To Rambala and Back - Remembered
Jul 19th, 2008 by Don Ray
Back in March of 2007, I took a trip to the Chiriquí Grande area to have a look at some construction work that the US Army was doing in Panama. Today as I was searching for something on the Internet, I stumbled on some videos that were made on a subsequent project of the Army.
The videos are pretty good. They give you an idea of the difficult life that many people in Panama face. And yet, when you see the smiling faces of all the young Panamanians, you realize that it doesn’t take much to make children happy.
Many American’s move to Panama, hoping to find paradise for themselves, without ever thinking about how they might possibly help their new found neighbors. I have a good friend that used to live in Boquete and while he was there, he got involved with a small Indian school. He went every day and made himself useful. He painted. He bought bags of rice and vegetables to help the children have a meal while they were at school. He simply gave of himself.
He didn’t throw money at problems hoping that it would be spent well. He didn’t try to advise the school system on how to make it better. He did it on his own, not wanting any recognition for what he was doing. He just did what was in his power and small budget, but he made a difference.
Many of the children he helped were just like the ones in these videos. His reward was similar to the reward that I am sure each of the army personnel felt by spending time in Panama on this 4 month project.
Here are a series of 8 videos that were taken during that four month project.
Beyond the Horizon (Ep. 1)
Chiriqui Grande (Ep. 2)
Concrete in Panama (Ep.3)
Picture Day (Ep. 4)
School kids in Panama (Ep. 5)
Media Day Panama (Ep 7)
I hope you enjoyed the videos.
Beautiful.
Hi China Gal. Glad you enjoyed it.
Thanks for the wonderful videos. I especially like the school kids in Panama video. One of my projects in Nicaragua was to give my neighbor and ESL kids my digital camera for a day. They had to compose “A Day in the Life of…” picture book. Their photo journals were incredible. I let them choose one of their favorite shots to print and the rest of the photos, we combined into a PowerPoint presentation.
One day, I would like to publish one of the children’s photo journals. Luvis, who was 10 years old at the time, created a photo story of her mother. The day I lent Luvis my camera, her mother had returned from Costa Rica bearing gifts for the family. They only saw their mother once a year because she worked in CR to support her family as a hotel maid. Her pictures expressed her feelings of joy, as well as abandonment. It was an amazing project and I learned so much about the children of Nicaragua from their meaningful photo stories of a day in their lives.
Hi Debbie. I am glad you enjoyed the videos. Luvis’ photo album sounds interesting.