Today we leave to go home from Panama. I am going to miss it here. I have had such a great experience here! I have had the opportunity to learn so much in such a short period of time. My favorite part of the entire trip was definitely when we went to the orphanage in Boquete. At the orphanage we met with one of the volunteers who moved down to Panama from the U.S. and has been living in Boquete and volunteering at the orphanage for the past year. There were about 60 kids at the orphanage and a lot of them were there for reasons of domestic violence and abuse, so they are considered “unadoptable” because the government is hoping that they will be able to repair the situation at home and return the children to their families. This was the hardest part about seeing all of these children; I wish I could see them and have the hope the one day they will all be adopted by a family who will take care of them. The kids at the orphanage were all so sweet and so excited about the little toys and candies that we brought them. We would open up a package of crayons, and literally hand out single crayons to the children and they would be so excited to get this single crayon. The gratitude of the children that I have seen here in Panama has been so inspiring. I am so glad that I got the opportunity to come here for this 3 week session. I have learned so much from the people that I have come into contact with here and love the cultural experience that I have had.
So glad to see posts are still being finished up.
ReplyDeleteWinnie, the single crayon idea sure worked better at the orphanage than at the school in Alto Caballero!