kuna village

In the san blas, our tour guides took us on an expedition to the kuna village. This is the whole reason Shannon chose panama, so I knew this would be a long one, no matter what anyone said. So we packed up and headed to the boats, with the kuna pushing Shannon in her walker-thing. Alas, that would be the last time she used the thing on this trip. We slowly followed out guide thru the city, dutifully learning about daily life of the kuna. Which houses they made of natural materials and the later discarded for cement houses and what kind of schooling they received. We had been warned to ask before pictures and that the going rate was $1 per person per picture. I refuse such prices. So I employed a method I used in Africa to photograph kids without them mobbing the camera; underhanded clicking. Kinda like shooting from the hip, but more agreeable all around. This is why most of my pictures have part of my white shirt in them. Oh well.

We came to a street of the village lined with shops with molas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mola_(art_form)) spread out around them. I knew Shannon had just entered her version of heaven and the tour had ended. One of the kuna fell behind the group to translate for us and eventually figured out that we weren’t going to catch up with the group. Shannon searched the hundreds of molas for her favorites. I stopped to buy an anklet and they insisted on putting it on me the right way (basically sewing it on). Our guide would stop by to give me an update of who to pay how much so I could gather shannon’s purchases. I raced to gather everything then started running to catch up with Shannon, only to almost pass her sitting on her walker and singing jingle bells to the kids. It’s hard to do a double take while running. She was waiting for someone to get her one last thing and decided to entertain the kids constantly following her around. The kids tried to take her walker for rides while the older kunas would ask how old she was. im thinking of calling Shannon my grandmother instead of having to explain everytime that she is my friend, not my mother or grandmother.

We returned to our island as darkness set it. Shannon had this beatific smile plastered on her face the whole way back. We had taken twice as long as planned. Sad, since I still had to get my swimsuit out of the water where it had fallen in earlier that day. Darkness meant I had to get it in first light before we left for the plane. Quite the wakeup sensation.