The Panama community that fled from its island drowned

“If the island sinks, I will sink with it,” says Delfino Davies, his smile does not fade for a second.

There is silence, with the exception of the swish of his broom on the floor of the small museum that runs documenting the life of his community in Panama, La Guna.

“Before, you could hear the children shout … music everywhere, neighbors arguing,” he says, “but now all the sounds have left.”

His community, which lives on the small island of Gardi Sugdub, is the first in Panama to be relocated due to climate change.

The Government has said that they face the “imminent risk” of the increase in sea level, that scientists say it is likely to make the island uninhabitable for 2050.

In June of last year, most residents left this narrow revolt of wooden houses and tin for rows of prefabricated houses ordered in the continent.

The relocation has been praised by some as a model for other groups around the world whose houses are under threat, but still, it has divided the community.

“My father, my brother, my sisters -in -law and my friends are gone,” says Delfino. “Sometimes children whose families have been crying, wondering where their friends have gone, he says.

House after house is lock. Around 1,000 people left, while around 100 stayed, some because there was not enough space in the new settlement. Others, like Delfino, are not completely convinced of climate change is a threat, or simply did not want to leave.

He says he wants to stay close to the ocean, where he can fish. “People who lose their tradition lose their soul. The essence of our culture is in the islands,” he adds.

The Guna has lived in Gardi Sugdub since the nineteenth century, and even more time in other islands in this archipelago on the north coast of Panama. They fled the continent to escape the Spanish conquerors and, later, epidemics and conflicts with other indigenous groups.

They are known for their clothes called “Molas”, decorated with colorful designs.

The GUNA currently inhabited more than another 40 islands. Steve Paton, a scientist at the Tropical Research Institute Smithsonian in Panama, says that it is “almost a certainty” that most, if not all, of the islands will submerge before the end of the century.

As climate change causes the earth to heat up, sea level is increasing as glaciers and ice layers melt and seawater expands as it heats up.

Scientists warn that hundreds of millions of people living in coastal areas of the world could be at risk for the end of the century.

In Gardi Sugdub, the waves whipped during the rainy season, washed in houses, licking under the hammocks where families sleep.

Paton says: “It is very unlikely that the island is habitable by 2050, according to current and projected rates of increased sea level.”

However, the first discussions about relocation began, more than a decade ago, due to population growth, not climate change.

The island is only 400 m long and 150 m wide. Some residents see overcrowding as the most pressing problem. But others, like Magdalena Martínez, fear the sea on the rise:

“Every year, we saw that the tides were higher,” she says. “We couldn’t cook in our stoves and I was always flooded … so we said ‘we have to get out of here.'”

Magdalena was among those who became motor boats and wooden canoes last June, bound for new houses.

“I brought only my clothes and some kitchen utensils,” she says. “You feel that you are leaving pieces of your life on the island.”

The new community, Isberyala, is, if the weather allows it, only 15 minutes by boat, followed by a five -minute trip, from Gardi Sugdub. But he feels like another world.

The identical white and yellow houses are aligned on suffocated roads.

Magdalena’s eyes light up while showing the “little house”, where he lives with his 14 -year -old granddaughter Bianca and his dog.

Each house has a small land area behind it, a luxury that is not available on the island. “I want to plant cassava, tomatoes, bananas, mangoes and pineapples,” he gets excited.

“It is quite sad to leave a place where you have been so long. I miss your friends, the streets where you lived, so close to the sea,” she says.

Isberyala was built with $ 15 million (£ 12 million) of the Panamanian government and additional funds from the Inter -American Development Bank.

In his new house of meetings, covered with branches and leaves in the traditional style, he expects Tito López, Sayla or community leader.

“My identity and my culture are not going to change, it is only the houses that have changed,” he says.

He is lying in a hammock and explains that while the hammock keeps its place in the culture of Guna, “the heart of the people of Guna will be alive.”

When a guna dies, they lie for a day in their hammock so that family and friends visit it. Then he is buried with them.

In the new generation school, students aged 12 and 13 are rehearsing the music and dances of Guna. Boys with bright shirts play pan pipes, while girls with bolas shake maracas.

The narrow school on the island has closed now, and students whose families stay there travel to the new building every day with their computers, sports fields and library.

Magdalena says that the conditions in Isberyala are better than on the island, where he says they only had four hours of electricity a day and had to look for drinking water from a river from a river on the continent.

In Isberyala, the power supply is constant, but the water, pumped with nearby wells, only turns on for a few hours a day. The system has sometimes broken down for days at the same time.

In addition, there is still no medical attention. Another resident, Yanisela Vallarino, says that one night her little daughter was not fine and had to organize the transport of return to the island late at night to see a doctor.

The Panaman authorities told the BBC that the construction of a hospital in Isberyla stagnated a decade ago due to lack of funds. But they said they expected to revive the plan this year and evaluated how to create space so that the remaining residents move from the island.

Yanisela is delighted that she can now attend night classes in the new school, but still returns to the island.

“I’m not used to my house yet,” she says.

Communities around the world will “inspire” by the way in which Gardi Sugdub residents have faced their situation, says Erica Bower, a climate displacement researcher in Human Rights Watch.

“We need to learn from these first cases to understand how success is seen,” she says.

When the afternoon comes, school activities give way to football, basketball and volleyball screams.

“I prefer this place to the island because we have more space to play,” says Jerson, eight years old, before diving for a football ball.

Magdalena sits with her granddaughter, teaching him to sew molas.

“It’s hard for her, but I know she will learn. Our unique forms cannot be lost,” says Magdalena.

When asked what strange from the island, she replies: “I hope we were all here.”