Editor’s note: This story originally appeared on the University News website and is part of Dispatches from Abroad, a series highlighting UChicago community members who are researching, studying and working around the world.
This summer, rising University of Chicago third-years Abbey Figueroa and Nora Molten traded the concrete jungle of Chicago for the dense rainforest of Panama’s Darién Gap.
The two came from very different academic backgrounds to support sustainable water access in partnership with local communities through the College’s Jeff Metcalf Internship Program. The remote Darién Gap is one of the most ecologically rich yet infrastructurally under-resourced regions of Central America—a prime location to learn about global infrastructure challenges.
The pair worked in collaboration with Solea Water, a nonprofit focused on building community-led water systems, conducting field tests and installing long-term infrastructure in remote communities. As part of this, they drafted a user’s manual in basic Spanish, with plans for eventual translation into the local indigenous languages.
For Figueroa and Molten, each day began in a raised, open-air hut in the rainforest, where the students slept in hammocks covered by mosquito nets.
After breakfast, usually hojaldres, a traditional Panamanian dish of fried dough, they traveled by dugout wooden canoe to riverside communities, with some trips taking up to six hours. They spent their afternoons testing water sources, analyzing samples and meeting with local families. In the evenings, they cooked meals or participated in local customs.
“We get to engage a lot with the community,” Molten said, speaking from the field. “One day we set up a little activity where all the little girls in the community put on their cultural skirts, gave us our own as well, and they taught us how to do their dances, which was really sweet.”
Figueroa and Molten both came across the internship on UChicago Handshake, a search resource hosted by Career Advancement. Even though they had mutual friends, they didn’t meet until they were both selected for the program. Figueroa is a public policy and global studies major with an interest in cultural anthropology—meanwhile, Molten is a molecular engineering student who researches carbon capture.
For both, the internship offered a chance to explore international development and environmental sustainability firsthand, particularly as they did daily their water quality tests in multiple communities along the river, collecting samples to identify contaminants. Many of the settlements are accessible only by dugout canoes and lack consistent access to clean water.
“Before the water systems were put in place, most of their drinking water, bathing water and cleaning water all came from the same source,” Molten explained. “It still pretty much does even in the communities that we've been in that have access to clean drinking water. It's pretty sporadic—most of the dishes and the people are washed in the river, which we have been testing for potential contaminants.”
Refining academic interests
The Darién Gap is known for its rugged, inhospitable terrain.
Though it is the sole land bridge between South and North America, the region does not have a road to traverse it. Instead, it features thick forest traced with rivers, wetlands and low mountains—all of which are often crossed by migrants who attempt to push through on their way north to the United States.
The conditions have led to little development for local communities. Figueroa noted that even for those with water infrastructure, reliable access is limited.
“It's not like the river's right next to their home,” she said. “Sometimes women have to migrate over to the river, take everything, and spend a good amount of time doing all the cleaning, washing all the clothes and the kids—then imagine if you want to shower.”
Figueroa also emphasized how the burden of water scarcity is unequally distributed.
“It’s hard to open up your free time as a woman, at least if your life is bound to this river,” she said. “Water has new importance to me in women's rights and liberation. It is essential.”
For both students, the experience in Panama helped them refine their academic interests.
Molten, whose academic path has focused on lab-based environmental research, said her time in the field challenged her to think critically about the implementation and long-term sustainability of technology.
“These communities have to want the changes to be made, and so the model that we are working on produces is more of a long-term solution than just giving people water because it's just not feasible,” said Molten. “In the future, I’m going to try and work towards doing more research on the intersection between environmental and human health.”
Figueroa hopes to work in international development and public policy after graduation but emphasized that doing so responsibly requires firsthand experience.
“There’s a big gap in public policy between those making decisions and the people affected by them,” she said.
“This internship has helped me start to bridge that divide. I don’t want to be someone who writes policy for Latin America without understanding the realities of life here. That means listening first—learning how people live, what they value and what they need.”
‘Invited in and building together’
Both students returned to Hyde Park in late August and hope to continue the academic work sparked by their internship.
Figueroa intends to pursue upper-level courses on participatory development and apply for research fellowships that will allow her to return to Latin America. Molten, meanwhile, plans to focus her academic studies more squarely on public health applications and community-driven infrastructure.
Their shared goal is to carry the lessons of international collaboration into their future careers—whether in policy, research or engineering.
Through programs like the Metcalf Internship and support from UChicago Global, students like Figueroa and Molten are given the tools and responsibility to turn classroom learning into global action.
“Going forward, I want to be part of work that starts with the community and not policy written from a distance,” Figueroa said. “Solea’s approach, being invited in and building together, is something I want to carry with me wherever I go.”