We're standing at the edge of this beautiful river. I can see little fish swimming just under the surface.

There's a small hand-carved wooden canoe floating under a tree. What does this body of water mean to you?

This river is my whole life, says 60-year-old Dignabinite.

She smiles wistfully under her straw hat.

She grew up here on the Rio Indio in a small village in Panama called Limon de Chagres.

She would play in the water while her father caught fish.

The water, so clear, so transparent, so limp,, that's up, that waha.

That's a harmony for me, the river.

The water is so clean and calm, she says.

It rises and falls.

For me, it's harmony.

A long, narrow boat pulls up.

Dignabinite and a younger man named Delagario Cedeno help us climb in and we pull away from the

shore. The boat pulls over to the edge of the Rio Indio and we climb up some steep stairs that are

basically carved into the mud bank. Oligario, what are you showing us?

Here, I'm showing you where the dam would be, he says.

The Rio Indio Dam.

It doesn't exist yet, but authorities intend to start building it in just a couple years.

Panama has been looking for solutions to a long-term problem. Every time a ship

passes through the Panama Canal, more than 50 million gallons of fresh water from Lake Gatune

pour out into the ocean. Nobody ever thought Panama could run out of water. It is one of the

rainiest countries in the world. But a couple years ago, a drought

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