The Panama Community that escaped from its island to drown

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

There is silence, except for the swing of his broom through the floor of the small museum, which he rules, documenting the life of his community in Panama, Guna.

“Before you could hear children shout … Music everywhere, neighbors argue,” he says, “but now all the sounds have gone.”

Its community, living on the tiny low located island of Guardi Sugdub, is the first in Panama to move due to climate change.

The government said they were confronted with “immediate risk” from raising sea level, which scientists say is likely to make the island uninhabited by 2050.

Last June, most of the residents abandoned this narrow blend of wooden and tin homes for rows of neat prefabricated houses on the continent.

The relocation is commendable from some as a model for other groups around the world whose homes are threatened, but even so, it has divided the community.

“My father, my brother, my daughter -in -law and my friends are gone,” Dolphino says. “Sometimes the children whose families were left to cry, wondering where their friends went,” he says.

The house after a house is padded. About 1,000 people left, while about 100 remained – some, because there was not enough space in the new settlement. Others, like Dolphino, are not fully convinced that climate change is a threat or they just didn’t want to leave.

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

Guna lives on the 19th -century Sugdub wardies and even longer on other islands in this archipelago near the northern coast of Panama. They fled the mainland to escape from the Spanish conquistadors and later epidemics and conflict with other indigenous groups.

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

Guna is currently inhabiting more than 40 other islands. Steve Patton, a scientist at the Smithson Tropical Research Institute in Panama, says it is “almost sure” that most, if not all, will be submerged from the islands before the end of the century.

As climate change causes the ground to heat up, sea levels increase as glaciers and ice sheets melt and seawater expand as it warms.

Scientists have warned that hundreds of millions of people living in coastal areas around the world can be at risk for the end of the century.

On the Sugdub Guard, the waves were killed during the rainy season, washed into the homes, throwing under the hammocks where families sleep.

Patton says, “It is very unlikely that the island will be inhabited by 2050 based on current and projected levels of increase in sea level.”

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

The island is only 400 m long and 150 m wide. Some residents see overcrowding as a more problem. But others, like Magdalena Martinez, are afraid of the rising sea:

“Every year we saw that the tides were higher,” she says. “We couldn’t cook on our stoves and she was always flooded … That’s why we said” we have to get out of here. “

Magdalena was among those who got on motor boats and wooden canoes last June, bound to new homes.

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

The new Isberyala community is – time allowing – just 15 minutes by boat, followed by a five -minute drive by Gardi Sugdub. But he feels like another world.

Identical white and yellow homes the line of captured roads.

Magdalen’s eyes glow as she shows the “little house”, where she lives with her 14-year-old granddaughter Bianca and her dog.

Each house has a small area of ​​land behind it – a luxury that is not available on the island. “I want to plant yuka, tomatoes, bananas, mango and pineapples,” she admires.

“It’s quite sad to leave a place you’ve been to for so long. You miss your friends, the streets where you lived as you are so close to the sea,” she says.

Isberyala was built with $ 15 million (£ 12 million) by the Panama Government and additional funding from the Inter -American Development Bank.

In his new meeting house, which is covered with branches and leaves in the traditional style, waiting for Tito Lopez, Saila – or the leader of the community.

“My identity and my culture will not change. Just the houses have changed, “he says.

He lies in a hammock and explains that while the hammock retains his place in the culture of Guna, “the heart of Guna people will come to life.”

When Guna dies, they lie for one day in their hammock to visit family and friends. He is then buried next to them.

In the most modern new school, students aged 12 and 13 years rehearse music and dance of GUNA. Boys in bright shirts play pan tubes while the girls wearing Molas Shake Maracas.

The packed school on the island is now closed and students whose families stay there are traveling to the new building every day with their computers, sports fields and a library.

Magdalena says the conditions in Isberyala are better than on the island, where she says they had only four hours of electricity a day and had to receive drinking water by boat from a river to the mainland.

In Isberyala, the power supply is constant, but the water – pumped by wells nearby – is switched on in just a few hours a day. The system is sometimes destroyed by days at a time.

Also, there is still no health. Another resident Janisella Valarino says that one night her little daughter was unwell and she had to arrange transport back to the island late at night to see a doctor.

The Panama authorities told the BBC that the construction of a hospital in Isberia had entered a decade ago due to lack of funding. But they said they hoped to revive the plan this year and appreciate how to create space for the remaining residents to move from the island.

Janisel is glad that she is already able to attend the evening at the new school, but still returns to the island often.

“I’m not used to it yet. And I miss the house,” she says.

Communities around the world will be “inspired” by the way the residents of Guard Sugdub have encountered their position, says Erica Bauer, a researcher on climate displacement at Human Rights Watch.

“We need to learn from these early cases to understand what even success looks like,” she says.

With the advent of the afternoon, school activities give way to the shouts and reflections of football, basketball and volleyball.

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

Magdalena sits with her granddaughter, teaching her to sew Molly.

“It is difficult for her, but I know she will learn. Our unique ways cannot be lost,” Magdalena says.

Asked what she misses for the island, she replies: “I wish everyone was here.”