Kuna Yala…and the livin’s easy

 

My expereince with the Kuna people was one of the best cultural experiences I have ever had. Spending ten days submerged in a completly different culture proved to be more challenging than I had anticipated, and it also showed me the greatest picture of real community living I have seen all year. 

 

 

The island we were on had about 900 people living on it. To walk from on end to the other took probably five minutes at the most. Houses crammed next to one another with narrow walkways inbetween. No electricity, except for the light in the church is run by a generator-also they have solar powered lighing. Most, if not all of the homes, have hammocks that they sleep in. Tons of children everywhere you turn. One little store where they buy their main food staples for cooking and such. All day long the women would sit outside their houses making thier handy-crafts. They mostly make quilting squares, and beaded jewelry. They have about two months of tourist season when groups come through for tours, so in the meantime they make their crafts to sell when all the forigners come to visit. The men go out fishing durring the day to catch fish and other sea creatures for the meals for thier families. It was incredible to see the men come up to the shore with boats full of the largest and most beautiful crabs, lobsters and conch I have ever seen in my life!! Meanwhile all the children are in school from 8am to around 12pm. So this is the life on Kuna Yala. Very, very simple. Very laid back, and tranquil. Oddly enough this was the difficult part for me. It made me realize how busy my life has to be as an American. I feel like if I’m not up doing something or going somewhere then I am wasting the day away. But these people live and thrive off just being with eachother, and working on their handycrafts or fishing. This is how they live. Simple. This is how they prefer to live. By our American/Western standard we would say they are poor financialy. For them, they just see it as what they have always known, and I didn’t sence that they desired anything more. The islanders are one big family, and all they need and want are eachother. Some of them are Christians, and some aren’t. They all love and accept one another for who they are.

 

  

 

     

 

This is where we slept.

 

Making quilting squares.

 

 

The children on the island are probably the most joyful children I have been with all year. They have the most amazng  sence of adventure and wild imaginations. It was so sweet, because I would just be sitting outside and a within minutes I would have a swarm of children around me-poking and prodding, smiling up at me and asking me questions I couldn’t understand…I think most of them were about my tattoos and piercings. It didn’t take very long for them to warm up to us, and soon enough they were always in the church where we were living and always wanting us to come out and play with them. They would stay with us all day until we made them leave at night so we could have our rest. It was also amazing to see how non-western they were. It’s possibly the first place I’ve been to this year where the people still hold to their traditional ways and haven’t allowed the western life style influence the way they function as a village and culture. They do what they have always known to do, and it works for them. For me, Kuna Yala was one of the hardest places to leave all year, because of the love I felt from the people.      

 

Me trying to go to sleep, but the kids wouldn’t leave 🙂