Their are a few things that make Panama a very unique missions trip. It's a great place and God is really at work in the lives of people there. But anytime you step from one culture to another, especially with 18 teenagers, you are going to have some culturally different moments. Here's my personal Top 10 "Culture Shock" unique to Panama moments.
9. Training Time: Jasey wowed us with her magic knife trick. Talent. It's not really a culture shock but it is a pretty sweet video.
8. Bathing in a River. You could actually sit down and being washing your hair while simultaneously have minnows (small fish) nibbling on your legs and back.
7. The fruit track actually just came straight to you instead of supplying a store. And much like an ice cream truck came complete with it's own song and loud speaker.
6. Volleyball in a monsoon. Amazing.
5. Language can be a barrier when entering a new culture. Nice Manhart broke down the walls of communication with the kids rather quickly. He learned the word "hurt" in spanish. He then proceeded to scream "hurt" in spanish while taking a wet bandana and whipping it wildly. He chased the boys for hours and days... and they LOVED IT!
4. What's that smell? By day 4 it was growing rather pungent in the male leaders room. I wanted to personally blame Travis. Only two days later did I realize the origin of the smell was coming from my duffle bag. Seems that something had literally died in my bag allowing the smell to ripen with our time there.
3. Tarantellas. Snakes. Caterpillars with ears that shoot venom. The wildlife was crazy and some of it very deadly.
2. Sweat. Here in our culture if you are sweating you are usually working hard. In which case when you finish the job you enter into a nice Air Conditioned vehicle or room and things return to normal. Not here. You just keep sweating. More then a couple people melted away over 5 lbs on our trip.
1. Machettes. Here if you have enough muscles to swing one... you should. Manual labor was the only labor. Even when we went to the city I never saw a lawn mower but a half a million guys with weed eaters who would use them as mowers. Crazy Cultures. Makes me wonder what people say when they come here!
