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Published: March 5th 2006
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Ciudad del Nino
School for the Children. Today we traveled to La Chorrera. La Chorrera and the surronding area has a population of around 200,000. It is west of Panama City just over the Canal. We crossed the new bridge over the canal. We met past district governer Andy Guillen, Ruth Mata, and current president of the La Chorrera club Roque.
Roque is a pilot for the canal. When a ship enters the canal control is turned over to the pilot and he guides it safely (we hope) through the canal. He works different shifts. The next morning he had to get to work by five.
The first place we visited was a group home that the club has worked with for several years. The school is a place for children from around the country to go who have a not so good family environment. Many come from a poor social economic environment and others are orphans or wards of the state. They are provided a safe place to live and are taught vocational skills. The children each live in a dormatory with supervison. They all go to public schools and they received tutoring from the school. Many members of the La Chorrera club volunteer at
Come on take a bite
Again, Greg trying to get me to eat something new. This time it was the fruit of the cashew. It was kind of bitter but I imagine it would make a really tasty jam. the home and many have taken children home with them over the weekends. Their next major project is to build a staff dormatory. Volunteers come from several different countries and they are in need of providing a place for them to stay.
We next traveled to city hall to meet the Mayor of La Chorrera. He is a very nice man that took time out of his schedule to meet with us. He and all of his staff are very interested in the projects that Rotary is involved with in the community. The Kansas Rotarians gave Rotary banners to the Mayor and I presented him with a key from Jeff Meyers, Mayor of Shawnee, Kansas.
Our hosts then took us to an area outside of La Chorrera that is in need of help with water supply. To get there we traveled through rolling hills that reminded me of the flint hills in Kansas. We made it to the top of a very large hill that you could see for miles around. The project entails adding a larger water tank to provide for additional homes in the area. The tank is funded but they are still in need of
Presenting Shawnee Key to the Mayor of La Chorrera
It was pretty funny when he realized that the key to Shawnee doubled as a cerveza bottle opener! pvc pipe to distribute to around 100 people. The area is very difficult to service due to how far apart the houses are.
We then traveled to the largest pineapple farm in Panama. It was an incredible site to see 4,000 hectares of pinapples growing. That is just under 10,000 acres! They had quite an operation and we all had our as much fruit as we could eat. The process was very interesting. The better pineapples float and those are packaged and sent to Europe and the United States. The ones that sank are sent to markets in Panama. They also gave us several cases of pineapples to take back with us.
The last project we went to was Obaldia. The village is many miles outside of La Chorrerra so they do not get many visitors. Especially not a bunch of gringos. This project is a real need to the community. There are about 100 families that do not have a readily accessable potable water source. Currently, they walk several miles a day to another village to get their water. They carry the water back in buckets. The village they are taking the water from our getting very
Brahma
You find out real quick who has the right-of-way in Panama impatient with the situation and things are getting strained between the villages. So many of them simply get water from a creek nearby. This is resulting in many of the children getting sick. They do have a well dug and a tank. But they ran out of money and need a pump, motor and pvc piping in order to supply the fresh water to their homes. We are really hoping a Rotary club or several partnering together back home steps forward to help with this. We think the cost will be less than $3,000. Can you imaging helping out so many with so few dollars?
We made it back to LaChorrerra well after dark for fellowship and Ceviche. It is served like a shrimp cocktail as an appetizer, small pieces of corvina ( sea bass) “cooked” in lemon juice and spices. It was delicious. There was also a great selection of home cooked meals there and we were able to try a great variety of Panama food. The club is very energetic and some of the nicest people you would ever want to meet.
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Andy Guillen
non-member comment
Hurry back!
I was lucky to share with Brian and other Kansas Rotarians the trip to La Chorrera. Brian's pictures and text tell the story beautifully. I just want to add that we enjoyed having them with us and hope they will keep coming back!