A Day in the Life of a Leeds Student
Yahelie Soto Pulido (Bus’29) participated in the Business and Engineering Women in Technology (BEWiT) First-Year Global Experience (FGX) trip over spring break in Panama City last spring. Tag along for a day in her life on the trip.
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We started our day walking around Casco Antiguo, a historic quarter dating back to 1673. I loved visiting this area because of the unique, colorful buildings throughout the quarter. Our tour guide mentioned that the area was once abandoned but was later revived under President Porras to improve tourism.
This area highlights the social challenge of gentrification and figuring out the best way to modernize a historic district for the economy while honoring the families who have lived there for generations.
Pictured here are members of Panama’s indigenous group, Embera. Although they live near the Chagres region, they occasionally go to the city to sell their handmade crafts, such as baskets, carvings and beadwork. Later, in our Panama Canal Museum tour, we learned that the Embera play an important economic and environmental role in Panama by maintaining and protecting the forests that provide the freshwater the canal needs to function.
Next, we visited the Canal Museum, where we learned about the history of the Panama Canal, including the lives of the workers and the dynamics of power throughout the years of construction.
Of course, our group made a necessary stop to get ice cream and coffee after lunch!
We ended the day with a close-up tour of the canal, learning about the canal’s complex supply chain and logistical impacts on the rest of the world. Seeing the scale of such large ships in comparison to us was shocking! It was fun to wave to the crew on a boat from Korea as they passed through.
Finally, we took a group picture at the end of the tour at the Miraflores Visitor Center, located on the Pacifi c side of the canal. This is a trip we will never forget!