LOOKING BACK
We sailed into Bocas Del Toro, Panama just a few months ago on July 3rd, 2017. We were exhausted from a tiring, rough, long, passage from Grenada. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into with Floating Doctors. We had no idea what Panama would bring us during hurricane season. We had no idea of the many adventures we would soon be a part of as volunteers.
We stepped back in time to a place uncluttered by technology. It was unclean by American standards and many of the villages were quite oblivious to the rest of the world going on around them. I watched in shock as women openly breast-fed their children in ways that are only captured moments in National Geographic from my childhood. But by the time we left, it no longer brought shock but more of an acceptance of God’s wonderful creation and how life was meant to be lived. The children are beautiful, friendly, and loving all the attention they can get. They are like puppies with no understanding of personal space. They touched and leaned and climbed right in our laps as they looked up at us with soulful eyes. I will miss them the most because they made the biggest impact on me. So full of life, so friendly, they know few dangers in their world. Each village is one very large extended family.
DARK CLOUDS
I journaled this a few weeks back and wanted to share the story because, for the young children especially, health is so precarious and unfortunately the life and death struggle is very real.
Yesterday a cloud hung over our clinic at one of the villages, figuratively and actually. A one-year-old child died during the night and the mood was very somber. What happened, we asked? In a word – poverty. It turns out the other children of the family that lost the baby were on our watch list. They were all malnourished during our last visit and many of their medical conditions related to the financial situation of the family. Poverty can be a deadly disease here. With Floating Doctors, we do everything we can do medically for these families. We even arrange and pay for transportation to hospitals when they need it. We have built shelters in some of the villages. But the food we can provide is limited and mostly in the form of Mana packs. When we have it, it is given out to only the most needy. But food and shelter are not really part of Floating Doctors charter.
You can tell by looking at the dogs how well off the community is, although all the animals are thin, at this village they are on the verge of starvation. When the families are eating well the animals get scraps, but when the families have none for themselves there is very little chance for the pets. I use that term loosely as “pets” are mistreated from an American standard. The animals breed uncontrolled and roam the village.
The ride home in the cayuco was dark and stormy as rain drizzled down and the drone of the outboard and the waves swishing by was all that we heard. Many of us were huddled under rain ponchos or some were just letting the cool rain run down their faces. Each of us quiet, consumed in our own thoughts of the tragic loss of a little child that could have been prevented! My thoughts were of our own grandchildren, how healthy, happy and full of life. We were missing them all the more and feeling a bit guilty for being so far away.
The following day we were at a new clinic in a different village but my thoughts were still on the children from yesterday. We rode over in the cayuco in the early morning just after dawn. This village also is on the edge of poverty. We carried all our supplies up a steep muddy hill to the rancho and as soon as we set up the admin table a line was already forming. Women, children, older folks – some came by dugout canoe, some from their homes nearby. Liana and I were always the first ones to get going since we were the first step in the process. We got their names and looked up their medical records. Then they would go through the basics at Intake – What were they here for, weight and height checked, blood pressure checked, maybe urine analysis, then on to teams of doctors, nurses, medical students and dentists. We checked in people nonstop until early afternoon when we got our first lull. Time seemed to fly by and next thing you know it’s one in the afternoon. Time to take a quick break.
My lunch that day was a couple of johnny cake sandwiches with sliced lunch meat and cheese, and an apple. Johnny cakes are a fresh bread made each day on a hot grill like a fried hamburger bun. I had just sat down on a bench and started eating my lunch when I noticed a couple of boys around 6-8 years old watching me eat. One of them stretched out his hand to ask for a little to eat. All of a sudden I wasn’t that hungry. I cut my other sandwich in half and gave it to the two boys. Next thing I know they had given little pieces of it out to about eight little boys and girls. I got a bit choked up by their generosity. So I cut my apple up into ten pieces and shared it with all of them. Their gift reminded me of the story in the Bible of the widows mite. She gave more than everyone because she gave all that she had. These two boys shared all that they had. I wish someday we all could be a little more like them.
MR. FIXIT
The other day in another village I was asked if I would look at a boat motor for one of the men of the village. How he ever came across owning one is mystery to me. Most of the Gnobe are so lacking in exposure to everyday technologies that a boat motor is a mystery to them. But one of the elders asked if I might take a look at it. He had a much better handle on the English language than others. The description of the problem was the engine wouldn’t turn over. They assumed I must know everything about boats. Silhouette I am sure, is the largest boat to anchor off their village. Well, except Christopher Columbus did abandon one of his caravels up one of these nearby rivers but that’s another story.
The elder tells the man to go and get it. About an hour later he shows up in a dugout canoe with a little boat motor, maybe a 2.5 horse power. So I took a look. No fuel in the tank – no surprise. I filled up his half gallon tank. No oil in the crankcase – surprise. I put oil in it. I checked the spark plug and it was so loose it nearly came out in my hand and was covered in grime. I cleaned it up with a pocketknife and put it back in. By this time a crowd was standing on the shore watching me. I am not sure why this was so interesting. Next I checked the gear shift lever. It was working and seemed fine. I looked around for something to block open the key switch with because he did not have a safety key for it.
It started on the first pull and ran perfectly. A round of applause from the crowd, all the men shaking their heads like I had performed a miracle. The owner of the motor was overjoyed and he quickly sped away with his working motor. It just dawned on me! It’s a good thing we are leaving early in the morning or I may be called on to heal every mechanical thing in the village.
MEMORIES
But these are just a few of the memories that we are taking with us from our months serving the Gnobe people. I will never forget the smell of beans and rice cooked in a blackened, iron pot stained by the smoke of a wood fire. I won’t quickly forget those nights spent sleeping in hammocks lathered up in mosquito repellant. Or the river crossings holding our packs over our heads and feeling our way with rubber boots over slippery stones. The smell of the jungle after the rain or climbing mud soaked hills to get to a far away mountaintop village. The dolphins riding our wake as the sun is coming up on our way to yet another island and another group of indigenous people. We won’t soon forget the cayuco rides with the teams coming back as the sun is setting, exhausted from a long hard day. Or the luminescent bay off of Floating Doctors and how the water sparkled with a million dots of blue light from the plankton on moonless nights. Or the moon jellies feeding on the luminescent plankton and it filling their bodies with spiraling rays of light. What I will remember most is the feeling of satisfaction. We gave of our time and energy to help people in need. That was the best part of these last few months – it is truly better to give than to receive.
GOOD-BYE
This last week we said good-bye to our friends who a few months before we did not even know. They threw a going away party for us on our boat. We had so much fun these past few months taking the staff and volunteers out for day sails over the weekends, they wanted to do it again. But this time they took care of everything. So Saturday morning they showed up with trays and coolers of food. One of the staff members was a chef in a previous life before coming to Panama and she made the most delicious trays of cheeses and deli meats and crackers. She made a tray of sliced tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella drizzled with olive oil. Liana’s favorite was the salad made with lettuce, tomatoes, feta, red onion and basalmic dressing. We barbecued big, fat hamburgers. We swam, kayaked, played on the paddle boards and visited all afternoon. Towards sundown someone suggested we get a picture of all of us. So we grabbed the captain off another yacht nearby to come over to get a quick picture, one last one before we all go our separate ways. We ended the evening with a toast. Salud! We were all from different countries and our paths in this life may never cross again but we will miss every one of them. Such beautiful people inside and out. Thank you Floating Doctors for all of the awesome memories.
Love You friends, Steve & Liana