A different way to live

People live. The question is how they do that. For the past three months, we have had very different daily lives than before. We crossed the Atlantic Ocean, visited other countries and met a lot of people from all around the globe. For the first time, I realized what a huge impact the place you are born in, your social environment, and your culture have on your life. Today, we arrived on the islands of San Blas off the coast of Panama. Here, we encountered a group of people who share a very different way to live than do on board or at home: the Kuna tribe.

The day we arrived on the San Blas Islands started early in the morning because we had to drop the anchor after having crossed the Caribbean Sea for the past ten days. The sight of the small green islands in the endless turquoise shades of water left us astonished. Yet very fast, something else caught our attention: people of the Kuna tribe sat in their dugout boats and came right to our ship to talk to us.

Yesterday, Lilly held a presentation about the indigenous people we will meet here and told us about their unique culture. The Kuna live in small communities on different islands and parts of Panama, and they have a lot of traditions and beliefs. In the past, they had many difficulties defending and conserving their culture while the country of Panama was colonialized, and more and more Europeans gained power in Panama and Kuna Yala, the land of the Kuna tribe. Although the Kuna now have an agreement with the government of Panama that grants the tribe autonomy, it is still a massive challenge to protect their way of living.

On their self-made dugout boats that are made from one single trunk, the Kuna carried a lot of self-made items, like clothing, jewelry, and their traditional molas, embroidered cloths. They came on board where they built up a little market to sell the things they made. Talking to them and taking a closer look at all the handcrafted stuff was very exciting for me.

In the afternoon, we went to the small island Nalaguna. On it, there were a lot of small houses made of bamboo and palm leaves and everywhere you looked, there where people wearing colorful clothes. It felt as if I just stranded on some dream island directly out of my own imagination.  Some of the inhabitants offered us a trip on their dugouts. I was very fascinated by how good and fast they were able to navigate the water. Later on, we played basketball with a group of boys and girls, which was very funny and helped us to connect with them.

Back on the Thor, I was very tired and thought about all the new experiences I made that day. I am very grateful for this opportunity to learn more about and from other people around this world and to get to know their unique and very different way to live.