The Sick Horror at The Lost and Found Read Online Free PDF Page A

to the Kuna men, and dove into the clear
water. The Kuna have learned modesty from Christian missionaries
all too well. By the time the boat was moored all the men playing
basketball were gawking at the near naked girl.
    As the Colombian girl emerged from the
water a group of twelve men surrounded her. The commotion brought
forth an old man, a village elder, and he did not look pleased. As
he approached the Kuna men looked nervous and quickly went back to
their basketball game. The old man shouted toward one of the long
houses and an attractive girl with long hair appeared squinting in
the doorway.
    I was confused because when a Kuna
girl reaches womanhood, as pronounced by her first menstruation,
she cuts her hair short in addition to shedding the nickname she
carried in childhood. But she was clearly a woman and she had long
beautiful black hair. She looked Latina. She walked down to the
beach to the side of the village elder, who stared out to sea with
an angry expression. He spoke softly in his indigenous language to
the girl and walked away.
    “ You do not have a
permission to dock here,” the girl said.
    Our captain offered his apologies and
shouted, “Everyone back on the boat!” He was clearly
angry.
    I spoke to the girl directly. She was
pleasant and smiled. “Excuse me,” I said. “I have come to see the
shaman. Would it be possible for me to stay? I will find another
way back.”
    The girl’s expression immediately
changed. “The shaman is not here today,” she said
abruptly.
    “ Get on the boat,” the
captain barked at me.
    As we dejectedly walked back to the
dock, the captain’s son popped his head up from a nap. “Ooznahvi!”
he shouted. The Kuna girl responded immediately and ran to the boat
to greet him. She jumped on deck and cradled the boy, rocking him
back and forth and rubbing his blond hair. He giggled
uncontrollably.
    Apparently our captain knew this girl
well. He departed with her still in the boat, without asking at all
whether she wanted to join us or not.
    Suffice it to say, I was not happy.
The other passengers, Matt from Boston and his reacquainted friend
María, the Colombian with a penchant for getting inappropriately
naked, were fine with canceling the island visit in exchange for
snorkeling around a nearby coral reef.
    “ Look,” I said, “seeing how
my only interest was to visit the island, I think it might be
appropriate that some of my money be refunded.”
    “ Your money is in the gas
tank,” the captain said. “Besides…. You asked me to bring you to
the shaman. The village shaman is not on the island right
now.”

Ritual in the Bayano
Caves
    By Mathew Hope
    “ The only thing to fear is
fear itself.”
     
    Franklin Delano Roosevelt – U.S.
president and moron.
     
    Okay, FDR wasn’t a moron. Steve was.
We were standing at a National Police check point on the highway to
the infamous Darien Gap, a lawless land of drug runners and
Colombian leftist rebels, when Steve decided it would be cute to
stick his finger into the barrel of a loaded AK-47.
    The police guard flipped –
angry and scared he pointed the automatic weapon at Steve’s head.
Steve smiled and raised his hands. Guards from inside ran out and
there was a whole lot of commotion and guns. Steve was wearing
shorts, flip flops and a t-shirt that said Yo estoy a favor de la ampliación de todos los canales with a picture of ship entering a girl’s
metaphorical canal. Since the vote for expanding the canal was only
a week away, the police captain found it amusing enough to disarm
the situation. Nothing like sexism for macho bonding which
infuriated Steve’s new girlfriend, Estrella. We all filed in to
register our entry into the Darien, which I guess is something you
have to do so that they know what to write on the toe tags when you
show up dead. It was touch and go there for a while if they were
going to let us pass or not.
    The leader of our adventure
was a psychologist everyone called Dr. Mike. He was