Day 1: Culture Shock

The first thing I noticed about Panama was the heat. Not just any old heat, but the same kind of suffocating, thick sort of heat that brings about familiar memories of walking into my bathroom after my sister's taken a long, hot shower. Not unlike Florida, I realized as I walked off of the airplane and into Panama City's international airport. Not unlike Florida at all. Up until the moment I walked through customs and out onto the waiting lot to hang out and wait for our transportation, I thought I was relatively familiar with the environment. The humidity could do nothing to attack my hair since it had been carefully wound into a myriad of braids, and the traffic was something I could handle too. No big deal. People screamed intelligibly at one another on a regular basis!

Seeing the mountains in the distance, hazed over by the presence of approaching thunderstorms, sent shivers down my spine out of sheer anticipation for the opportunity to climb a volcano to watch a sunrise. I hadn't seen mountains in years. That, and the sheer amount of lush vegetation, weighted down with blossoms of lavender and pink and yellow, lined the highways and seemed to be as familiar to the landscape as weeds.

All twenty-three of us, students and faculty included, were crammed into an autobus with our luggage separated into two vehicles that zig-zagged along Panama's congested highways with so much offensive driving occurring that I thought I was in one of the Fast and Furious films. We slowed down just long enough to spy a local guarding his gas station with a shot gun and a sour look on his face, before we blasted through a red-light and went on our way. Sorry Mom, 'safe' is a relative term down here.

It wasn't long after that when the skyline came into view, tall, spindly buildings that looked to be in various stages of construction. It was beautiful to see the metropolitan area, but what I didn't realize was what hid beneath the shadows of those structures. It was the Panama that we couldn't see in light of all the grandeur, the Panama that we had come to serve.

What struck me the most wasn't the flowers or the mountains or Panama's flag overlooking the city...it was the slums. I couldn't even begin to imagine the kind of poverty that hung right outside the doors of these larger buildings. Clothing hung from the windows, and children looked out over lots that were ragged and filled with garbage. It was normal life for these people, and it wasn't easy to see.

My hope is that I can be understanding and as helpful as I possibly can be for these people, to be the kind of help that they are looking for. Ms. Metzger once told us as a group that people walked for miles to come see us, which was an alarming discovery, but a true one none-the-less. We're needed here, and I can't wait to get started.