Mary: "If they build this runway, it is theirs. They can decide which airlines can land here and they will have more control.”
Control and autonomy are important to the Kuna. At times, foreigners have been allowed to host hotels here. But slowly, each community has voted them out. Just kicked off the islands. Even the Smithsonian Institution, which did environmental research here, was given the boot.
Booting the outsiders has historical merit. For five hundred years, the Kuna were subjects of colonialism, expansion, warring tribes and the genocide of the Spanish. Their modern history began in 1514, when the explorer Balboa was killed by a jealous adversary and replaced by a brutal territorial leader. Pedrarias Davila wanted gold so bad, that he went to war with everybody in the region, killing thousands.
Mary has been teaching English at the school on Achutupu. She has been doing it for free, and Geronimo, the Island patriarch, feels deeply indebted to her. He admits to me that he doesn't know how to repay her. I am sitting here assembled in the island’s dinner hall with the entire island present. Geronimo gives a speech about Mary, and a feast ensues. The women each bring Mary a homemade, hand-sewn Kuna textile - a Mola. In Kuna Yala, every woman makes mola quilts. I try to imagine what it would be like if every woman in America had the same hobby. Imagine a hundred million knitting needles.
Everybody is giving Mary shells and basket-woven fans, and I think about how people told me maybe I should dye my hair black when I travel in Central America. Maybe I should sew a maple leaf on my backpack. And I think about the Peace Corps guy dedicating his early twenties to service – no, I don’t need black hair, these two remind me that it’s cool to travel American.
When Geronimo leaves, the young Kuna go for the wine and rum, and everybody is given rations. The men drink, but the women sniff at the alcohol and give sour faces. One Kuna lady, she is perhaps four-foot-seven, smiles at me while I watch her sniffing at her wine. She says something which the chef translates as, “she wants to have your babies,” and which Mary translates as “She wants to dance with you.”
