Fist week...So far...so ....AMAZING!!

First week
This first week has been amazing!!! After a rough wait in Miami airport, we have been able to enjoy the city of Panama and appreciate the colorful streets and buses (Diablo rojos) that distinguish this town. Every time we are ridding the bus, we are constantly looking out the window observing the busy roads, millions of people walking around, and observing how “happy” the city looks painted with so many colors.
As many have stated, we were able to go to the state university of Panama and to the private health university. In both universities, students have to be in the nursing curriculum for four years; since year one, they have two days of clinicals and eight classes Mondays through Friday from 7 am to 6 pm. I admire the student’s dedication for their studies; it is very impressive to see all the skills they learned with limited resources.
Today we went to the Panama Canal! It was beautiful, what a wonderful experience! We were able to learn about the history of the canal, how it was planed, and how it was accomplished. Panama is a country that is blessed by its geographic location. Panama does not get any hurricanes or earthquakes, but it does get nine months of rain. All this rain happens to be the great contributor to the functioning of the canal; boats are elevated by levels with the water collected during the rainy season, as they go through different locks they reach the ocean level and cross the country reaching their destination. During the morning, the boats go from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Ocean and during the afternoon they go the opposite way. It takes almost 15 minutes for a boat to be lifted by the water at the locks (this concept of lifting by water is complicated to explain, I did not fully understand until I saw one boat being lifted by the water. I guess it is something you have to come and see with your own eyes).
Tomorrow we are going to go to Embera, an indigenous community that comes from a sector of my beautiful country Colombia. I am looking forward to this wonderful experience and can’t wait to tell everybody about it.