MOVIES AND BREADFRUIT (SAN BLAS ISLANDS, PANAMA)

We had become friends with Victor and Lisa, the Chief and his wife of the Western Hollandaise group in the San Blas Islands. One day, Victor showed up at our boat, ‘Tamarin of Tortola’, to collect the $5 Monthly Cruising Tax. It’s just a little fee for anchoring in their little group of islands.

The Hollandaise Islands are approximately 7 miles from the main land of Panama. The nearest populated islands were Nargana and Corazon de Jesus, two crowded islands that were joined together by a bridge. Victor and Lisa were from Nargana, which is also known as Rio Diablo after the nearby river. They and their extended family were in charge of the group of islands known as the Western Hollandaise.

This required tending the coconut trees, collecting them and then transporting them to Rio Diablo to sell to the Colombian coastal freighters. They also were in charge of collecting the anchorage fee from the boats anchored in their area. They were very diligent about that, going out to new boats when they arrived and giving a written receipt for payment. They must have had a calendar somewhere with it written down as they always knew who had paid, who was due, etc.

Victor and Lisa were always happy to show our guests around their little village. It was a very clean and organized group of huts. One hut is set aside for cooking. One or two huts are for sleeping with hammocks hung between posts. And there is always a hut set aside as a meeting room. Their extended family on the island could number anywhere from 5 to 15. They didn’t have any children themselves (which they always pointed out to everyone) but there were always some young, and very cute, little ones running around.

Over time, Victor offered to show us and our charter guests around their Isla de Fruitas, an island nearby that was full of avocadoes, limes, mangos, breadfruit, bananas and other fruits. We ‘gringos’ were not allowed on the island without an escort. This island had a unique soil composition to grow these fruits and vegetables.  It was one of the few dark soiled islands in the entire archipelago.  Victor definitely had a sense of pride of his ‘Fruit Island’.  Maybe it was the gratuity we always gave him after he gave us a tour.  He loved climbing up a tree to get us a breadfruit.  And when it was mango or avocado season, we were in heaven!  Thank you, Victor, for the lovely fruit!

 

Whenever Victor was on our boat, he would notice the TV that was so prominent in the corner of the salon. One day he asked if we had any movies that his family could watch. We thought it was a humorous request. We all like to think that the Kuna are not up with modern technology but the reality is that they like a lot of the conveniences that the Western world can provide. On the more populated villages, there was electricity provided by the community generators. And some families had televisions and VCR’s.   But in the outer islands there were no modern amenities.

 

We were honored that Victor asked us if he could come over one afternoon to watch a movie. It was 2:00 pm, a very hot part of the day, when a group of about 10 Kunas came on board. We offered them drinks which always meant Coca-Cola and showed them our movie selection. I kept trying to push the Club Soda but without the sugar component they found the taste weird. As it was before the terabyte era, we had three or four binders full of DVD’s. We asked if they had any idea of what they wanted to watch and they said ‘Action!’  Don’t know why ‘The Sound of Music’ wouldn’t work for them!  After much discussion, they decided on the ‘Terminator’.

I had asked Lisa to show me how she prepares breadfruit.   So while the gang was discussing what to watch, I was in the galley getting a cooking lesson. It really wasn’t too difficult but it was fun to have her teaching me. She was very specific about cutting the wedges a certain size, not too big and not too small, so that they would fry quickly. We had a deep frying pan with half an inch of oil on medium high heat.  We fried a few batches, salted them and served them with ketchup to the movie crowd.

Wow! So gourmet! But it was a treat that we would continue to serve to charter guests, with fish burgers or crab cakes, and they loved it!  And we loved treating Victor and his family to a entertaining afternoon.