We met a local named Nesto who spoke a little English as
he lived in California and worked on a boat. We were with 3 guys from another
boat "No Regrets" and one of them knew pretty good Spanish so with
his Spanish and Nesto's English we got along just fine. Nesto toured us around the 3 islands showing
us the local sites including a school on 2 of the islands. Children over 14 go
to school in Panama. We were shown the
church, the many tiny stores and bars.
Nesto also arranged a lobster dinner for the 6 of us. We got to select our lobsters. We also will have bread fruit. We were taken to the local bakery and had to
return in 30 minutes to pick up our warm bread.
They have a concrete basketball court where they have challenges from
local islands. The island is tiny about 1/2 a km by 1/2 a km. There are 700 people living on the island
Nesto lives on and 300 on the other island. The homes are made of vertical
bamboo poles with a thatched roof. The buildings are very close together.
Friday 30 January 2015
Meeting the locals of San Blas Islands (Jan 28)
We
spent a good part of the morning and part of the afternoon on 3 of the local
islands that are 200 to 400 metres apart.
We looked at the local molas which are quilted, with lots of stitching
and applique. This is a very important
export (via all the tourists) of the San Blas Islands. living with a quilter I was able to discern
the ones that had much better hand stitching.
The locals come out in their dug out canoes and the women are very
persistent in selling their wares. The
Kuna Indians are a matriarchal society and the women are very hard
bargainer. The women control the
finances and the business. The men fish
and do the menial tasks.
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Women taking care of business!! Beni likes that!!
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