Cell Phone Hill, Panama - Migrants and Villagers In Bajo Chaquito Must Climb Hill to Call Loved Ones

Imagine hiking through some of the thickest, wettest, nastiest jungles for a minimum of 6 days to finally emerge from the jungle only to learn you must now climb a hill to call your loved ones or whoever will be sending you money for the next stage of the journey.

On the other hand, imagine seeing hundreds of people EVERY DAY emerging from the jungle around your home, almost all of them needing serious medical attention, starving, with horror stories of being robbed, raped, swept away by raging rivers after the rain, snake bites, incessant bites from insects, sleeping on the muddy, rain-soaked jungle floor, all the while stepping over bodies of those who couldn't make it.

What would cause these people to go through this? To embark on such an almost insane journey? The reasons are many, including the lie told by smugglers and traffickers that it's not as difficult a trek as some say, but the main reason is the story that once they reach the US all their problems will be gone forever, and now is the time.

The villagers and others told us that there have been people coming out of the Darien Gap for years, but they have never seen it this bad. At one point very recently, the little community of Embara Indians at Bajo Chaquito, who number just under 500, were "hosting" over 1,000 migrants. Imagine your town having twice as many "guests" in it than citizens and you'll start to comprehend what this community is going through.

They have no running water. No year-round roads. No electricity other than a few personal generators. The locals, who traditionally are farmers and harvest lumber, are now forced to dedicate all their resources, time, and energy to taking care of the endless stream of migrants flowing into their village.

I was blessed to be able to travel down to Bajo Chaquito with two US Congressmen and a team of dedicated professionals including Michael Yon, Chuck Holton, and Masako Gahana to see this with my own eyes. We traveled from Meteti by car and then boat for about 4 hrs just to reach the village, and passed hundreds of migrants in boats headed the other way, all being shuttled to processing camps and then bused to Costa Rica.

The bottom line is people in very high places have made decisions, then allowed false information to propagate throughout the world that is so compelling that people are literally willing to die for it. For what? Honestly, that's THE question we all need to ask ourselves and those making the decisions.

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