Backward Backwards

After spending so much time in Guna Yala I began to forget the importance of the work I am doing here.

Stepping on the island of Ustupu/Ogubsucun, the most heavily populated island in Guna Yala, I hardly walked a 20 yards without seeing someone with albinism surrounded by family and friends. One buff young man was schooling his peers in soccer outside the Centro de Salud, a stunning girl with flowing blond hair helped her family around the house. Another boy played guitar and sung with his band. On Nargana a young boy with albinism was clearly the ring-leader of his group of friends, running freely around the island. The only worry these people seemed to have as a result of their condition was how to access sunscreen, sunglasses and covering clothing.

In my interviews of people without albinism I was consistently told how intelligent persons with albinism are and how they are typically extraordinary musicians. People admit that not too long ago persons with albinism were rejected and even killed at birth, but that now they are completely accepted in their society. And it shows. People with albinism are teachers, lawyers, famous musicians, and governing officials. They hold positions of power in society while persons with albinism in Uganda are an exception if they are even able to attend school.

Unfortunately, coming back to Panama City has shown me how much more work still must be done. Ironically, I have come to see the highly-developed and wealthy Panama City culture has some “uncivilized “ undertones.

Tuesday, I was invited by Dr. Gioconda to come meet a couple whose daughter was dealing with issues above and beyond protection from the sun. I stood in the examining room and listened to this beautiful little girl’s mother explain how the girl is tortured daily by her Second grade classmates, and how her teacher has done nothing.

Gioconda asked the girl if she had any friends. The girl, sitting on the examining bed quietly shook her head, no, with the tiniest smile of embarrassment. I turned to look at her mom who was looking at her daughter with tears welling up in her eyes, arms wrapped around herself. You could see the mother’s yearning just to hold her child and tell her it was ok. But then you also saw the painful recognition in her eyes that it wasn’t ok, and that no amount of comfort from even a mother can make up for being an adolescent child without a single friend. We even learn that the girl’s own cousin refuses to play with the girl because of her condition.

Gioconda explained to the little girl that she is not so different. That many people around the world have white skin and light blond hair. That in places like the US and Norway she would be completely normal, while the brown and black kids who now tease her would be rejected.

Then Gioconda told the young girl that it was time to stand up for herself. She was first to tell the teacher that she was tired of being picked on every day. And when the kids continue to hit her and bite her and the teacher does nothing it would be time to take matters into her own hands, and that “matter” would be the melanin-rich hair of her torturers.

“Now, biting will leave a mark, so it is better to grab the hair and pull like this. That way it won’t leave a mark”

Besides the lessons in self-defense, Dr. Gioconda set up an appointment for the girl to see a psychologist and wrote a note to the head of the school.

Gioconda introduced me to the parents as an intelligent university student sent here just for this reason. While it is true, it felt like such an empty description. Right now, I have nothing to offer these parents and this young girl whose young life is a nightmare solely because of a slight chemical change in her body that she has no power over. It is so surreal to know that only a few miles north, in the mother’s birthplace of Ustupu, this girl would never have to worry about this sort of rejection.

Many Panamanians stick their nose up at the “primitive” lifestyle of the Guna people, yet this City is full of primitive ideas when it comes to treatment of those who are different. Like the country I come from, Panama City is rife with homophobia, and obsessed with color hierarchy. Within that pool of discrimination albinos are also left to drown in the hatred and ignorance. "Backward" is a relative direction. The more I learn from the people in Guna Yala the more I am convinced that yes, they are facing another direction from the “civilized” world, and that the "civilized" world should learn to turn around.