At the Gatun Locks observation deck, Marty Harrington explains how thecanal works.

The tourists wouldn't be arriving for another couple of hours, but IPAT's Martín Harrington, who heads thegovernment tourism bureau's cruise ship efforts, loaded a bus full of visitors from afar into a bus and set off for the Gatun Locks. These visitors were Wounaan, from Puerto Lara in the Darien. They were in Gatun to entertain cruise ship passengers and sell their arts and crafts, and Harrington's job was to not only to coordinate that economic activity, but also to improve indigenous opportunities in the world of tourism.

This was the third time that the group from Puerto Lara worked in Gatun, and for most of its members, the third time that they had seen the Panama Canal. It was the first time that any of them had visited the locks.

"It takes 52 million gallons of fresh water for a ship to pass through the canal," Harrington explained. "Without the rains, we wouldn't have a canal, and without forests in the canal watershed, there wouldn't be enough rain. That makes the indigenous communities up the Chagres River the canal watershed's indispensable guardians."

At the boat launch below the Spillway, where the Tarpon Club once had a marina, Harrington explains some of the tourism development opportunities that came with the canal's reversion.

This was not a pep talk to instill Wounaan pride. This was more in the genre of schooling than inspirational speaking. Marty Harrington was teaching artisans and dancers the sorts of things they'd need to know to be tour guides, about how tourism fits into the Panamanian and world economies, and about the opportunities that they could create or exploit.

The IPAT bus also took the group across the locks and the bridge under the spillway and down to the lagoon where the Tarpon Club used to run a marina. The discussion included not only how the dam was built and works, but also about the possibility of using one of the river's islands to build a few traditional houses, a place where cruise ship passengers with only a few hours in port could get a greater sense of indigenous ways of life.

Back at the Gatun Yacht Club, Harrington coordinated the placement of art displays, introduced some of the shows, and even held the microphone during the Wounaan dance act.

Tourism's infrastructure was being built. It may not register much in the government's economic statistics, but it's an important step for Puerto Lara's development, one whose results the community will see for years to come.