remain unexploded in the mountains. Certainly the physical geography of the Dalian poses a challenge, but I would argue that's the imaginative geography of the Gap, which is a greater impediment to travelers. In Spanish, they call it the tapon, the stopper. Local legend has it that a Spanish conquistador, one of the first to take his last breaths in the waters of Darien's rivers, carved a phrase into the rock, which is endured long after he expired. When you go to the Darien, entrust yourself to Mary, for in her hands is the entrance and in guards the exit. It doesn't sound that different to the things I heard from migrants. And in the modern day. They'll tell you about the horrific tik toks they saw before they entered the Gap, and the decaying remains of fellow travelers they saw as they passed through. Media reports on the Gap consistently refer to it as a no man's land, but of course it's very much someone's land, the land of the indigenous people who have been here long before countries, borders or reporters. While it may have remained hostile to capitalism in the state, and it can be deadly for unexperienced travelers, it's supported life for thousands of years. On our way to Bajo Chiquito, I was reminded of just how comfortable my hosts were in a place where I felt so out of place.

[James (Narrator in Emberao Village)]

So as we were coming, we got caught in a huge rainstorm, just absolutely, absolutely bucketing it down suddenly, and pulled.

[James]

In to a little sort of just.

[James (Narrator in Emberao Village)]

A flat area of mud really. I hopped out, tied up the boat, and next thing I know, our boat guy just ran into jungle, chopped some huge palm leaves down and brought them back to me to cover me in my bag.

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[James]

Pressure is coming down.

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[James]

While the Embraer might have preserved their comfort and culture, it's undeniable that migration has made a huge economic impact. 959 migrants left Bajo Chiguito on one of the days I was able to get numbers from Sennafront. Each of them paid $25 for piragua.

[James (Narrator in Emberao Village)]

About 10 bucks for food and lodging.

[James]

And maybe Wi Fi, perhaps a few bucks more for clean clothes or a pair of off brand crocs to let their feet heal from three days being constantly wet and blistered. At a conservative estimate that's a little more than 33,000 per day, roughly the GDP per capita of Panama. That's a lot of money down here, especially for community which has been alienated and exploited for so long. Using this money, people have enclosed the bottom floors of their homes to provide more space to house migrants. All around the village they're building better homes. Some of them have satellite Internet now or Starlink or bigger and more reliable generators. This money has been spread around the Anbara communities in the area and every morning each of them sends peraguas to transport the migrants as almost 60 are needed every day. Rolling out of Malaganti at 5 in the morning as almost the entire adult male population of the village joined us in a huge flotilla of two stroke smoke and dugout canoes and the morning mist still sat in the river was an incredible experience and this is doubtless an industry for the whole area Now. If Molino or Mallorcas ever successfully stops migration here, it will be a massive economic detriment to the people already marginalized for centuries. But despite the economic benefits, the people of Maraganti don't seem to want to become like Bajo Chiquito. On our last day there, as we set off back towards the dirt roads that brought us here, we saw that they were building little cabins outside of town. These, they said, were for the migrants. They wanted the migrants to be safe and their community to stay the same. They might not be able to sell meals to the migrants this way, or charge them for WI fi or phone charging, but they will be able to live a little more peacefully. The embarrass have gone out of their way to ensure migrant safety. They're the ones who mandate life jackets and the ones who build a house for doctors. They're the ones who send free boats for women and children. Of course they have an economic incentive to do this, but in nearly a week living with them, I didn't hear them bad mouth the migrants, and nor did I hear the migrants complain about the way they were treated in the village of Bajo Chuquito. But before they get to the village of Bajo Chiquito, migrants aren't safe. And if you ask them, they'll tell you it's indigenous people who are robbing and threatening them deeper into the jungle. Undoubtedly, robbery, sexual assault and murder are not uncommon in the Dalian Gap. You can hear anecdotes of these on a daily basis in Bajo Chiquito. And some of the stories I heard and things I saw are among the most horrific experiences I've had in years of reporting on pretty terrible things. I haven't included a great many of them here because I think it's hard for people to meaningfully consent in those kinds of circumstances. But yesterday you heard about the human remains that almost everyone featured in this series had to walk past. This is a problem that's getting worse, not better. In just one week in February, Medecin Sans Frontieres, the NGO that Americans call Doctors without borders, treated 113 people, including nine children, after they were sexually assaulted by criminal groups in the Darien. This number is close to the 120 people treated during the whole of January. These figures are double the monthly average treated in 2023, when 676 people were treated for the whole year. As you heard before, this is a problem that people in the community sometimes acknowledge. And as the village leader mentioned, it's one that could be solved as the state would live up to its obligation to protect migrants within its borders. The leader also shared with me that the community has its own punishment mechanisms.

[Bajo Chiquito Village Leader]

The place of punishment is the stocks. Three days ago, someone behaved very badly and we had to put them in the stocks. The man who mistreats women, we also put in the stocks. The woman who gossips, we also put her in the stocks.

[James]

What she's talking about here are stocks in the old fashioned sense, not in the wallstreetbet sense. We actually saw someone shutting them one day with their ankles locked in place. We didn't ask what they did or how long they were there as it seems difficult again to consent to an interview when you're literally pinned in place. But this kind of punishment comes from the community, not the state. Aside from these punishments, the community hasn't done much to stop the things happening in the jungle and I'm not sure if it's really able to. They're Panamanian, they say in the states responsible for the safety of migrants within its borders and while it does send center front patrols into jungle, the state doesn't appear to be doing much to protect migrants from sexual assault, robbery or murder. Earlier this year the state did take decisive action to eject medicines sans frontier after not reviewing their permission to work in the Darien. This is quite a challenging permission to obtain even as a solo journalist. It took months for me to get mine, forcing me to rebook my flight. Several times I heard various explanations for why MSF were not allowed to keep working. I couldn't get an official response, but it's probably worth noting that they published a report headlined Lack of action, She's Sharp rise in sexual violence on people transiting the Darien Gap on 29th February and they refused permission to remain in the region in the first week of March. MSF was allowed to return in October of this year and wouldn't comment further than the following statement which they emailed me in mid October. In October of 2024, MSF resumed medical and humanitarian activities at Lajas Blancas Migration Reception Centre located at the edge of the Darien jungle after Panamanian authorities approved a three month medical intervention. MSF welcomes its decision and advocates to collaborate closely with Panama's Ministry of Health to provide comprehensive medical care to migrants crossing this route as well as to the local population of the area. Right now unicef, Madison Dumont, Corporacion Espanola and the Red Cross are helping migrants. In Bajo Chiquito, UNICEF installed showers and toilets, Global Brigades and UNICEF provide a taps with clean drinking water and the medical NGOs provide healthcare which is vitally in saving lives and providing survivors of sexual assault with medical care in a 72 hour window where it can be most beneficial. It's worth noting that most migrants who are sexually assaulted won't stay to press charges. I know of one case of sexual assault of a child while I was there, but the family wanted to continue their journey and so the charges won't be pressed. This makes it very hard to ascertain how many cases of sexual assault there are in the Dalian every year, aside from through medical reports from NGOs, and those only include the people who make it to Bajo Chiquito or Lajas Blancas. The numbers are clearly high, and it's a fear that many migrants articulated to me. In the jungle, they're at their most vulnerable, they said. Most people robbed, they tell me, held by armed attackers carrying guns and machetes. But once a migrant set foot in Bajojiquito, they're momentarily safe from roaring assault. For the first time in days, they can sleep without worry of being attacked or washed away. And the rest of their journeys north, they'll face that threat again. But that's not what's on their mind when they enter town. All they want is a cold drink and a warm meal and a chance to rest their aching feet. It's a chance that they have thanks to the Anbara people who receive them there. And I want to end with Bonillo and his reflection on the suffering people endure on their way to eat rice and plantain in his little front room cafe.

[Embera Community Member]

Truly, the migrants on this route are not here because they want to be. They are here because the economy in their countries is terrible or something. Everything is going badly on their countries. How could we mistreat them, knowing that we won't? Not us. Never. This is a belief that we have. We are all children of God. God made the world and humanity, and we are not that different. We are all brothers.

[Bajo Chiquito Village Leader]

It Could Happen. Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts you can now find sources for It Could Happen here, listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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[James]

This is where mindset comes in.

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Someone will be eliminated.

[James]

Pressure is coming down.

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[James]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.