How I feel

It is difficult to describe it in a few words. Relationships between Panama and the United States have always been love-hate. "America" always seemed to me the union of arrogant and too self-minded states. Friends, relatives and some of the people I love the most, my niece Sofia and my nephew Daniel, live here, but I told myself I would never pay for a subjective permit to be able to enter this country, because Americans do not need a visa to enter mine. 

 

In a way, I still feel like that. I am in this country as a foreign student, but I'm a scholar sponsored by the federal government, whose foreign relations I still largely condemn. It's just that in Panama there aren't any schools where you can study Art Education, and there's no money to sponsor the studies of outstanding students unless you are the nephew of some minister.

My conclusion is that most people here, just like in my country, prefer their private lives to getting involved in affairs that affect everybody at a macro level. Yes, it's true, I have found some flag-waving, "God bless America", individuals, as well as people as shallow as many in Panama, but I have also met a lot of people who do care, and kind folks who have gone out of their way to help me without expecting anything in return.

One of the greatest virtues of the Fulbright Program is the opportunity to share experiences with students from all over the world. I was excited to meet people from Africa: Botswana, Namibia, Kenya, Togo, Ruanda; the connection was immediate. France, Finland, Portugal, India, Tunisia, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan; Latinamerican brothers and sisters from Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Colombia; with them it always feels like family; and finally a student from Kosovo and another lady whose family was originally from Tibet.

How interesting, I thought, the reaction from the West in regards to Kosovo, compared to the silence that has always been the fashion about the situation in Tibet.

Under the dark night we concluded: of all foreign students who are guests here, most of our countries have suffered invasions, rape, colonization, "decolonization", and several attempts to destroy and absorb local culture. We are plagued by the same corrupt, inefficient bureaucracies under the complicity of world powers that speak of democracy and human rights while our people manufacture and produce goods that are consumed the world over.

I was lost in thought. It is not easy to sail the waters of so many contradictions. We are privileged to receive an education that is barred to most people back in our countries, but we have also been given the opportunity to decide what to do with what we are given here.

"And not to forget who we are and where we come from" -added a Phillippine girl.