Shame on whom?

PUERTO LARA, Panama — A bronzed woman, her breasts spilling over her belly, tossed a plastic grocery bag into the open fire. She waited for the bag to crumple and disappear, and then placed a bowl over the flames to begin dinner.

After a few days of living with the Wounaan tribe in Puerto Lara, Panama, I had become accustomed to shirtless women. But something about this just looked wrong. Throwing plastic into fire? What about the toxins spewed into the air?

Burning trash is commonplace for the community. Most huts are surrounded by piles of dead ashes.

I lay rocking back and forth in my hammock in one of the huts, thinking about it. I watched a dog limp through the grass, and I listened to the rhythm of a villager carving a canoe oar with a machete. Three small children ran toward the lake, one holding a kite made out of a trash bag trailing behind them.

The sun dipped past the trees. Even at night, the air in Panama’s Darien Province was hot and stiff despite an occasional breeze that faded almost as soon as it rose.

Huts lined the sides of a dirt path that stretched from the Pan-American Highway to the edge of the rainforest. Except for the pay phone planted in the center of the community, the scene reminded me of a snapshot from a textbook on 19th century Native Americans.

A development project with students brought me to the village, aimed to teach the tribe how to promote tourism and run a business. Seeing trash bags and pay phones juxtaposed with unclothed women covered in body paint raised questions in my mind about the ethics of cultural preservation.

Is there a moral responsibility to provide internet and refrigerators so indigenous communities can progress towards a quality of life like developed countries? Or is the more important responsibility to help communities preserve their rapidly fading traditions? Is there a responsibility to guide villagers on environmental issues, such as burning plastic, or it that meddling into their ways of life?

After the women finished a performance of tribal dances — one that asked for rain — some of the women, especially the teenagers, covered their breasts with their hands. They were shirtless when cooking for our group or using body paint on our arms and legs, but when the tribal women attended classes or walked around during the day, most wore spaghetti-strap tank tops, just like ones that I wore.

Puerto Lara’s tourism committee, run by men in the community, instructed the women to be shirtless when tourists arrived, said Peace Corps volunteer Joanna Hitchner, who had lived in the community for almost two years. Many women said they felt embarrassed about being exposed in front of outsiders who stared at the women’s chests. Interaction with foreigners had sent the tribal women mixed signals about social norms, about what was right and wrong.

The village welcomed increased wealth through tourism and communication: But at what cost?

This report comes from a journalist in our Student Correspondent Corps, a GlobalPost project training the next generation of foreign correspondents while they study abroad.