The conditions under which masks are made are becoming increasingly difficult. Deforestation, climate change and humanitarian tragedy: our craftswomen and their families are the last witnesses to an ancestral culture.
It was only ten years ago that I began to penetrate the Darién jungle and live with the indigenous families, and I met some happy people.
The women still went about freely with a loincloth around their loins and their breasts bare.
That's no longer the case ten years on. In the same way, I'm shocked today to see children aged six or eight going to school who can no longer really communicate with their grandparents, who only speak the Embera dialect, whereas these young children only speak Spanish.
They will have little or no knowledge of the myths and legends of their people, and will forget the sounds and names of the good and evil spirits that roam the rainforest. Shamanism has also declined. "Brujería" is still practised to treat ailments big and small, and everyone is a bit of a sorcerer or bonesetter when it comes to calming a baby's vomiting or, more tragically, a serious and incurable illness.
But shamanic ritual as it existed fifty years ago is rarely practised. Fortunately, it is still practised.
What has changed in just ten years?
Climate change
First and foremost, climate change is making itself felt. Agriculture has to adapt to it, and it's not always easy to navigate because the lack of water means that rivers (the only means of communication) are sometimes difficult to navigate. Daily life is therefore becoming more complicated for these people, who make their living from farming, fishing and hunting. Also, the materials needed to make masks are becoming rarer, and collecting them means long hours on the river. They had to go further and further afield to find it.
Deforestation
Incredible as it may seem, this tropical jungle, this lung in the heart of Central America, is coveted by "ganaderos", cattle breeders.
In the space of 10 years, this region has been colonised by cattle farms, cutting down trees, burning the forest, whether accidentally or deliberately, and draining land to convert it to pasture.
Numerous clashes have taken place between the indigenous people and the "settlers", as they are called, from the centre of the Isthmus of Panama.
The icing on the cake is the concession offered for years to big Asiatic companies for the extraction of tropical wood. A calamity. I've seen with my own eyes these convoys of majestic tree trunks, cut down and on their way to the port to be shipped and processed very far from here. I have no idea of the volume, but I saw for myself how much the forest is retreating.
The road has been improved to make it easier to get to the farmers' farms and trucks for companies involved in tropical wood exports.
In the past, when I left for the jungle, I left the town before dawn around 5am and it took us eight hours by road and then by piste to get to the first port.
Today, this road is used to transport cattle and logs of teak, balsa and cocobolo. It's much better and will become a new temptation for the young natives. Go and look for a job in the city, as a sweeper, a builder or perhaps a gardener. Leave the rainforest, its birds, its mysteries, live in poverty in miserable and dangerous neighbourhoods, but in the city.
Until now, unlike many other tribes, the Embera tribes have stayed in their original places because life there wasn't bad. It's true that the region has always been extremely dangerous, but now everything is speeding up...
The migrants
This acceleration, which nobody predicted, is mainly due to the migration of people to the United States, 8,000 kilometres away.
The humanitarian drama unfolding in this region of Central America is on an appalling scale.
Migrants are arriving from Ethiopia, India, Iran and, in recent years, mainly from Haiti and Venezuela.
There were 248,000 in 2022, rising to 520,000 in 2023.
There are two routes through this jungle, and one of them leads to a tiny indigenous community.
Many lose their lives here because the jungle is particularly dangerous: it takes between 5 and 10 days to walk through the "Darien gap", in the midst of insects, reptiles and wild animals, with no roads or tracks.
There are also many reports of violence, rape and robberies.
For the local populations, this phenomenon is a shock, but everyone is trying to profit from it.
In addition to the humanitarian tragedy, this phenomenon is speeding up the disappearance of the indigenous community, with up to 1,000 to 1,500 migrants arriving every day in a community that initially consisted of 300 to 400 people. It's a tidal wave that nobody anticipated.
The river water is no longer drinkable in some places, and yet the river is the source of life for the local populations. Alcohol consumption is beginning to appear in the indigenous communities, with obvious damage to these populations.
Despite everything, I carry on; I continue my quest for beauty in the midst of this chaos. I maintain groups of craftswomen in several villages and, strengthened by our ten years of collaboration, we are producing increasingly beautiful and sophisticated pieces.
We may not be able to change the world, but we can make it a more beautiful place, and anyone who wants to work with me can make a contribution.
And we are proud of our project.