In Feb. 2009, nine members of the Marietta Morning Rotary Club stepped into dug-out canoes and embarked on the adventure of a lifetime. The canoes, and their guides from the Embera Indian tribe, would take them up the Chagres river, deep into the rainforest of Panama. Digging in the mud while intermittent rain fell through the jungle canopy, the group, along with  fellow Rotarians from their sister club Rotario Panama Sur, managed put install a septic system for the remote indigenous tribe. While it was hard work, the Embera are a fun loving people and excellent host, providing a full range of entertainment. Club members got a chance to jump from waterfalls, take a jungle tour with the medicine man, learn to make crafts, and dance to native drums.

The Embera people rely largely on ec0-tourism to provide the things they can’t get from mother nature. According to Embera Chief, Eneldo Ruiz, the ability to provide working flush toilets to their guest will provide a great boost to their business and help them preserve their culture.

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I believe in the power of stories. Stories have the ability to take us away our daily lives and introduce us to places, people and events that we might never have noticed otherwise. Stories inform us, entertain us, and sometimes even inspire us to be better than we ever thought possible. But stories, without an audience serve no purpose. This website was born from my need to share the stories that I am so fortunate to experience. If you have a good story that needs to be told (every does), please let me know. I’d like to hear it and I just might grab a camera and microphone and tell it here.

What’s Your Story? Contact James J. Lee