No Two Communities Are Alike: Panama After the Earthquake

 Panama After the Earthquake | Part 3 of 5

When we look at a disaster from far away, we tend to see numbers.

We hear how many people were affected, how many homes were damaged, how many families were displaced, and how many schools or hospitals can no longer function. We look at maps with shaded areas and try to understand the magnitude of what happened.

Those numbers matter. They help governments, humanitarian organizations, and communities understand the scale of the emergency and decide where resources are needed.

But numbers can also hide something important.

Behind every statistic is a person. Behind every damaged home is a family with its own history. And behind every community affected by an earthquake is a story that cannot be fully understood by looking at a map.

That was one of the strongest lessons I took away from my recent time in Panama.

I spent a great deal of time listening to psychologists, mental health professionals, volunteers, and community leaders who had been working in the affected regions. Some had traveled from village to village. Others were trying to help families in their own communities while also dealing with the emotional impact of the earthquake themselves.

What struck me was how differently they described what they were seeing.

The earthquake had shaken the same country, but it had not created the same experience for everyone.

And that difference matters enormously when we talk about mental health.

Strength Among the Ruins

In some of the communities closest to the most heavily damaged areas, the destruction described to me was overwhelming.

Homes had collapsed. Roads were damaged. Schools and churches had suffered serious damage. Families who had spent years building their homes suddenly found themselves standing outside, uncertain whether anything inside could be saved.

I tried to imagine what it must feel like to stand in front of a house where you raised your children, celebrated birthdays, shared meals, and built a lifetime of memories, only to discover that it was no longer safe to enter.

But what stayed with me most was not only the destruction.

It was what people told me about the response of the communities themselves.

Neighbors organized shared kitchens. Families cooked together outdoors. People watched one another’s children while parents tried to salvage belongings. Those whose homes remained standing opened their doors to others.

In places where resources were already limited, people shared whatever they had.

I have seen this kind of response in other disasters, including Nepal after the 2015 earthquakes and the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. There is something deeply moving about the instinct people have to help one another when almost everything around them has changed.

Yet I am always careful when people describe these communities as resilient.

Resilience is important, but sometimes we use the word too quickly.

We see people cooking together, helping their neighbors, or finding reasons to smile, and we conclude that they are doing well.

Perhaps they are coping remarkably well. But coping is not the same as being unaffected.

A father helping organize food distribution may still be frightened about where his children will sleep. A mother caring for other people’s children may be holding back her own tears. A community leader reassuring everyone else may have no one asking how he is doing.

Strength and suffering can exist together.

What these communities needed was not another outsider arriving to teach them how to be strong. They had already demonstrated extraordinary strength.

They needed practical answers.

Was their home safe? Could they return inside? Where would they sleep if they could not? Who could tell them whether the next aftershock might bring down another wall?

And they needed someone willing to listen without rushing to solve every emotion they expressed.

That distinction is at the heart of Psychological First Aid.

Sometimes the most helpful thing we can do is recognize what people have already accomplished and ask what they need from us.

When Everyone Else Seems to Be Moving On

Other communities faced a very different reality.

There were places where most houses remained standing. From the road, life might have looked almost normal. Stores were reopening. People were returning to work. Children were beginning to resume their routines.

It would have been easy to assume that these communities needed less attention.

But the professionals and volunteers I spoke with described another kind of suffering.

Imagine living on a street where nine houses are standing and yours is the one that collapsed.

Your neighbors return to their bedrooms. They sit around their dinner tables. They begin cleaning up and putting things back where they belong.

Meanwhile, you are sleeping in a relative’s living room or beneath a temporary covering, wondering when you will have a home again.

Everyone around you seems to be moving forward, while your life remains suspended.

Some people reportedly questioned why their family had suffered when others nearby had not. Others struggled with feelings of shame or wondered whether they had somehow been singled out.

Those reactions stayed with me.

I have spent many years listening to people experiencing emotional distress, and one thing I have learned is that suffering becomes especially difficult when someone believes nobody else understands it.

When an entire village is devastated, there is often a shared recognition of loss.

But when only a few families are affected, their grief can become invisible.

The emergency response may move toward areas with greater physical destruction. Neighbors may assume the family has relatives who can help. Even the affected individuals may hesitate to ask for support because they know others have suffered too.

I wish more people understood that emotional pain is not a competition.

We do not need to determine whose loss was greater before deciding whose suffering deserves attention.

A family whose home was destroyed in an otherwise undamaged neighborhood deserves the same dignity, compassion, and opportunity to be heard as anyone else.

Sometimes that begins with something remarkably simple.

A visit.

A telephone call.

Someone sitting beside them and asking how they are managing.

Not because we have an immediate solution, but because we want them to know they have not been forgotten.

When Losing a Home Means Losing Your History

Another situation described to me involved families whose land might no longer be safe for rebuilding.

This is a different kind of loss.

A damaged house can sometimes be repaired. A destroyed house may eventually be replaced.

But what happens when the land itself is no longer considered safe?

What happens when the place where your grandparents lived, where your parents raised you, and where you imagined your own children growing up can no longer be your home?

For some families in rural communities, land represents far more than property.

It represents belonging.

It represents generations of work, family relationships, memories, and identity.

When I think about people being told they may need to relocate permanently, I wonder whether those making the decisions fully appreciate what they are asking families to leave behind.

A new house somewhere else may provide physical safety, and that safety is essential.

But it cannot automatically replace a sense of home.

I have seen in other disaster settings how long recovery can take when people lose not only possessions but also their familiar surroundings and community connections.

This is why psychological recovery cannot be separated from practical recovery.

We cannot simply tell someone to focus on the future when they have no idea where that future will take place.

We need to involve families in decisions that affect their lives, respect the meaning of the places they are leaving, and recognize that grief may continue long after the emergency response has ended.

The People We Sometimes Overlook

Even within the same village, the needs of different people can vary enormously.

Children may become frightened whenever they hear a loud noise. Some become unusually quiet. Others cling to their parents, struggle to sleep, or become angry over things that previously would not have upset them.

Parents may interpret these changes as misbehavior without recognizing the fear underneath.

During my training in Panama, questions about children and their return to school came up repeatedly.

I could hear the concern behind those questions.

How do we help a child who is terrified of another earthquake? How do we reassure children when we cannot promise that the ground will not shake again? How do we help parents who are frightened themselves?

There are no magical words that remove uncertainty.

What we can offer is honesty, reassurance grounded in reality, predictable routines where possible, and adults who are willing to listen.

Adolescents may respond differently.

Some withdraw. Others try to appear unaffected. Some assume responsibilities far beyond their age because their families suddenly need them to care for younger siblings or help with practical tasks.

Older adults face challenges of their own.

Several people spoke about older individuals who worried about becoming burdens on their families. Others had lost homes they had built with their own hands and could not imagine starting over.

I find that particularly heartbreaking.

Imagine spending decades creating a home, only to be told late in life that you must begin again.

And then there are people living with disabilities, individuals who depend on regular medication, pregnant women, and families who were already struggling financially before the earthquake.

Their needs cannot be addressed through a single standard program.

That is one reason I believe so strongly in training people to listen before offering advice.

The same question, asked with genuine interest, can reveal very different needs.

“What has been the hardest part for you?”

For one person, the answer may be fear.

For another, medication.

For another, the loss of a home.

And for someone else, the simple fact that nobody has asked.

The Shelters Are Not the End of the Story

Temporary shelters play an essential role after a disaster.

When buildings are unsafe, families need somewhere protected to sleep. They need food, water, sanitation, medical attention, and reliable information.

But shelters also create challenges.

Privacy is limited. Families are crowded together. Children may struggle with noise and unfamiliar surroundings. People who have already experienced frightening events may feel vulnerable in places where they have little control over their environment.

Women, children, and other vulnerable individuals may face additional protection concerns that require careful attention.

And then comes another difficult stage.

The shelters begin to close.

From the outside, this may look like progress.

Families are leaving. Temporary facilities are no longer needed. The emergency appears to be moving toward recovery.

But where are those families going?

Some may return to safe homes. Others may move in with relatives. Some may return to damaged buildings because they have nowhere else to go.

Their need for support does not disappear when they leave a shelter.

In some ways, this is when reaching them becomes more difficult.

While families are gathered in one place, volunteers and professionals know where to find them. Once they disperse, people who still need assistance may become harder to identify.

I worry about that transition.

The first weeks after a disaster receive enormous attention. There are photographs, reports, donations, and volunteers.

Months later, much of that attention has moved elsewhere.

But the people affected are still living with the consequences.

A child may still be afraid to sleep alone. A parent may still be unemployed. An older adult may still be waiting for medication or a safe place to live.

Recovery does not follow the news cycle.

Our support systems should not disappear simply because the cameras have gone home.

What Panama Reminded Me About Listening

During my time in Panama, I was reminded repeatedly that listening is not a passive activity.

It requires attention, patience, humility, and the willingness to accept that we may not understand someone’s situation as well as we think we do.

I have provided Psychological First Aid in different countries following disasters, and I have learned that arriving with experience does not mean arriving with all the answers.

In fact, experience should make us more willing to ask questions.

I may understand some common reactions to trauma, but I do not automatically understand the history of a particular village, the relationships within a family, or the cultural meaning of a home that has been lost.

Those things must be learned from the people themselves.

I often think about the difference between looking at a forest and looking at an individual tree.

From a distance, we see the forest. We can estimate its size, identify damaged areas, and develop plans for restoration.

But each tree has its own roots, its own history, and its own way of responding to what has happened.

Communities are much the same.

A national response is necessary. Coordination matters. Resources must be distributed fairly and efficiently.

But within that larger response, we must leave room for individual communities to tell us what they need.

Some may need practical assistance first.

Others may need help reconnecting families.

Some may benefit from organized listening sessions, while others may already have strong community networks that simply need additional support.

And sometimes what a community needs most is for outsiders to stop talking long enough to hear what the people living there are trying to say.

That is not always easy.

When we want to help, we naturally want to act.

We want to organize, provide, solve, and reassure.

But there are moments when our urgency to do something can prevent us from understanding what actually needs to be done.

I have had to remind myself of that throughout my work.

Not every silence needs to be filled.

Not every expression of sadness needs an immediate response.

Not every person wants advice.

Sometimes people simply need the freedom to speak about what has happened without being corrected, compared with others, or told how they should feel.

The Lesson I Am Taking Home

As I reflect on Panama, I keep returning to the conversations I had with the people trying to help.

Many were exhausted. Some were overwhelmed. Others were worried that they were not doing enough.

Yet they continued showing up.

They visited communities, listened to families, answered questions, and tried to connect people with whatever support was available.

I was deeply moved by their commitment.

But I was also reminded that good intentions alone are not enough.

We need to understand the people we are helping.

We need to recognize the strengths that already exist within their communities.

We need to respect differences in culture, family structure, resources, and emotional needs.

And we need to remember that the people who appear strongest may still be struggling.

There is no single way to recover from an earthquake.

There is no universal timetable for grief, fear, or rebuilding.

And there is certainly no single program that can meet every community’s needs.

What we can offer is a willingness to listen, to learn, and to adapt.

For me, that is one of the most important lessons of Mental Health First Aid and Psychological First Aid alike.

We do not begin by assuming we know what someone needs.

We begin by asking.

And then we listen carefully enough to hear the answer.

In the next part of this series, I want to focus on the people who are doing so much of that listening: the mental health professionals, volunteers, and community helpers who continue supporting others while carrying their own fears and exhaustion.

Because they, too, need someone willing to ask how they are doing.

And they, too, deserve to be heard.