After sleeping in not so pristine conditions, waking up was awful. Today was predicted to be the hardest day of our trip due to the fact that we had to do hard manual labor for most of the day. The Brigade staff drove us to this beautiful little community named, Pueblo Nuevo. Global Brigades believe strongly in helping communities in holistic ways; such as, improving every aspect of the community: medical, dental, social justice, economy, and water production. Lucky for the brigade team, we did a big part of that service by digging trenches for water piping so the community could have a cleaner water source. Believe me, it sounds a lot greater than the actual experience. I have never done any type of manual labor in my life so, after being in the sun for only two hours, I started to feel a little light-headed and had to stop what I was doing. After waking up in a trench, with several natives surrounding me with water, and snacks, I realized that I had fainted from dehydration. One of the most embarrassing experiences of my life was having the native people thinking I’m a “weak” American. The rest of my team continued to work as I sat in the hot sun, drinking cool water, and feeling bad for not finishing the job. However, the day got better when we got lunch. The community thanked us for our hard work by making delicious chicken, beans, and rice. If you think American food is good, you definitely need to try homemade food from Panama, they sure do know how to make a well-cooked meal. We finally arrived back at our compound after what seemed like the ride from hell. In Panama, their roads are unpaved, and covered in potholes, so, riding 2 hours back to our compound was very similar to playing Mario-cart; fun, yet dangerous at the same time. The next day our team planned to hold Day 1 of our clinic, so, before we went to bed we had to split all the meds and put them into doses, practice taking vital signs, and re-learn how to speak Spanish. It was the ultimate challenge to say the least.
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