Angelus News | March 15, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 10

Left to right: Diana Manriquez, Alondra Campusano, Aranzazu Herrera, Vicki Frausto, Gabe Perez, and Juan Gomez, with Msgr. Richard Martini (standing) at
St. Joseph’s in Carpinteria.
R.W. DELLINGER
“I grew up in a place where they didn’t have as many
shoes, or toys to play with. Then we moved here when
I was 9, and it’s been so different. When I was young in
Mexico, there were doctors who would come that we
would go to. So, going to Popa kind of brought me back
versus now that I have so much. So, it was great to just give
back.”
Diana Manriquez agreed. “It really impacted me, the
poverty,” she observed. “Like everybody said, just taking
things for granted. Just seeing the kids playing with bottle
caps with big smiles on their faces.”
Between 200,000 and 250,000 Ngabe still live in present-day
Panama and Costa Rica. Ngabe simply means
“people,” and their territory once extended from the Pacific
Ocean to the Caribbean Sea.
Spanish conquistadors, cattle ranchers, and the development
of banana plantations (in that order) drove them into
the less desirable mountainous regions. The Panamanian
government, after years of struggle, granted the Ngabe a
“Comarca,” or semi-autonomous area, in the early 1970s,
which is where most still live.
The sea provides a living for many of the coastal-living
people on the Bocas del Toro islands today. But one estimate
puts that more than 90 percent live in poverty. Before
La Brot brought his Floating Doctors to the archipelago,
health care was practically nonexistent. Conditions remain
“Third World.”
“I
think each one of us came home with a different
perspective, a different outlook on life itself,” said
Frausto, glancing around at the other Floating Doctors’
volunteers, who were nodding in agreement.
“Being there you saw how minimal stuff they had, but
they’re still so happy with what they have. Over there it is
normal for them,” she said.
“But then you come back here, and you see people who
are almost in the same situation. Like our local homeless.
So, I think we’re more compelled to help. I mean, I started
going more often to our homeless shelter and the soup
kitchen — just helping out the homeless there.”
The Carpinteria High School senior and newly named
“Junior Carpinterian” also decided on a career during her
Caribbean mission — being a doctor who starts her own
nonprofit to serve the disadvantaged, like a certain La Brot.
Martini was asked what he thought about what his fellow
sojourners to Bocas del Toro had just shared.
First came a smile. Then, “I’m delighted. I didn’t know
all this because I was in the front of the clinic. My job was
to find their files when the local people would sign in.
But at one point I stopped. I turned around and I looked.
And everyone of our young people were engaged. And I
thought, ‘They’re acting older than the doctors.’ ”
Before the students stopped cracking up, he said, “And I
just felt so proud of these young people that they could just
blend right in and they could take up this responsibility.
Here’s someone taking blood pressures, another taking
blood. Others were coping with the pain of somebody
getting their tooth pulled out.”
After a moment Martini added, “And Dr. Ben probably
was impressed, too, by the maturity of our young people.
So, we already have a date this summer for our next immersion
mission trip with a new group.”
And the pastor couldn’t help but see the changed expressions
of the six high school and college students. “OK,
we’d like the vets to go back maybe a week before. We just
have to raise the money.”
Pa
Chic
Dr. S
Mise
Knig
Univ
Kevi
Milw
Jerom
Ann
Kath
20 • ANGELUS • March 15, 2019