Latest travel piece for the Times, on the San Blas Islands of Panama where the culture remains relatively untouched:
Nearby Haven for Ancient Ways (Sunday Times Travel Section, 1/6/08)
What I didn’t mention in the article is that my family’s trip to San Blas was my First Trip Abroad. It was 1984 and I was three years old. We landed in Costa Rica first, which apparently threw me for quite a loop. My mom said I was all out of sorts until I drew a map. On it, I had put New York City and Costa Rica a few centimeters apart. I put it in my pocket and was fine from there on out.
San Blas was a fitting family trip since my mother lusts after unspoiled cultures and my father unspoiled beaches. I have very vague memories of lobsters marching across the island at noon–why I have no idea. The Kuna Indians that live there are famous for their molas (pictured in one of my sister’s photographs that didn’t make it into the slide show–BTW she now is working for the AP in Jerusalem and is keeping a blog). Beautiful as the molas are, the real hot commodity on the island were the stuffed animals my sister and I carried with us. The women had lots of little children, but no dolls like ours. Three years older, my sister gladly traded in hers for molas. I walked around hugging a plush Garfield doll, which all the mothers tried to ply away from me with one, two, five molas. But I refused to entertain offers.
I always regretted that. The molas fetched upwards of $20 apiece then in the States and my mom told me I could have gotten five times as many Garfields. But it was my first trip and I needed him. Also, belatedly and admittedly secondarily, I realized how much more a Kuna child could have gotten out of the doll than I did.
So this October when we went back, I stopped into Toys ‘R Us first. Garfield is out of vogue, so Scooby Doo had to sub in. Down main street on my last day in San Blas, I showed it to Juan, a local artisan and the only guy in town who spoke English, and told him my plan. He just laughed. 20 years had considerably changed the supply/demand dynamic. “I have those movies,” he told me.
The woman down the street wasn’t any better, despite clutching the hand of a small child. One mola, I pleaded. I had paid $20 for the Scooby, and they wanted the same for a mola in 2007, so it seemed a fair trade. She shook her head at me sadly, amused. I came back to Juan, tried his sister-in-law who was holding a young babe. Half a mola, I offered, and I’ll make up the difference. She, like Juan, just laughed. A quarter off, I begged. She cocked her head at me. A quarter off, she finally agreed, cutting the mola from its display, a black, orange, and white pattern of concentric, crenellated crosses. The baby gurgled with delight as she gave it the Scooby doll. And why not? They made out like bandits.
How does the Scooby Doo story support the “relatively untouched” angle?
Relatively untouched. Key word is relatively. Now they have those flights coming in, they have more contact with the rest of Panama. Still, they hold to their old ways, but with a little more outside culture penetration (just a little) than 20 years ago.
Opiniones de gente de verdad sobre asuntos de verdad en Costa Rica: http://tiquiciadeverdad.blogspot.com/