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Feb
2
sleeping in trees - tales of the kuna
Filed Under Tropical Life, medical |
on the morning of our fourth visit to panama’s centro medico nacional i feel no urgency to arrive. every day alex and i come here and wait. every day we meet with a different doctor, and every day i pay. it’s a disturbing pattern i’d like to break. so when we pull in, i tell alex i’ll wait out front.
it’s just before 10. already there’s a heaviness over panama city, a promise of what i like to call, the burning hours. street sounds desperately struggle in the thick air.
i lean off to one side and watch the people shuffle past. a taxi carrying a kuna indian pulls up. there’s something surreal about watching a kuna woman get out of a taxi. maybe it’s the gringo in me that expects her to be riding a burro. or maybe it’s because she’s talking on a cell phone, and holding an infant topped with a tommy hilfiger cap.
it’s as if wilma flintstone has morphed into judi jettson. except the kuna woman’s more colorfully dressed. she’s a wisp of a woman. her baby hangs on like a fat tick, giggling, and grabbing at the gold ring in her nose.
“cuidado” i say.
she’s ablaze with tropical color. the kuna’s have an elegant approach to art that’s one part recycling, and one part capitalism. they create some of the most beautiful clothing in the world. and when they tire of wearing their molas, they tear them apart, and re-work them into something to sell tourists.
i spend another hour watching, then settle in upstairs. alex is waiting. she says her doctor has affirmed the diagnosis of bone degeneration. she’ll be on fosamax for two years. i tell her, at $20 a pill, better to live without bones.
osteoporosis affects the majority of panamanian women over 35. most are too poor to pay for this treatment. so they turn to seguro social for help. when they’re not mass murdering people, seguro social relies on a list of approved medicines called the cuadro basico de medicamentos. fosamax’s not on that list. the poor are given calcium pills instead.
we get more good news from the dermatologist. she says alex has an allergy. it could be the latex gloves she uses to clean, or the chemicals she cleans with when she’s not wearing latex gloves. either way alex’s no longer allowed to wash, clean or cook. good thing she can still fuck, or she’d be out of a job.
i can already tell what kind of day it’s going to be - expensive. i guess that’s why i’m surprised the kuna woman’s here. where does she get the money? she can’t pay the bill with coconuts. isn’t there a kuna medicine man, or shaman in san blas who could set her right?
sad. it seems like only yesterday that chanting over a handful of carved figurines, or throwing the bones of a dead spaniard was enough for the kuna people. now modern medicine’s expected to protect them from the malevolent spirits that seep into their bodies causing sickness and death. what does it say about a society when its traditions are no longer observed?
i’m told the kuna’s of the san blas islands have a fable about a woman who’d walk the beach alone. this particular stretch of beach was popular with migratory birds. the woman would watch the birds, and plead with them to take her away. every day she’d return. every day the birds would fly lower. then one day the birds lifted her up, and flew her to another world.
she stayed with them a long time. then one day she returned carrying bird songs for kuna mothers to sing to their children. trouble is, she also had feathers on her chest, and liked sleeping in trees. the songs were nice, but this was not the kuna way. the old ones wanted to cure her. they washed her in medicine to restore her kuna spirit. but she’d been away too long. there was no cure. so she returned to the birds.
as i sit, and write, in the not totally unpleasant lassitude of the centro medico lobby, it’s cruelly obvious this kuna woman’s been sleeping in trees. and i wonder, now that she and i have flown so far, if either of us can ever go back.
join the cult of cojito. just drink the koolaid.
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“good thing she can still fuck, or she’d be out of a job.”
WTF? WHO ARE YOU? GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM.
lol um, i can’t go back - you’re on my site elle.
heh, you quoted my favorite line. thanks. my apologies if you were offended. it’s a mistake to take everything i write so seriously.
elle, you need to lighten up on life and get laid once and a while…i bet your just a cold and lonely washed up hag.
´sa matter elle the comment hit to close to home for comfort?
Love your stuff Cojito, keep it up.
Ive been here a few months now and have heard mixed reviews on the Kuna women. Maybe you can help clear things up. I have been told they are hairless….does that ring a bell for anyone?
haha - i dunno, they’ve got plenty of hair up top. now my Gf’s a chola, and she’s hairless. but she uses a razor to achieve that effect.