The Price of Sugar

http://picasaweb.google.com/Geedz913/RehabCenterWithGabriela?feat=directlink

For those of you wanting to appreciate what you have, I would recommend the documentary "The Price of Sugar". It is about the sugar cane fields in the DR where Haitians are brought into the country with false information of a happier, more fruitful life. In turn, they are stripped of their papers, being completely illegal and are forced to stay on the bateyes for life. They are paid less than 90 cents a day and often times have no food to eat. Quite a difficult movie to watch, even living where I am right now.

Anyway, this morning we did a great leg workout and then I had to start working on some of the curriculum. I worked on the vaccination unit but also chatted with Brian and Kerr online. I wasn't so productive this morning but getting better.

This afternoon I went to the Rehab Center with Gabriella to take pictures and help her translate. It was very interesting to observe. They were doing rehab on a 4 year old girl which I believe has cerebral palsy. She didn't speak and she couldn't sit up. Her legs look like frog legs the way they were bent. However, the therapist was straigtening her legs and arms, which looked very painful. My knees were hurting with the way the therapist was jerking this girls' knees straight. She cried throughout the whole process and it was breaking my heart to watch. At one point, I went over and just started rubbing her head to try and calm her but she continued to cry. She couldn't express anything and even if she could they would have just told her to be quiet.

After working with her on the table for a while, they took her to the gym area and rolled her around on an exercise ball. I have a short video that I'll try to upload, you can hear her crying in it, and it was just so miserable!

Gabriela is a licensed massage therapist in Canada and she worked on two patients this afternoon with back pain. She enjoyed doing this and was trying to show some of the other workers there what she was doing so maybe they can do some massage in the future.

The best part of the day was the walk home. I had many great opportunities to take pictures of some cute pictures which I'll post. Maybe one of the strangest requests ever from all my times here came today as well. A lady called me from across the street to come into her house. Inside her house was a 19 year old boy, shorter than me, and with horrible scoliosis. He was blind, and one of the worse cases of cleft palate and cleft lip I've ever seen. She was telling me that he lived in New Jersey for 6 years but they couldn't help him so his Mom sent him back here to live about 2 years ago. This lady was asking me if I knew how he could get help in the states and get papers to return because he is a Dominican citizen. I felt horrible because there wasn't much I could do but I told her I'd talk with Coco and we'd try to help her some way. So. Coco and I are going to go tomorrow and see if we can at least offer some local resources through some organizations.

After returning, I hung out with the kids some. I played left, right, center, surprise! Some of the girls that I usually play with refused to play because Yanina, the old handicapped girl was playing. They said she didn't know how, although she's played before with me, so they refused to play if she was. So we wouldn't let those girls play because they were being so hateful. The mentality here of disabled people is poor, especially coming from these children who live with some disabled people.

Tonight I played with several of the kids. Luz Maria, I had promised yesterday that I would chase her around, so she asked me again and I told her after dinner I would. Unfortunately it got really dark after dinner so we are going to play chase tomorrow before dinner! I read a book to William, a 14 year old boy that hardly talks because he is so shy. Arianni, one of the little twins, was calling for me, and she calls me Elisamen (pronounced A-lee-sa-men). It is so cute! The rest of the time I just spent hanging out with several of the kids before it was time for us to watch the movie tonight. It was a great night, and I got to talk to Leo before the movie started so that was great catching up with him.

Welcome home almost Dad! Hope you haven't missed me too much ;) Sorry if my blogs are super lengthy, there is just so much to say! Feel free to ignore 1/2 of them if you want, but I'm excited to go back and read them next year to reminisce.