I'm John Batser. This is the new John Batser show. My colleague, Michael Jan, is in Panama.

In Darian province, the southernmost province of Panama, along the Columbia border. However,

at the end of the Panama highway, where Michael is right now, near a Hacienda called Tenoce,

a hotel, the highway ends and there's 60 miles roughly of rough terrain jungle. Before you reach Colombia's side of the Panama highway,

the refugees coming north, the migrants coming north must traverse this jungle. Michael's been inside now talking to the

Umbara people who are an ancient people, indigenous to Colombia and Panama. However, we're learning that the migrants who come through here are

a find food and sustenance and shelter, somewad, with the Umbara people for a price. What I want to learn, Michael, is where are the migrants coming from?

Who did you meet? What nationalities?

That was very interesting today. From all over the place, many from various African countries, I sat down and talked with one guy from Senegal,

very friendly guy, giant guy, he'd just gotten through, literally just gotten through like 30 minutes ago. I sat down with him asking if I could look at his feet. His feet look good.

I said, you're very strong. He said, yes, but it was very difficult. He actually could speak some English.

Actually, quite a lot of the Africans can speak English well. Most of them cannot, but quite a lot can. And for instance, one lady with an infant came in today and she could speak English quite well.

That's the panMI way. Where was she from? Where was the woman with the infant? She told me where she was from. I'm sorry, John, it's been a long time.

Yes, I just said Africa. Let's talk about the Senegalese. Why did he say he was in Panama having walked the Darien gap? What is his plan? Where is he going?

He said to United States, he didn't exactly know where he's going to go, but United States is on his mind. And we talked for about 10 or 15 minutes.

He was quite basically told the same story that a lot of people tell it was very dangerous. He got robbed. People had rifles. People had women got raped.

But then I met the most. He's coming from Senegal. Did he give you this route? How from Senegal he winds up in Panama? What countries did he go through?

Yes, he went through Brazil. And I asked, did you take a boat? Did you take an airplane or what? He took an airplane and went to Brazil. He went to Ecuador, Colombia. And then I met him right at that store where they have the word.

The charge is 20%. So that right when you walk out of the Darien gap, you come straight to the store.

Well, it's a franchise is a friendly thing to find. Now Michael, what I need to understand is he traveled all this way with money. I take it. He'd saved up money.

Does he have friends in the United States? Does he have other Senegalese he's traveling with or is he by himself?

I didn't talk with him long enough to really dive down into that. I did talk with some others longer. For instance, there was one lady. I believe what was she 65? She's on my video with her hand. Look to be broken. I mean, it was she had a band of jones. She said, she's like, it looked about 65.

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