By Charlene Scott

Dodge City Daily Globe

Published August 15, 2007

Elizabeth Stephens, 17, is as active a teenager as you could ever meet, but she gave away seven weeks of her summer this year to the children of Panama.

The daughter of optometrist Dr. Laurie White and Steve Stephens of Dodge City, Elizabeth previously had visited Panama and Honduras with her mother on VOSH (Voluntary Optometric Services for Humanity) mission trips to provide free eye care to poor village residents.

But this time Elizabeth went alone to Panama, alone that is until she met up with the 37 other youth and six adults from North America who would travel with her from Amigos de Las Americas.

She learned about Amigos de Las Americas from her cousin, Tara White, who works in the organization’s Houston office.

“We were basically put with other volunteers in communities to teach classes on health, environment, and poverty to the children, ages four to 12 in primary school,” she explained.

A tall, wispy reed of a girl, Elizabeth has excelled at Dodge City High School, where she will be a senior this fall. She is a member of the swim team, the drama club, the quiz bowl team, and the student council. She also plays double bass in the orchestra.

Taking all of those talents with her to Panama, she suddenly found herself confronted by hordes of children at school and adults who were strangers whom she met with at the community center in the small town of Pajonal.

“The town of 1,000 people is on the west coast of Cocle Province in Panama,” Elizabeth related. “There were not a lot of buildings, but there were two churches and two little stores, and a building called the Casa Cultural. The people had no running water, and we bathed and washed our clothes in the river.”

Elizabeth and her partner, another teen named Kathlyn Pattillo from Atlanta, set to work teaching their new pupils, whom Elizabeth described as “very poor.”

“But they were all really eager to learn,” she added. “They loved to play, and the classes were hard because the children were so excitable. We showed them how to wash their hands from a plastic bottle held upside down, with only a few drops coming out at a time to conserve water. It was difficult for me to learn to be patient, but I think I handled it pretty well.”

One student invited Elizabeth and Kathlyn to her home for lunch, and led them as they hiked up the mountain to her house 30 minutes away.

“Her house was the poorest I have ever seen in my life,” Elizabeth said. “It was a cement building with a tin roof and dirt floors. Two babies and 15 people were living in three rooms. It was heartbreaking to see it.

“We ate in a structure that was made of sticks and had a roof of straw. They fed us fried rice with chicken, gelatin, coke, and ice cream, and it was the most delicious meal I had in Panama. We ate alone because the family felt they had to treat us special. They ate only rice.”

Elizabeth and Kathlyn swam in the nearby river and sat and looked at the loveliness of the surrounding mountains. “It was so beautiful,” Elizabeth said.

Back in town, the two girls became involved with community based initiative (CBI), meeting with townspeople to determine their needs.

“We didn’t come to do something for them, but something with them,” Elizabeth explained. “The government had built the Casa Cultural building 10 years ago, and put in a library, kitchen, medical facility, two bathrooms, and a meeting place. The building was stocked with a gas stove, pots and pans, books, toilets, and medical equipment, but only one person had the key, and no one used it. The people of the town had never seen inside the building.”

The consensus of the meeting of residents and the Amigos de Las Americas representatives was that the building should be utilized.

“There was no doctor in the town; the nearest doctor was a 20-minute walk away,” Elizabeth said. “We cleaned and painted the building, and spoke with some government officials so they would come to talk to the adults about preventing disease and protecting the environment.”

New keys were made for the building and passed among the community. A committee was elected by the town’s residents to decide what activities would be held in the building.

“We purchased six doors for the building and enough material to fix the roof, and it is being repaired right now,” Elizabeth reported. “Already a woman has come to teach women how to make pastries.”

A limited diet of fish, chicken, rice, and beans keeps the Panamanians healthy, and since the village has no cars, the residents walk everywhere, another plus.

“I didn’t see very many obese people,” Elizabeth noted.

When a North American travels to another country, that person becomes the foreigner in the foreign land, she conceded.

“Some people were really gracious and kind, but others were unsure about us. You can’t force people to accept you.

“It was difficult sometimes because I did not have my family with me to support me,” Elizabeth admitted, tossing her long red hair over her shoulder. “I only talked to my mother twice in seven weeks, and both times I was homesick, but I kept busy and got over it.”

Elizabeth’s ambitious goal is to pursue a medical career so that she might someday become the surgeon general of the United States.

“That’s my dream,” she said. “I want to be in a career where I can work with science and help people directly. I want to be the surgeon general of the United States.”