Fire!

Friday 11^th February

When we first visited Green Island (Kanlildup, in the Eastern Naguargandup Cays) with Danni about a month ago, the island was at that time uninhabited.  We came back with Frieda last week and there was a little Kuna hut with a large family living in it, around 15 people, including the children.  Green Island has narrow but beautiful beaches and tall coconut palms, it’s possible to walk the entire perimeter in about 20 minutes.  There are a million sea stars here, and of course the crocodile.

There’s always smoke coming from the Kuna huts; in the established villages each family has 2 huts, one for cooking and one for sleeping, on the more remote islands outside the villages the family’s often have only one hut, which is used for both sleeping and cooking.  

To make the cooking fire’s the Kunas lay 4 long pieces of wood in the shape of an X, and light a fire in the center over which they suspend a cooking pot, the pieces of wood are gradually pushed towards the center under the pot as they burn, keeping the fire burning throughout the day.

Having dropped Frieda off at the airport this morning, we came back to Green Island for the night.  I was sitting in the salon reading when I noticed a large cloud of smoke coming from the island, I looked out towards the Kuna hut and saw flames and smoke billowing out of it; the hut was burning. 

The entire family were gathered on the beach loading the children and their few possessions into a large canoe.  There was no panic, they were all very quiet as they climbed one by one into the canoe, and headed out to sea as the sun was setting, it would be totally dark within the hour. 

Bob said he has noticed a few large burnt areas on the islands, so it could be that when a family moves on, they burn their hut to leave nothing behind, perhaps this is their normal practice.  It just seemed very strange to me that they would choose to do it as it’s getting dark, and head out to sea with a boat load of children. 

This way of life does seem very environmentally friendly though if you think about it, to leave a place exactly as you found it.  In time the burnt area would grow again exactly as it was before, with no evidence of human intrusion. 

When I think of all the deserted, abandoned buildings, areas of concrete and trash that people leave behind in our so called civilized society.  Wouldn’t it be better if we did the same as the Kunas, and left things as we found them, allowing nature to re-claim what we had taken from it?