On our third day in Panama, we set out with Graciella to tour
Hospital del Niño (the only children's hospital in the country) and Malambo
Orphanage, which is just outside of Panama City. At Hospital del Niño, we were
able to see exactly what physical therapy was really like in Panama. The main
goal of this visit was to see what sort of PT equipment the hospital had and to
visualize what we would need to help Matt and Misty get for the orphanage in
Colon. When we first walked into the physical therapy unit, we were all
surprised as to how busy and chaotic it appeared. Despite this, we were able to
walk around and view all of their equipment, along with meet all of the
physical therapists and student physical therapists. After seeing the physical
therapy unit, we then went to the Gastroenterology, Hemophilia, Orthopedic, and
Burn units of the hospital. It was amazing to compare and see the differences
of the hospital with those in the United States!
After touring the hospital, we set out to the Malambo Orphanage in
Arraijan, Panama. When comparing Malambo to Divino Niño, we were all shocked!
At Malambo, the orphanage was really nice and the children had great living and
playing areas. Additionally, there was even a library for the children to go to
and study! First, we went to the house where children who were born HIV
positive. There were only about 6 or 7 children who lived in this house, so it
made it easy to spread our love to all of them equally! While here, we met a
little girl named Maria who we were able to spend a lot of time with while the
younger children took their naps. She was so full of life and just wanted
someone to give her love and affection. When we were taking pictures with the
children, I ended up giving my phone to her because she wanted to take pictures
of Jordan, Brittany, Graciella, and me. She was so fascinated with taking
pictures of us, and she just constantly laughed while she took our pictures.
After saying our goodbyes to Maria and the rest of the children at this house,
we made our way to the house where school-age girls (ages 5-7) lived. Once we
got there, the girls were changing out of their school clothes and finishing
their lunch. After they were finished, we went outside to play. While some of
the girls fought over the jump ropes we brought them, we hugged and played with
the others. It was really saddening to see how much a 7 year old thrived to get
a hug from the one of us. But the good thing was, between the 3 of us, we had
plenty of hugs to pass around to them all!! Before leaving this house, we
played a Spanish version of Ring Around the Rosie with the girls and it was so
much fun that I don’t whether the girls or we had more fun. Next, we went to
the house for children ages 0-2. Here, our major goal was to simply hold and love
on the babies, which was completely fine with us! The babies were so precious
and absolutely beautiful that we could have stayed there all day just holding
them. Unfortunately, we had to leave and head back to the city. It was really
sad knowing that we had to leave the babies and older children, but it made us
feel a little better knowing that they did have a good place to live.
Once we got back to our hotel, we got ready to go out for a fun
night. We had planned to go to Bling at the Hard Rock Hotel, which is a new
nightclub for Panama, with some of our friends that we made during our spring
trip here with GCP. Adrian, one of our friends, picked us up from our hotel at
9:30pm and we headed out for the night! Once we arrived, we were immediately in
shock by how beautiful the hotel itself was. And once we made it up to the nightclub,
we were even more shocked because it was so gorgeous inside. After having a few
drinks and dancing till we dropped, we were ready for our beds since we knew we
needed some sleep before we traveled to San Carlos beach for the weekend to
celebrate Brittany’s birthday!! :)
Love always,
Brittani <3
Brittani <3
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