Friendly smile from a Kuna woman
“Would you like to buy molas?” the group asked as they paddled past the Metacomet, the boat which I happened to be traveling on at the time. “We’ll have them up on the island in a few minutes.”
A short while later, I jumped into the crystal clear water of the San Blas Islands in north-eastern Panama to swim to the tiny white sand island covered with coconut palms. Brightly colored molas hung from ropes strung between coconut palms. Beaded bracelets lay on the ground at the foot of the towering trees. But the most amazing thing of all was the smiles adorning the women’s faces.
The Kuna people are generally known as an unfriendly-to-tourists group. Although they are interested in selling fish, lobster, or crafts to tourists who regularly ply their waters, they typically don’t interact with us in any other manner. This group, however, was different.
“This mola shows god here in the middle,” the older woman told me before breaking into song, then laughing joyfully. “And this one shows the moon and the dog,” she continued.
“The moon and the dog?” I asked. “What is the significance of the moon and the dog together?”
“It’s our culture,” she tried to explain in her limited Spanish, “the moon and the dog go together – like the gods.” Once again her face crinkled into a mass of wrinkles as she broke into laughter.
“What is your name?” asked the other woman. A gold ring adorned her nose, a bright red and yellow scarf covered her short hair, and a smile spread from one ear to the other.
“I’m Nancy,” I replied.
“My name is Florlinda,” she told me. “And her name is Demelia,” she pointed to the older woman. “My husband’s name is Ramón. He’s fixing the boat now.”
Together we walked the 50 meters to the other side of the island where their camp was. “We come here to this island for three days only to collect coconuts. Altogether, we’ll get about 1000 coconuts from here. We sell them to the Colombians for $15 for 100.”
Their camp was a simple affair – a small thatched cooking shed and another thatched hut barely high enough to walk into. “I put plastic tarps over the top at night so we don’t get wet,” Florlinda told me.
Demelia wandered away amongst the coconut trees. She picked up a fallen coconut, shook it, then threw it back down. A few meters farther on, she picked up another, shook it, and headed back to camp with her find. Grabbing an enormously overgrown pliers, she jabbed it into the coconut and pried off the fibrous coating, then hacked off the hard shell with a machete until she was left with a perfectly formed ball of coconut meat.
Seconds later, Demelia was grating the coconut with a rough, handmade grater. “Want a piece?” she asked as she held out a small piece of coconut for me and my husband. “It’s good!”
We sat there munching on coconut as Demelia poured water on the grated coconut, then extracted the milk. “I’ll cook rice with this,” she explained. “It’s very tasty!”
“You guys use coconut for everything, don’t you?” I asked. “You cook fish with coconut, rice with coconut. What else?”
“Coconut is good!” she exclaimed. “You don’t use it? How do you cook rice?”
I explained we cooked rice with just plain water.
Florlinda made a face. “It’s better with coconut!” They both broke out into laughter.
“We’re waiting for the other three,” Florlinda explained. “They are out fishing. Once they get here with fish, we’ll cook the rice and have dinner. That’s what we eat all the time – rice, fish, and coconuts!”
A short while later, the three young men arrived in a canoe filled with fish from the reef. “We’ll eat a few of them now,” one of them told me, “and smoke the rest to take back to our family. Have you ever had smoked fish? It’s really tasty!”
As I prepared to leave the island and swim back to my boat, the young men cut fresh limbs from coconut trees to suspend over a fire of cococut husks. The fish were spread out on the limbs to cook slowing in the smoke.
“Bye!” the entire family called. “It’s too bad you won’t be here when the fish is done – but next time you’ll stay longer!”
Yes indeed, next time I’ll stay longer – much longer.
*******
Read the rest of the series here:
Day 1 - Getting to the San Blas Islands
Day 3 - Another Day in Paradise
Day 4 - Time to Face the Open Seas
How to book a boat trip across the Darien Gap
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You can follow my family's adventures on our personal website www.familyonbikes.org or email me at familyonbikes@gmail.com
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