In seconds, the rain stopped. The jungle steamed with hot fog. My hair was plastered to my head, my dress to my body. Embarrassed, I plucked it away from my skin, but we were all soaked. Perla shook herself, stomped in the muck, snorted.

“Is there any water?” I thought about the rum, but it was water I wanted.

“Water’s everywhere in the jungle, Lily, you just need to get to it,” Omar said. We walked down to a swampy area where a grove of twenty-foot-tall bamboo towered above us. Dozens of segmented stalks shot straight up, perfectly parallel to each other. Arrow-shaped leaves drooped from the prehistoric-looking grasses. Omar lopped off a piece stacked like three tallboy beer cans, then handed the heavy column to me. For God’s Sake nodded sagely, as if he approved of whatever game Omar was playing. He leaned on Perla, took out one of the matchsticks he kept in his shirt pocket, and chewed on it thoughtfully.

Omar cut off another section at the joint and placed it in my other hand. “You look at these. Tell me how they’re different.”

I turned the tubes over in my hands. They both sloshed with liquid; otherwise they looked the same to me. I was hot, mosquito ravaged, miserable, in no mood for lessons.

“I’m not getting what you’re saying to me.”

“Look closer, Lily Bushwold.”

A smattering of light had worked its way through the leaves and shown like lace on the ground. I went to it, holding the two stalks under the delicate rays. I turned them, peering closely. Thin gold striations shone down the sides of one of them, so subtle you couldn’t see them unless you rotated the stalk with great patience; the lines glittered a bit in the light. The other stalk stayed solid green when I turned it. “I see it!” I said. “I see the difference.”

Omar gestured for me to hand him back the stalks. Holding the plain one at arm’s length, he neatly chopped off the top and took a long, slow drink from the natural wooden cup, then handed it to me, nodding. Not taking my eyes off his, I tipped the stalk to my lips and took a sip. It was warm but fresh tasting, like diluted green tea. He took it from me, tore off a giant rubbery leaf from a low plant, and poured the rest of the liquid into the leaf for Perla, who lapped it up with enthusiasm, farting and snorting, the supplies clanking together on her back.

He held up the striated one and—lopping off the top—poured the liquid out onto the leaf litter beneath our feet.

“But I’m still thirsty.”

“No you aren’t,” he said, shaking his head. “Why? Because this one? The one with the gold lines? That one will kill you in half an hour. And you don’t have to drink much, maybe a couple of swallows. It tastes the same, but it’ll burn out your insides until you’re hollow as the plant, understand?”