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.

Finding Humility in Guna Yala

A few days ago, I wrote down these notes in preparation for what was to become a blog post:

Living in Guna Yala: Strangely Comfortable

-       Best damn view from a shower

-       Wonderfully comfortable bed/chair

-       Less bug bites than from the city

-       Nap schedule

-       Sleeping in the living room over a dirt floor with walls made of sticks and a roof half thatch half corrugated metal

If only I spoke one of their two languages fluently…

“Letting that which does not matter, truly slide”

It is amazing to see how my conceptions and ideas of this place have so fundamentally changed in just a few days.

Just a few days later, the list I wrote above seems vaguely patronizing and entirely self-promoting. I was congratulating myself on how well I was able to “adapt”.  More and more I feel that my comfortableness comes from the reality that this is in-fact a comfortable way of life, despite what my U.S. background has taught me to believe.

It’s hard to feel like you’re doing something special when you are living like everyone else. There’s no one to complain to about a hot shower when no one else feels the need for one (though I long ago lost the need for a hot shower in the middle of the tropics, just wait till the sun gets higher in the sky). You become a part of the everyday life because it is only you who is doing something different from your everyday life.  I have my neighbors and hosts to thank for the humility and open-mindedness I have found here. In just one week I feel as though I have shed my cloak of patronizing romanticism (for the most part).

The greatest contributing factor has been our ability to communicate in a common language.  No I did not suddenly become fluent in Spanish (and definitely not Guna), but through the patience of those I have spoken to, they have explained to me some of their world perceptions and their views on life, the universe and everything. (The answer was not cuarenta y dos). My Spanish listening and speaking has improved though and I have happily been able to engage in political and philosophical conversations with my hosts. Happily, my limitations in Spanish speaking have forced me to become more of a listener, which I am grateful of.

What is poverty? Whatever it is, “it” is not what I see in Guna Yala. Yes there is poverty. As in every place on earth. There are mothers who cannot pay for their children’s needs and there are sick who cannot pay for their medicine. But as a population, Guna Yala is not “poor”. One morning over tea and bread (“madu”) Iguayoikiler spoke to me about how the rest of the world perceives indigenous communities and how they force their definitions of “development” on these “backward” people, and sadly enough, how people here believe it. The girls here have exchanged their Molas for mini skirts, seeing the Molas as something ancient, for their grandmothers. They no longer see that the Mola is a part of them, a part of their identity.

The rest of the world talks of saving the environment, yet Gunas are criticized for having so much land in Guna Yala that “they aren’t using.” People say that Guna people live in poverty because they have dirt floors, homes made of bamboo, and hardly any TVs. (Personally, from the development community I have heard of the need to help the Guna, after all they're are the world’s shortest people. But what does that mean?) They eat, sleep, learn without trouble and live long lives. Iguayoikiler pointed out that in the city one can die without money, but not here in Guna Yala.

What is “development”? Who is “civilized”? Those who chose to live without or those who choose to destroy the planet in their unending quest to live with?

“Here I have everything I need. I have my boat, machete, and my land. I need nothing more, I depend on myself. The problem is when people do not want to work.” – Erasmus on Isle Tigre.

More and more Guna are moving toward a more urbanized lifestyle, either on the islands themselves or moving out of the comarca. And who can blame them? We make it look nice. But the irony is that, at least in what we say we want, the rest of the world is trying to be more like the Guna, whether they realize it or not. More “green”, more active, more simplistic in terms of possessions, less stressed, more united with their family and neighbors.

Still, most Guna seem happy to be where and how they are. While I have seen similar living conditions in Ghana, Uganda, and in the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky, I saw more of a desire to “move beyond” that lifestyle in these other places. That they lived that way was out of economical and other limitations rather than choice. Here I meet people who live this way by choice. It is part of their morality, beliefs and it is their history. Many Gunas have the ability to move, to go to the city and move around the world. And they do. Yet many of them still come back to the comarca.

Honestly if my friends and family were here too, I feel I would want to stay. To travel and explore the world, yes, because that is who I am, but to have this place as a home. In terms of my own morals and position on education, religion, humanity the earth, and more, I have never met a community and a culture more in line with my values as this one.