If you have been following our blog, you know that we have been waiting since may for a major delivery of school supplies from Canada. After we got everything sorted out on the boat last week, we started distributing this week. Our first drop was to help 80 children at Bahia Honda and 30 children at Bahia Roja, these two schools seemed to be a little worse off than most of the others we visited over the summer.
Unfortunately, they start a school break in a few weeks so Emily, the person from Give and Surf, suggested they hold off on giving the stuff out until the children return from break. We agreed, and the supplies were given to the schools, but won't be distributed until the children return to classes after the break.
We did get invited to a community celebration in Dolphin Bay for the Dia de Campesino (which literally translates, "Day of the Pesant") in Buena Esperanza, a Ngobe-Bugle Indian village. This annual day of celebration features the farmers and their products and highlights the accomplishments of children who attend the village primary school.
The day included songs, dances, and the crowning of the 2015 Dia de Campesino Queen who is accompanied by a full entourage of Princesses and Caballeros.
A display of local produce from local farmers...
Local Flowers
Children getting the lunchroom/community center ready for the celebration
This years "Queen"
Making new friends...
The Peace Corps volunteers built this house for the school teacher and visiting Corps people.
We, and our friends, Mary and Carl were special guests at the village as we brought school supplies to all the children,
We were pleased that many of the songs and poems and speeches dealt with caring for the surrounding land and waters in beautiful Dolphin Bay. One dance the children performed, though, had us all laughing as we tried to imagine such in a U.S. or Canadian grade school. It was called "Dance of the Drunks"!
"Dance of the Drunks"
Participating in this special event was also the director of another school at the north end of the bay which we hadn't heard of. Fortunately, we had enough supplies ready to go that we were able to help the 30 children from her school... This was a real bonus.
Over the next few weeks we plan to see a few more schools before we take what we have left over to school in the south east end of Panama to the native communities in the San Blas Islands.
In the spring we hope to re-supply before we make the 5000 km (3600 mile) Pacific crossing to the French Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific.
It has been a really busy fall! In Canada our support committee has collected a whole bunch of school supplies and sent most of them to Shelley and I here in Panama. However, our commitment has always been to provide some support at home as well. So this fall, Barb L. loaded her van and took 6 boxes and 5 backpacks for a back to school program at home in Guleph, Ontario. Linda at the West Willow Neighbourhood group happily received our gift.
Barb & Linda
Backpacks ready to go!
Last year, 153 students from JK to Gr 12 were given backpacks filled with age-appropriate school supplies for back to school.The supplies that we just donated were used to help fill backpacks this fall.
Here in Panama, Shelley and I received 8 boxes of supplies from Canada last Saturday! This week we will be distributing most of them to at least 5 native schools here in the Bocas del Torro region.
The container from the USA has arrived!
Finding our stuff...
Loading a Taxi
The supplies finally reach our boat!
School supplies that are collected in the Guelph, Waterloo, Fergus regions are collected and stored at Speedside church. Then our committee sorts and packages for shipment to Shelley and I.... They then go via a courier to Florida where they are loaded on to a container that takes approximately one month to arrive here in Panama. From Panama City the container is trucked to a place called Almerante where it is loaded on to a ferry which takes it to Bocas del Torro... From there Shelley and I take it by taxi to a water taxi, who takes it to our boat.... We store the stuff on our boat until we prepare to give it to schools in our area. We take the supplies by dinghy or panga to the schools. The bottom line is, every pencil and piece of paper we distribute goes a very LONG way and is helped along by MANY people. Thank YOU! Your gifts of money and supplies make all this possible...
On Sunday we invited a couple of cruising kids to our boat to help us sort out the supplies for distribution to schools in this area.
In a few weeks Shelley and I will be heading to the San Blas Islands in the south east corner of Panama where we hope to deliver more stuff to more children...
This is an exciting time! More pictures in the coming weeks!
We currently find ourselves in the beautiful rain forest area of northern Panama. We are in the Province of Bocas del Toro and we are surrounded with a beautiful country filled with wonderful people.
Last week we were invited by some people who are concerned about the welfare of rural, mostly indigenous children, and who seem to be caught in a school system that is unable or maybe even, unwilling; to support them in even a minimal way.
Shelley and I went on a three school tour, Our first stop was at Escuela De Bahia Roja.
This school is in an under serviced indigenous community, currently this school has approximately 20 pre-school (3-6yrs) children, 35 children in grades 1-6, and 15 young people in grades 7-9 ...
We met Emily Talentino, director of development for the non-profit organization, Give and Surf. This school and the second one we visited today are sponsored by Give and Surf; who, with almost no support from the Panamanian government care as well as they can for these children.
At this time, Give and Surf are building 2 more classrooms and hope to double the size of the school. This is volunteer build through parents and the organization.
Next we traveled to our second school – Esquala Bahia Honda, also sponsored by Give and Surf. In this school there are 18 Pre- school children , 42 children in grades 1-6, and 12 in grades 7-9
There is no electricity available to this school so they need solar panels replaced so that they will one day have lights and be able to run computers. As a few examples of the realities here, last year they had no school for two months as the teacher had a baby and they could not get a replacement. The only reason this school has a bathroom and a small library is that Give and Surf built them.
We also learned that they cannot use one of those classrooms at the moment because it has no chairs or desks for the students.
After about 40 minutes, we left Bahia Honda and travelled by boat to our third school in Solarte. As we were pulling away we passed the exclusive Red Frog Marina who caters to cruising boats and mega yachts. The contrast of these two world was not lost on our group and we learned that in order for the owners of the marina to acquire the land they needed, promises were made to the indigenous people that sadly look like they were not fulfilled...
We arrived to see our third and final school. Coming toward the school we couldn’t help notice the high fence and the barbed wire. This was installed to keep the few possessions of the school from being stolen.
This school is not supported by Give and Surf, but by another organization called One world Children’s Fund or OWCF. Margo Cary who was with us, said that, not unlike the other schools this school has its challenges of it’s own.
At the moment they are fortunate to have 2 teachers who live on site. We met Principal Candy who teaches English, computers and literacy for parents in the community who cannot read and write.
In this school there are 3 pre school children and 45 Children attending grades 1-6. Above grade 6, children from here must be water taxied to Bocas town,
On this day Government Doctors were running a medical clinic at the school and were giving out vaccinations and medicine. The children were getting an environmental lesson from a person connected to the Smithsonian institution... Ironically, the teachers had to scramble to find enough crayons and colour pencils, so the children could colour the picture given to them by the Smithsonian people.
This school has a few solar panels so is set up to accommodate computers. Unfortunately the computers they have runs very old software, so cannot run any of the materials available to them...
They need 10 computers -10 that have a cd drive’s.
They are also looking to the English speaking community in town to volunteer to teach English before and after school. English is required in Panama, but sadly, there is a real shortage of people who can teach it.
Parent volunteers sign up to do lunch duty, costs about $60 a day to feed the kids. If they have enough money the use 10lbs of rice, 3 lbs of beans and 15 lbs of chicken, if they do not have enough money they just make porridge or rice or whatever they can get donated by parents or others,
After visiting the school, we were invited to follow the same trail the children take each day to school.
The dropout rate is very high for this school and this is partly because the children must travel on a dangerous dirty path each day they attend school.
Our friend, and local resident Kay Heath is working diligently to raise the required funds to complete a partially finished path for the children and the rest of the community to use...
All that is needed is $750 and the local land owners have agreed to provide the labor...
It came time for us to return to our boat. But not before Shelley and I committed to helping all three schools acquire enough school supplies for the children of these three schools.
On Wednesday this week, we took the few supplies that we had left on the boat and purchased what we didn't have, and presented the school on Solarte enough supplies that EVERY STUDENT received a pencil case, a set of colour pencils, 2 regular pencils, an eraser, a ruler, and a pencil sharpener.
The supplies were well received and the children sang us a thank you song. It was AMAZING.
Our people in Canada have been busy getting a large shipment down to us. It must first go to Florida, then packed in a container, then to Panama.... It should leave Florida mid August and arrive here late September.
As soon as the supplies arrive, we will be supplying the other two schools we visited and another school in Dolphin Bay that we just found today.
The rest of the supplies will be distributed in the San Blas Islands, in southern Panama later this year.
This is an exciting time for Shelley and I.
Below, is a link to a 15 minute video we made last week:
I realize that it has been a while since last posting. Shelley and I have been in Bocas Del Toro, Panama for the last month or so getting some much needed work done on the boat.
We are out of school supplies here, and are working with our folks at home to get re-supplied as soon as possible.
We have a meeting on Monday with a local woman who will help us figure out what the local needs are. We are also planning to spend a few months this winter among the Guna Indians in the San Blas Islands, Panama. This is where we hope to help with a bunch of school supplies.
Next spring we plan to transit the Panama Canal and then head to the French Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific. We hope to fully re-stock the boat before we leave then.
As soon as we know when we are getting re-supplied I will update the Blog.
Thank you for following our adventures and supporting our mission...
