The smaller islands are also inhabited by some members of the family that owns that particular island, who rotates during three month periods. When they are not on the small island they go back to their tribe’s island.
After years of isolation, the Kuna people are opening themselves to the world, offering cheap and rudimentary (and this is the special thing about visiting them. You actually merge for some time with their culture) accommodations to anyone who wants to visit them.
You live in one of their huts, sleep in a hammock or, if you are unlucky, a bed (don’t expect luxury mattresses). The "bathrooms" have a "direct connection with the sea" (if you know what I mean). While men dress in a "western way" and the great majority speaks Spanish and sometimes English, women dress the Kuna way and seldom speak fluent Spanish. Women spend their days knitting and sewing "molas", decorative fabrics that they also use in their clothes. Men, spend their days fishing until the sun sets. These differences are due to the fact that men often go outside Kuna Yala for business (and more now, because of tourism).
One of the things that most dazzled me was the fact that Kunas start person to person relationships in the exact opposite way that Westerners (like me) do.
Imagine when you first approach a person. What are the first questions you would ask?
What do you do for a living? Family? The weather?
The first thing a Kuna will talk to you about will be either sex or food... if you get more intimate with them, then they would start talking about their families, etc.
The bottom line is that they have an amazing and almost virgin culture.
The problem is that very strong foreign capitals want to get their resorts to Kuna Yala. I was there during one of the council meetings regarding this issue. The answer was “NO” to the corporations, but regrettably this “NO” is not permanent.
In the last few years the Kuna youngsters have been absorbing more and more western culture, thus leaving their own culture behind, and sometimes feeling ashamed of it.
Today they say “NO” for two reasons: First, the elders are still alive and they stick to their traditions. No money in the world would make them change their minds. Secondly, the adults have great respect for the elders and abide by their decisions.
But what will happen when the elders are gone? The new adults don’t have those deep tight roots. It will only take one Kuna to get bedazzled with millions on a table, for not only their "shy tourism economy" but their whole culture will be lost.
It is not what I think, it is what all of them know will happen, it is what they have told me.
Only one question remains: Is there anything we could do?
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