Nicole's Volunteering and Adventures Abroad

Waking up to the sound of rain on the tin roof definitely did not excite me this morning.  Since being in Bocas, I have learned to never plan too far in advance because the rain will come crashing down on any outdoor sunny activities you have in mind.  Rather than spending the day enjoying the ocean-side bars, I opted to stay in the hostel with some friends from Floating Doctors.  By the time afternoon rolled around, we started to stir with cabin fever and decided we were hungry enough to bare the rain and walk to Cafe del Mar. One thing I would tell visitors of Bocas del Toro is that good food in Bocas is hard to come by.  It takes a bit of time to find a good restaurant and food trucks are not to be trusted, however Cafe del Mar proved to be a surprising success.  My delicious veggie panini marked the start of my day turning around. (Sorry, I forgot to get a photo of my food!)  After lunch, I decided to turn back into a hermit and watch some Netflix wh...

This week's multi day took us to a small mountain village south of Bocas called Pueblo Nuevo.  Here, we hauled all of our medical equipment, donated supplies, and camping gear across a suspended metal bridge to set up for our 3 day clinic.  (Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of our clinic site but I did get amazing photos below of the nearby river and mountainous background.)  We washed and bathed in a local river, about a 5 minute walk from our living site. The month of November holds three festive weekends including the Day of the Dead on November 3rd, the Cry of Freedom on November 10th, and Independence Day from Spain on November 28th.  As a local told me, the November holidays in Panama hold a special place in their hearts and they love to pledge their political allegiance to their country.  This love for their country leads the school children to practice their drums and horns in the dark of the night while everyone else tries to get some shut ...

As we set up for my second week of clinic, one of our translators, Kelly, brought up the point that the city of Bocas is completely different than our next multi day clinic site, Pueblo Nuevo.  Pueblo Nuevo is a small community only a couple hours drive south of Bocas del Toro but somehow it is a completely different character in Panama than Bocas is.  In a way, all the communities that the Floating Doctors visit contrast in their own ways.   Kelly, being raised in a rural Panamanian town, feels back at "home" in Pueblo Nuevo because it is filled with similar second world characteristics of her home town.  The people of Pueblo Nuevo live in small shacks with one metal suspension bridge leading into the town, limited electricity, no cars or roads, and wild animals roaming the walkways.  This world is completely different from the life she has lived in Bocas town where street lamps and traffic are constantly buzzing and indoor plumbing runs rampant. ...

After a long week of hard work, my friends Amy, Jen, and I decided to take a relaxing bike ride along the Bocas Surf Beach Bluff.  We rode alongside the crashing waves that warned us about the weekend's nearing storms, but this didn't stop us from reaching the beachside Oasis Hotel and Bar.  We talked about our lives and jobs at home over a couple rounds of pina coladas and on the bike ride back, we did in fact get caught in the rain.  Taking a long bike ride out of the main center of Bocas lead us into a serene beach neighborhood.  Winding roads drove you to immense properties, home to lodges with beautiful bars and colorful homes.  We had an amazing time exploring the less toured nooks and crannies of Bocas.  I did take a small tumble off one of the bikes (why do they let semi-trucks on these tiny roads) but I came away with only a small scrape to my hand. Boat ride from Bocas del Toro to Isla San Cristobal:    Bocas Surf ...

The Floating Doctors dedicates its efforts to educate and provide care to the Panamanians throughout the Panamanian and Caribbean seas.   Physicians, nurses, medics, students, and Spanish translators come from all corners of the world to contribute.   In the past three days, I have had the chance to observe and learn from kind, intelligent physicians who dedicated their time and efforts to help people who need it the most. Volunteers move like a machine in the first few hours of our Multi-day clinics: we all are tasked with unloading equipment and setting up our administration desk, triage area, provider stations, pharmacy, and a private room for examinations.   Within about 20 minutes, we have a fully functioning medical clinic where we see a range of complaints from well-child checks to pre-natal ultrasounds to wound care.   Each patient comes to triage, gets a vital check with a basic workup of blood sugar checks or the occasional urinalysis, then sees a...

A long boat ride south of Bocas del Toro took us to the community of Ensenada where we set up a three-day medical clinic.   It would take the people of Ensenada and the surrounding communities two hours to get to a city with adequate medical care or a functioning hospital which makes the Floating Doctors work vital in this area.   They pay nothing to receive the Floating Doctor's care and Floating Doctors are more than happy to help. When we arrived at the dock, we were welcomed by three young boys who repeated “Are you the Floating Doctors? Are you here to help?”   We answered “Si, manana!” and they helped take our gear and equipment off of the boat and into the local elementary school to set up clinic for the next day.   Being greeted by the community in such a warm way was touching.   The Floating Doctors have made such an impact in the lives of these boys, performing ultrasounds for their mothers while they were just in the womb to treating their illn...