A Fistful Of Dollars

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If you're planning a trip to the Kuna Yala Nation (Comarca of Panama) which was formerly San Blas Islands, bring a roll of $US ones along if you care to take a picture. You're gonna need 'em.
The beautiful, idyllic, scenery passing over the dense Darien Gap by small plane, the only way to arrive here, is a travel thrill. No roads exist.

The archipelago is dotted with remote, tee tiny islands, many uninhabited. It’s as much of a contrast with Panama City as you could imagine. La Comarca de Kuna Yala is a strip of land and a string of 365 islands that stretch 200 miles along the Caribbean coast.

When the plane arrives at the very short airstrip, the lodge picks you up and whisks you away immediately. You are only allowed to enter one of the villages by express permission from the Kuna leader, or Shaman. As far as I know, no one is allowed to overnight in a village.

My lodge was situated on an Island the size of a football field, being generous. But that was what I wanted, a quiet get-away for clients who, like me, don't need a lot of night life.

You will have a room with a view!

You're just steps away from the water at any time, and can watch the small dugouts passing by laden with coconuts they have collected, but you probably don't want to swim in that water.

Tours are taken AWAY from the lodges to swim near smaller uninhabited islands. The toilets are composting at lodges, but the island is so small everything finds its way to the waters edge eventually.

In the nearby village this is what you will find in the way of , erm, facilities.

These toilets are like out houses built over the water. Yes, you read that right. Waste goes directly into the water.

There is no mistaking a Kuna woman.

They wear beautiful and brightly colored tapestries called molas around their waists and wrap colorful beads around their wrists and calves. The beads are called winnis and are supposed to protect them from malicious spirits. Bright red scarves adorn their heads and they usually have a black line running vertically down the length of their nose with a gold ring placed through the septum.

The Kuna Yala have only been living on the islands for a very short period of time, only about one hundred and fifty years. Up until the early 1800s the islands were completely free of people with the exception of pirates who used the islands as a hideout. The Kunas have a strong relationship with the Colombians. Every year, rickety wooden schooners from Colombia, laden with cocoa, soup, soap, and trinkets come to San Blas to trade with the Kuna for Coconuts.

The Kuna probably sell the most coconuts of anybody in the world. In fact, up until the late 1990s, the coconut was used as currency.

In 1996 they were declared a nation amongst themselves, allowing them to make their own governmental decisions, while still maintaining military protection from Panama.

They have not made wise decisions. (Here's their new flag.) They have over fished their waters, (not for their own benefit, but for selling), the groves of coconuts have been infested of late with an epidemic of mysterious Porroca and is killing the trees slowly, and their isolation and feeling of superiority over outsiders has resulted in a lot of in breeding, causing mental retardation and perhaps the high case of albino children. They rely strongly now on tourism and selling their molas. Bright, intricate, reverse applique works of art.

The introduction of radio, television and computers (generator powered )has changed the designs the women wear as a panel on their shirts. I saw one with Marge Simpson and another with Santa Clause! A child I stopped to chat with was carrying a talking doll beside her, still in its wrapping. It was her christening present, reciting, at a push of its stomach, 'Have a Nice Day' in an American accent.

They are fascinating indigenous peoples, with their distinctive melodic music and dance. We hope they look toward the future and realize they can't continue on the same path of sustainable income they have been accustomed to in the past if they don't make some changes. Last month they reluctantly allowed UC Santa Cruz plant scientists to try and come up with a solution to their coconut disease. It looks hopeful.

If you want to take a picture while in the village it costs one dollar and if you try and take a picture of a house, or a view, and someone thinks they may have been in that picture, they will run to you and ask for their dollar. Always ask permission of anyone you wish to photograph first, and then fork over a buck. Don't even think about taking a picture and paying for it afterward. It may cause a riot.

Kids will give you a smile, but the women, I think, will give you a lousy picture on purpose...so you'll need to take another one for another dollar and then still get results that are no better. I even had a woman tell me she knew I was going to put her picture on the Internet and where was her cut of that money? (Obviously, they don't understand quite as much as they think they do about the world of cyberspace.) So, I hope I put her mind at rest when I deleted the picture in front of her right then and there. See? There it is and now it's gone. She didn't offer to return my dollar. It was a crappy picture anyway.

I made the mistake of taking a picture of this toddler dragging a monkey around.

The child demanded his dollar and afterward I felt very guilty about encouraging the horrendous treatment of the poor animal. He was being dragged around by this child and clearly despondent. Taken from his mother for photo opts. I was disturbed about it for several days and asked the owner of my lodge (also a Kuna) if he thought I could buy the monkey and take it to a refuge center in Panama City I knew about. I was told that if I did that, it would only encourage them to go out in the jungle and capture more.

I haven't painted a very pretty picture here of the Kuna. I actually tried very hard not to do that, because in the past the area has been very enjoyable. But tourists who come here now to buy their molas are treated as nothing more than a dollar sign and their disdain for you is palpable. You won't find any fresh fish or lobster here now either, and maybe for a long time to come if they don't change their fishing habits and stop polluting the water. Leaving the airstrip, heading back to Panama City, as the wing of the plane turned at the end of the tiny runway, I looked down into the garbage filled water and saw a single, sequined, platform shoe floating on top of the water....I had to ponder...is the other shoe fixin' to drop on the Kuna Yala?

For more information on the Kuna Yala and a different opinion look here:
www.escapeartist.com/panama/kuna.html

There's a map and other info here: www.american.edu/ted/kuna.htm

We are using a new lodge in the Comarca now and a new approach to visiting amongst the Kuna Yala. Contact us at http://www.latinamaericayourway.net to find out more.

Updates about their flag can be found here: www.flagspot.net/flags/pa-nat.html