Kuna Yala Mola Matters!
Bamboozle
Jamie and Lucy Telfer
Sun 27 Sep 2009 11:48
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09:33.733N 078:51.635W
From the urban charms of Cartagena we only had
to sail 180 miles west to arrive in the completely different world of the
Archipelago de San Blas. The Kuna Yala is an autonomous region of Panama
and home to the Kuna Indians who run the "Comarca" along traditional lines
with minimal interference from the central government. The Kuna have
thus managed to keep their independence, remaining strongly bound to
their culture and their traditional way of life. They
still retain and use their own language, religion and custom and,
especially for the women traditional dress is still the norm.
The area has seen little development or outside influence and
apart from cruising yachts and a few of the more intrepid backpackers,
remains off the well trodden tourist routes of South and Central America.
There are nearly 400 hundred small islands scattered along the coast of which
only about 50 are permanently inhabited. Many of the
others serve as temporary bases of for trips out to fish or to
collect coconuts and have a couple of small huts made of palm fronds or
banana leaves providing semi permanent camps while away from the main
villages. It is ridiculously picturesque in a white sand, blue sea and
palm tree kind of way. The biggest problem for the Kuna may not be the
cultural destruction that even the most sensitive travelers bring with them but
the prospect of a rise in sea level. I don't think many of the locals
have heard of Al Gore or the Kyoto Agreements but these guys are right in the
front line of global warming as most of the islands only
stick about two feet up above sea level...... four feet around here
counts as a hill and there is not much scope to build a Kuna version of the Thames Barrier. If even some of the least
pessimistic predictions are true then this way of life is in trouble and believe
me, these guys are not contributing much to the problem and probably have
little idea of what may be coming.
To provide a balanced image of this sensitive
sustainable way of life unsullied by the outside world it is only fair to
mention that the one technology that has been a big hit in these parts is
the cell phone. A couple of huge towers on the mainland provide a
surprising degree of coverage over all but the most distant islands and the Kuna
have been quick to realise the benefits of modern communication, especially when
your next door neighbours live half an hour of hard paddling away. We
have seen some almost comic images of Kuna women in full traditional dress
complete with beaded legs and a gold ring through the septum of their nose
sitting in a dugout canoe hewn out of some huge jungle log chatting away on a
their Nokia handset. To add to the surreal nature of this technological
invasion, the problem is that they have virtually no access to
electricity. While you will find portable generators in
some of the larger villages, out on the islands, it is the
burning of coconut husks that still provides heat and light and...... as far as
I know.... nobody yet has figured out the way to charge a cell phone with a
coconut. As a result the cruising boats are viewed as some kind of mobile
power station to charge their handsets as well as a ready market for
the fish, crabs and lobsters that they harvest out on the reefs.
We also provide a market for "Molas", the
beautifully intricate hand stitched coloured squares of cotton fabric that are
unique to the Kuna. Before we arrived amongst the islands we had
confidently stated that they "weren't our sort of thing!" based on the few
sorry offerings we had seen hawked on street corners in Colon during our
previous visit to Panama, but having now been introduced to the real thing, we
seem to be starting a collection. Two of the self styled "Master
Mola Makers", Lisa and Venancio have become regular visitors to Bamboozle and,
as there is not much shopping around here, Lucy seems to enjoy these
visits. I am not quite sure what she intends to do with them all but
I am beginning to wonder if they might just end up in my Christmas
stocking this year?!
The last few weeks have been particularly special
as we have had our great friend Tash out to visit from London. Showing great
commitment to overcome the 48 hours of travel to get to us (each way!),
hopefully she felt is was worth the trip and that she got to explore a unique
and truly beautiful part of the world. We nearly lost her on the
first day when she somehow got her bikini bottoms hooked onto Spot the dinghy
while rolling backwards into the water to go snorkeling. She hung
upside-down with her head under water for about 30 seconds waving her legs in
the air before we realised she might actually need assistance. The
good news is, when we finally got her back the right way up, she was
laughing almost as hard as we were! You never know how it is going to work having a guest on a small boat
for a couple of weeks but Tash was a great crew member and an absolute
pleasure to have on board. In fact we thought we might have her to stay
for the rest of the season when too many passengers turned up for her flight on
the tiny plane back out of El Porvenir. We have flown in and out of
some pretty dodgy airstrips in some of the less tightly regulated parts of the
world but we have never witnessed such a sight as
this pilot, firstly throwing his hands in the air in an eloquent
Latino gesture...then shrugging his shoulders...and finally, even though there
were clearly more passengers than seats, forcing the door shut before take
off. Fortunately, Tash seemed to be one of the passengers actually
strapped into a seat and we could see her waving cheerily as the plane
laboured off the ground!
Sadly our current link to the outside world is by
Satellite phone so we can't send many photos to illustrate quite why some
yachts spend literally years along this strip of coast but we will make up
for this when we next get a decent connection to the internet.
In the meanwhile I am embarking on a major history-fest (poor Lucy
I sense you thinking) as this coastline is littered with fascinating
historical debris and the ghosts of those who sailed this way before us. To
avoid alienating any regular readers (both of them?) I will cover these
fascinating tales in a separate posting!
No sarky comments about the poor tree
please!
Tash and Lucy with Bamboozle's smart new step.
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