Getting Involved with a Needy Ngobe Family of Cauchera, Panama

 
 
 
   Nearby the diving resort town of Bocas, there are pockets in Leguna de Chiriqui where wealth and education have never found their way. Here, under one roof within a single room, live a Ngobe man, his wife, his four daughters, two sons AND 16 GRANDCHILDREN! There were no spouses of the young mothers of ages 16-27. I begged the fifteen-year-old, the youngest girl and not pregnant as yet, to find no boyfriend soon, but to go to school. I realized that the women could not count when I taught them to play dominoes aboard in our salon. When we visited their home with no running water, bathroom or electricity, I saw the youngest infant clung to his mother's hips with west feet. This child would never walk. What I did not realize was that the old man was father to them all and that a boyfriend was never an issue.