A Coastal Christmas

Hope you are having a wonderful holiday, here on San Blas we have had many wonderful experiences. Currently there are eight Elders (six who are new) serving on all the islands and we are all enjoying life. Recently there was a boat heading from the Panama Canal to Columbia that had a lot of cargo but hit something and was taking on water. In order to prevent it from going down, they threw over board a lot of items and because this happened near the islands, many natives took their boats out and filled them up with items which made this one of the best Christmas times ever for the children. Many of them received scooters and roller skates and it has been funny to watch them trying to learn how to use them on the sand.

See the line where the sky meets the sea it calls me And no one knows, how far it goes

Being out on San Blas reminds me of the movie, The Other Side of Heaven or Johnny Lingo which I highly recommend watching. The two combined could literally sum up San Blas life. Like the movie Johnny Lingo, many here just travel from island to island on canoes.  It is a very simple way of living and seems very similar to the movie. Hopefully, we will not see any prearranged weddings where the girls are bargained for cows. 

They do have a lot of animals on the islands though and it is funny because they just wander around everywhere like the children. We see cats laying out on the beach and they wander into our hut at times as well.  They will let you pet them and are great for capturing rats which will try to tunnel up through the ground here and there. When cats are around, we often times just put rocks in the rat holes to keep them from coming into our place to get our food.

Speaking of food, we just headed back to the city last weekend. It is about an eight hour boat ride. I suggest that if you ever get to visit that you take a small plane, it is a lot quicker. We were able to go get more food, like pop tarts, granola bars and fruit snacks to add to our daily canned chicken, pork and beans, and tortillas. The last missionaries here were sisters and they had bought pasta and sauce but they ate all the pasta. We have been using the sauce and parmesan cheese with a doughnut like bread they make here without the sugar; it tastes a lot like a calzone.  

Sadly, I just missed the high seafood season. If I had been here earlier, I would have been eating crab and lobster all the time. Right now, the tides and waves are high and three fishermen were lost to the ocean. The other day a man braved the high waves and went out fishing for lobster and crab. I asked if I could take a picture with one of the lobsters he caught, he looked at me as if I was strange then brought out the biggest lobster I have ever seen for a photo. No, I did not get to eat this or any other lobster, but I have eaten some crazy things. I just can't wait to watch the second Indian Jones movie again when they pull out the big tray of food with weird foods, like monkey brains, and I can say, I ate that, and that and that. A while ago, a family told me that they had a monkey that someone killed for them which they eventually had burry the bones in our front yard. They told me that if I wanted it, I could dig it up and I could have its teeth. 😳

We live in sandals and the only problem I have found is it causes crazy tan lines and you get bit by ants. The first week we got bit a few times on our feet and you do feel it. My companion actually ended up having some swollen bites bursting open from getting an infection. We heard of a family that went to go to the Monti (mountains) and bring home ants for their daughter who was turning six years old. They thought ants were hard workers and that it would be a great idea to put them all over their daughter's head so that she could learn from the ants how to be hard worker.

Another unique experiences here is learning the Kuna language. There really are only about 15 letters in their alphabet. Many do not read here except the younger generation who are also becoming bilingual. Those who speak Spanish intermix the two languages and so it is still difficult to understand. We have been learning as we study. One thing we found hilarious is that the word for grandmother is “mu” and the word for drunk is mu, mu. If you had a drunk grandmother you would say mu, mu, mu.  Everything is super funny with translation, for instance, the chief leader of the island here is a member of the church. In their language he is referred to as Sapen Dula (hope I spelled that correctly) which means tall with authority or in Book of Mormon terms, Chief Judge. The name for God means tall dad, or granddad as in big. It all translates very directly which is cool. Everyone around here just calls the missionaries Mergi sipu, which basically describes us as white guys. 

In our ward here, there are about sixty or seventy members each week at church. Most of them are younger. In fact, the new second councilor in our ward is seventeen years old. 

On a stranger note, we recently, ran into a girl who had been using a witch doctor to help her. He was chanting and mumbling for over 10 hours until the girl started screaming. Her mother came to us and asked if we could help her by giving her a blessing. As missionaries, we of coarse said that we would help. When we got there, there was not much light in the room. The witch doctor's cigarette filled the dark room with a small light, smoke, and embers that fell from it onto the ground. The family literally, took this flailing girl, wrapped her in a hammock to control her and we then were able to pray, she immediately stopped her seizure like activities. The witch doctor said, wow, that worked, and then he began his chanting over her again and she went from calm back to screaming. That was crazy!

One of the things that you see a lot of here on San Blas are these small tiki-like figurines called Nuchu carved to look like people. When they go to retrieve the wood to carve them, they pray over the tree to make sure that it is the right time because they believe that there is life in the wood and they need to preserve it in what they are creating. Many believe there is healing power in these figurines. Since we were seeing them everywhere as well as mola art, we were hoping to maybe get one of these as a souvenir, but were told that they are not made for others because this is faith based and it would be a waste of a spirit. Lucky for me, I happened to get some Mr. Rogers exciteMINT's this holiday from my family. It had a picture of Mr. Rogers and his puppet King Friday on the outside of the tin container. The picture of the puppet king looked like one of the wooden Nuchus. I showed the man the mints and he considered that if Mr. Rogers had a Nuchus, then it would be okay for him to make a small one for me.  He said, "okay, I will make you one."  I now have a small Nuchu about the size of your index finger, that I will cherish.

It was great to get another Christmas advent calendar from home, my mom and sister made this up during July before she headed off to college. We were floored as we opened up one square to post and thought this must have been inspired.

Trip to the Panama Temple with my companion Elder Boyd who heads home next week.