When you open your eyes and look around you I believe that you can find heroes everywhere.  Those every day champions whom decide to take the road less traveled, those that put others before themselves, and understand that service to others is the most rewarding path to happiness.  I am always stuck by the stories that have driven these ordinary people to do extraordinary things.   Champions of the underdog, fearless activists, animal lovers, stay at home moms…. I have met so many heroes over these past 3.5 years.

Most recently, I met Sergeant Rolando Diaz Brenes, a gentle spirited police officer with a contagious smile, here in Bocas del Toro.   We had started to do first-response training at the local fire department and naturally it had transitioned to an interest to lend a hand to the police as well.  One of my volunteers had met a Sergeant and had scheduled a meeting for us to meet and talk about what services we could offer.  We met in the lobby at the station and he politely listened as I botched my Spanish explanation of our work here and was excited at the possibility of working together.  Near the end of our conversation he slipped in a question about us getting involved with his new youth boxing club… wanting nothing more than for us to check his boys and make sure they were fit to fight.  Being a group that has befriended youth on the fringe in every country that we have visited we were immediately taken with the prospect.  He invited us to come back that afternoon to meet the trainer and see what the program consisted of.

We arrived back at the police station a little after 5pm and walked into the large room that serves as the stations storage area—it was filled with sweaty kids from 8-23 years old.  They were stretching, doing sit-ups, push ups, jumping rope, and sparing with each other and their trainer—5pm and off the streets, doing something productive, something that will make their bodies strong and minds tired.  I think we were all so in awe that we barely spoke a word to one another.  We just sat against the wall and watched Diaz work the room.  Rolando Diaz, an ordinary man taking the time to transform the lives of these forgotten kids.

Recently we sat with Sergeant Diaz to ask him the simple questions:  Why?  What is it that makes you do this? And what does boxing mean to you?

Again, this unassuming man humbled all of us with his answers.

I would explain it to you myself but my words would pail in comparison to his.

Floating Doctors:  Why do you do this?

Diaz:  I don’t believe that bad boys exist, just poorly trained or poorly taught.  It could be by their parents, or because their dad doesn’t live with their mom, or he only lives with his mom, or his grandmother. In general what happens here, kids live alone with their mothers; their fathers are not present.  So they receive a lot of influence from the outside.  They search in the street, in drugs, in alcohol, for that important part of their lives- a father who helps them, teaches them.  A father figure is very important in the home so they look in their friendships for what they don’t find at home: affection, education, respect, you know, these are important things for them.  And like I said, I don’t believe that there are bad boys, just poorly trained, poorly assessed, poorly taught   But programs like this boxing program are good; they provide us a way to help them and they help themselves…  they learn that they can change, that they can stop doing drugs, that they need to practice, that they need to respect their mothers, their fathers, their elders, and they start to change.  Because here we teach them discipline and we talk about different issues, you, the doctors, have come to talk to them about different issues.  And they see, in the coaches, not exactly a father figure, but something similar to a father, someone who helps them, and someone who talks to them.  There are times when we have to speak very seriously with them, and sometimes we have to laugh with them.  And that’s why I think these programs are good.  The more that comes, the better.  Sometimes people think that it is not worth it, but no, if a hundred show up and even just one is able to change, it is big.  It is beneficial – for society, for the police, for the youth themselves.

Floating Doctors:  What does boxing mean to you?

Diaz:  Boxing for me, for me in particular, boxing is happiness.  It is my happiness, my motivation.   Every time I see these boys training, every time I’m in a boxing ring, every time I’m talking with them, practicing, my heart is full of pleasure, it feels happy, it feels big, like it wants to explode out of my chest because it is so happy.  It is beautiful.  Every time I see a boy boxing it makes me happy because I know it will be good for him, for his future.   And a lot of them have told me they would like to be police in the future, when they are of age.  This is very good for them.

For me boxing is something that it changed my life.  Up to this point in my life, it has helped me so much.  I still remember the first time I went to practice.  I was really shy, because there were other boys there, you know, but little by little I started boxing, sparring, fighting, and it has helped me so much – so much.  I feel so happy.  It really helps you, because it keeps you from being out late at night, you change your friendships.  The ones who invite you out to go steal, to drink, to smoke drugs, peer pressure you.

 You have a lot of free time when you’re a child, and if you don’t know how to spend it, or no one tells you, or no one helps you find a good way to use your time, you go places you shouldn’t, with friends who aren’t really your friends.  But this gets you out, and it keeps you out of that environment, it helps you a lot.  I’m speaking from personal experience – it helped me a lot.  That is also how I came to join the police force when I was 18.  16 years later and I haven’t stopped boxing.  Last year was my last fight, and I don’t think I’ll fight more this year.  My fingers are injured, my nose, on the inside, it has already been operated on once, so for me, now that I’m 35, that’s enough.  So it is time for the youth to train.  And we have good kids here, all of them are good.

written by: sky labrot