Panama Update #5
Wednesday, July 16
Nikki is very busy so I ventured into the Blog world on my own for the first time to try to get this set up and it was very easy. Even posting the pictures is made very easy for anyone to do. I can say that the highlight of the move here so far has been keeping in touch with everyone with the Updates. It has been fun for me and in some ways I feel closer in touch with the people reading this than when I was back in Minneapolis. It feels like all of you are seeing the sights with me. I want to thank everyone for all the positve comments and support about the Updates. As they say here, El Gusto es Mio.
There is an inexpensive cafeteria at the Smithsonian which is open for lunch, cheap ($3) and has a simple vegetarian choice such as rice and cooked vegetables. I ran into a colleague of Nikki's who is originally from Minnesota but recently finished his PhD from USC and has a job at Florida State for spring semester. His fiance is here with him and I met her for the 1st time. She does volunteer work here one day a week in one of the offices. We may plan some outings together and talked about all 4 of us seeing the opening of the Batman movie this weekend.
After lunch I set up my display at the Health Fair. They set up a table for me in a large open room. There were about 20 other tables set up with various health care practitioners. Most of the exhibits were informative such as information on health insurance and various clinics, but there were some hands-on exhibits such as checking for blood pressure and the biofeedback demonstations I was giving. About 150 people, mostly Smithsonian office support staff, came through from 1:00-5:00 PM. I think many of the scientists were out in the field or too busy to stop by. They had a nice name card for me and a lot of people were interested in trying out a Biofeedback session, so there were usually several people standing around watching and waiting for their turn. I did a very simple demonstration called Heartmath for about 3 or 4 minutes with each person. In that short amount of time, if they can learn to lenghthen the exhalation and inhalation, they can see an improvement in the graph on the computer, which means they are learning to lower their heart rate and go to a more relaxed state. About half the people spoke enough English to understand what I was saying and about half needed a translator. Biofeedback is an intuitive concept but was brand new to most of the people. One person made an appointment to have an individual session for tomorrow, but will have to see how many more people are actually interested in that.
They asked me to go to another all-day Health Fair on Friday and arranged a ride for me. It is about an hour's drive, near a place called Gamboa, which is about half-way through the canal. You take a boat from there to an island research branch of the Smithsonian. It should be very interesting to see the sights there and Nikki said there are many Biologists there. Nikki hasn't been to that station yet and I think is a bit envious that I am getting there first.
