Cocina Time in Hato Chami

Many people say that the kitchen is the heart of a house. Food is an essential part of life for all human beings, so naturally it follows that the kitchen becomes an intimate gathering place. When someone invites you into their kitchen, you know they're inviting you into their heart.

I had a very beautiful experience in a unique kitchen in the mountains of Panama. I visited a large indigenous community for a week and had the unexpected pleasure of staying with a local family. Though I left the home early every morning to work in the community and returned in the late afternoon, we shared every evening together in their kitchen. All the way in the cold indigenous mountain villages of Panama, the kitchen is still a warm gathering place.

Beautiful mountains of the Comarca Ngobe-Bugle

This kitchen was like none I had ever seen nor have seen since. It was round, about 12ft in diameter. It has 3ft high walls made of sticks and bamboo. There were two openings on opposite sides for entering. The roof was cone shaped, the highest point in the center reaching about 12ft. The roof was made of thatched grass. It reached all the way down to the short walls, enclosing everything inside in darkness. The only light shone through the doors and the thin strips between the sticks. The floor was dirt.



The kitchen



The inside was outfit with a fire pit used for cooking, a long table with nothing on top and a few wooden stools scattered about. There were old cardboard boxes and chagras holding indiscernible items lined up on one side of the wall.

On the first night, everyone was very shy to speak to me. Everyone except the abuela, the matriarch of the family. She lived there with her son and his wife and kids and also her daughter and her young children. I didn't get to meet everyone; many stayed in the separate house where they all sleep (I slept in their small family store apart from the kitchen and their house where they sleep). But I learned that there are about 10 living there from a picture I took of the family at the end of my stay.

Family that I stayed with (I think some of the people in the picture were neighbors).

The abuela and I talked about our families and how life is different in the United States. She taught me many words in her native language as we sat beside the fogon. Unlike our grandmas in the States, who each seem to have a defined personality, the abuelas in the comarca are all remarkably similar. They have worked very hard all of their lives to raise children and grandchildren, take care of their husband, keep up with the housework, help out in the finca. By the time they become viejas, they are tired. They do their work in a rote-like manner, exactly as they've done it the last 50 years. They are calm as if nothing phases them. I'm sure they have experienced a few highs and many lows in their lifetime; a sad truth of poverty. So when a gringa comes to live with you for a week, well it's nothing over which to get your panties in a wad!

Towards the end of my stay, the children got more daring and began talking to me. I helped them with English as they stood around, some staring and some smiling at me, kinda like what we do at zoo animals really. They took more of an interest in me than the adults. Funny. I still find that to be true today.

Part that I slept in with the small tienda.

But over everything that I experienced in that kitchen, something stays with me that is unexpected to most Westerners: the humo. Humo is the smoke that is released from the firewood used for cooking in the fire pit. I like to think of myself as a city girl; I've never been one to go camping or really enjoy living outdoors. So this was my first experience with the eye-burning, cough-inducing, stomach-churning smoke that completely enclosed the kitchen every night. It's a miracle the kitchen doesn't burn down during the dry season. Smoke rises so the two little entrances didn't help the smoke escape, though it did help fresh air get in (I wisely sat very close to one entrance). Therefore the smoke had to slowly seep through the straw/grass roof, which was also damp from the constant rain (it was the rainy season when I visited). Needless to say, it was awful and I have no idea how those people can suffer under those conditions every single day. Mainly the women are suffering because they're the ones cooking. Unbelievable.

So forget saving the whales! Save these poor grandmas from lung disease and blindness by helping them develop safer stoves and fogons to cook on!

[I didn't really mean that about the whales. They really need to be helped too; beautiful peaceful sea mammoths, LET THEM LIVE!]