Homeward bound

As our trip draws towards a close, I can’t help but be thankful to be going home to a comfortable bed and a clean bathroom.  This leads me to reality that the people in the villages and our clients at the clinics don’t have this luxury.  They never have.  With the persistence of community nurses and public health officials, this will hopefully change one day.  Hopefully one day they too will have clean water and toilets for waste.  We have spent the last few days gathering and analyzing information from individuals in the communities with the intent of presenting our findings with students and faculty at UNACHI in the morning to hopefully contribute to this cause.  Our hopes are that our information will provide UNACHI with the resources they need to continue to research these rural communities.

There are many cultural differences between ourselves and the Ngobe Bugle people living in the communities, however, language seems to have been the be the largest barrier to truly understanding each other.  Assessments of the people included living environment, family size, health concerns, and community history and leadership, none of which can be assessed without understanding each other’s language.  Although their views on health are very different from ours, each student has found effective ways to communicate in our own medical language.

I have taken away many skills and experiences from our three weeks here in Panama.  I understand just how different a culture can really be.  It is helpful to understand what it might be like to be the one who doesn’t speak the language or understand what normal is for a culture.  I hope I will be able to use these experiences in my future career as a nurse.  As for now, I’m ready to pack my bags and get on a plane for Florida!!