Rare Treat
14 September 2012 | San Blas Islands, Panama
Becky/85 degrees, sunny
We are currently underway sailing to another island. What a nice day Denny had yesterday. It is a rare treat to be invited to eat with a Kuna family. Denny and I got dressed up and waited for David to come to the boat. He guided us in to the village entrance. He told us we needed to first see the chief and be introduced as his guest. We followed him into the chief's hut. It was dark and many adults and children were present. The chief was lying in a hammock. David did the introductions and explained to us what the chief was saying. He welcomed us to his village, told us that no one from his village would be coming to our boat to sell molas, fish, lobster or coconuts. If we wanted to buy any of these to let David know and he would take us to the people who are selling. Now this makes sense, because usually we have a few boats come to us trying to sell us stuff, but we haven't seen any. He asked us if we had a magazine as he likes to read them. I told him I would get him one, that it was on the boat. After meeting the chief, David took us to his house. We were surprised to see about 15 children sitting in chairs watching a satellite dish movie. I'll give you some detail of David in a moment. He offered us a chair and we sat and was introduced to David's wife, four children (ages 8 mo. 2, 5, 7) and many cousins. Then he asked us to come into another hut. When we went in, he said to Denny, "Happy Birthday" and there on the table was two large plates of food and drinks. We were both stunned by the amount of food! It was rice made with coconut milk, plantain, salad and fish. There's no way we were going to eat all this. David, his wife and two children sat down and ate with us. I gave them four beanie babies for each of his children and tea for his wife. This is what we learned: David and his wife got married when they were 13 & 15. In his time, if you held a girls hand that meant you wanted to marry. Now it is different, you can have a boyfriend or girlfriend for awhile. They have been married for 8 years. To earn money he works on cruisers boats and makes about $450 a month. He also has a restaurant with a full size stove and oven. His place has batteries that is charged by solar panels. He asked if I would print out some photos he had from his camera. He pointed out seven special photos and I told him to come by the boat the next day and they would be ready. The next morning David came to get his photos and a magazine for the chief, he also gave us a gift of limes, maybe 15 or 20 (this was very nice cause you can never have enough limes). This was a great experience, a special treat, one we won't forget. It was clear David and his family enjoyed having us there, as they were all smiles!
Life is good on Kokomo!
Becky