You Make Me Feel Like Dancin...

Inspiration is an amazing feeling in any form, but today I was lucky enough to receive it from an amazing bunch of kids. The kids at Aldea Orphanage in Colon, who we worked with this morning and afternoon, were glowing with happiness and watching them dance without a care in the world was a priviledge. Getting to join them for lunch was especially rewarding because we got an extra look into their everyday lives. We met the "mothers" of the houses and saw their rooms, their bunk-beds, and their pictures and of course compared it to the our lives as children. In there houses, the walls of the bedrooms were for the most part - bare, there wasn't much room for privacy and individuality was hard to see within the uniformity of what each child had to his/her self. Of course the biggest difference were the parental roles and how they are portrayed to these kids. One of the highlights of the day was hearing the "mother" of the house I ate in say, "The boys live here and I live here. I am their mother and they are my sons."

The light in these kids as they danced with us wouldn't have portrayed anything "missing" in their lives and it was beautiful. The kids were beautiful, the employees of the orphanage were beauuuuuuutiful, and the dancing was breathtaking. We all left Aldea on a sort of high from being able to witness and be a part of something so special. We then traveled to Portobello, a gorgeous town on the Caribbean coast. We ate tree apples, and stood next to cannons on old stone walls and looked and the ocean, and again - danced. We filmed parts of the flashmob we've been planning and even danced with locals. Now, sitting in the hostel, I can reflect on the day and already know that the inspiration the kids gave me today will carry on long after I leave Panama, and I can only hope we've given them something similar :)