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Saturday is normally a travel day for groups but Queen Margaret's was here until Sunday so instead we had activity day with the kids. One of the girls from the group was celebrating her birthday so we started the morning off with a little Happy Birthday singing and of course, water on her head. She gave me a scour when I poured water on her head but oh well, it was fun!
That morning we had craft/activity time with the kids. They had bracelet making, coloring books, painting, finger paints, and a couple other activities set out. Finger paints looked like a fun idea until the kids went crazy and just started pouring the bottles of paint all over the table. At one point, there was no one manning the station and it became insane so we quickly shut this station down. It is wild how fast something can get out of hand with kids! I worked on making a keychain to attach to my phone so I won't lose my room key. The kids did crafts for about 1 hour and then we had a little break before lunch.
After lunch and siesta, we had an hour of reading with the kids. They really enjoy coming over and either reading to someone or having us read to them. I read with Luz Maria and towards the end Joanni as well. We read about 8-10 books, some only 3-4 pages long ;) I had hoped to read with Indiana because I haven't spent much time with her but she wasn't there. I found her afterwards and mentioned this to her and she said she was washing dishes but wanted to read. So, I went to get some books and we went over to a little table and she read 4 books to me. It was cool hanging out with just her and having her read.
After that we still had 2 hours until dinner and I was kind of bored so I found Vivian and Jennifer and we headed out into town for a walk. The days I don't work out (Sat/Sun) I feel so sluggish so I needed to get out and move a little. We had no real purpose in our walk so we stopped at a clothing store just to browse, and then headed into the center of town hoping to see the Skim Ice (popsicle guy). We didn't so we headed back. A lady sitting with about 6 adult men stopped us and asked if we were American. She lived in Baltimore for 15 years and now lives here and in the capitol. We spoke with her for about 5-10 minutes before heading back for dinner.
On my way back upstairs before dinner, I stopped at the mesita and hung out with Mineli and Paola who were going crazy attacking Bryson. I ended up just hanging out there for about 30 minutes laughing at how wild and crazy they were. After dinner, I got cleaned up, and we headed out for ice cream in town. That evening at dinner we had birthday cake to celebrate the volunteer's birthday so I passed on ice cream. I had a left over cupcake from the night before at lunch and some chocolate so I figured I had reached my treat limit for the day!
There was a church concert going on in park across from the Institute so we headed there after ice cream. They had a big stage set up with a Christmas tree and lights and were passing out Dominican flags. There were a bunch of people from town in the park, several English students, Jazmin who used to live at the orphanage, and the older orphanage kids came. We hung out there for about an hour which was fun. They had a pantomime skit that was performed, and music was played the remainder of the time.
We had to head back around 9pm to do closing with the group. They were a quiet group so it didn't last too long and then I hung out with Heather, Coco and Bryson just chatting and eating more chocolate!
On Sunday, the group was scheduled to leave at 10:30. After breakfast, I watched Bryson work on the hospital video, seeing how he captures and logs different clips to organize the video. We headed down to say goodbye to the group and I sat at the mesita with Luis Alberto. We have a running joke that his name is Elizabeth and my name is Luis Alberto so I kept telling him that and joking with him. As the group was loading up, I ask him if he wanted to go in a suitcase and he said yes. So I carried him over to the bus and Chiro the driver had an empty duffle bag. I said, open the bag, Luis Alberto wants to go, and as he did this, Luis Alberto squirmed out of my arms saying, Yo no voy, I'm not going, and ran away. It was adorable! Apparently he doesn't understand sarcasm at age 5! :)
The group left and we hung out at the mesita with Luis Alberto, Paola, Yanina, Merry and Winston. It was a very peaceful, relaxing time just sitting there chatting and hanging out for a while. Jessica came up later and wanted to play L,R,C so I went and got that and we played until lunchtime.
After lunch, I organized my pictures some and then headed to the baseball game to watch Bebo play. He is Pastor's youngest son who is 20 years old and plays on a local team here in Monte Cristi. The game was supposed to start at 2pm and we got there about 2:40 and it finally started about 3:10. There was no official umpire, just a couple of guys that switched out and no real scoreboard but someone apparently kept score. Bebo played outfield and batted once while we were there.
We didn't stay too long, about an hour, because these boys had homemade fireworks that they kept popping and it got super annoying! It looked like a shoelace with a metal tube on one end and a screw on the other. They would stick a match down inside the tube, then the screw into the tube and then smack that part against a wall or something and it would pop real loud. One boy threatened to do it where I was sitting twice, the first time I asked please don't and he left and the second time he was being a brat and I responded right back telling him I'd push him down the concrete bleachers! :) I'm so nice, I know! But he left!
We headed back to the orphanage and I took some pictures of the kids. Mineli apparently had been covered head to toe in these pretty pink flowers and they were telling me all about this. I headed over to the patio and Nena sat in my lap and chilled for a while. The bell rang for snack and all the kids went to get their red juice and crackers. They all had pretty dresses on that quickly became covered in red juice! I sat with them while they ate their snack and then somehow the girls and one little boy started getting into a juice/water tossing fight. I avoided this and hung out with Luis Alberto, pretending to steal his snack from him like a few nights ago.
He came and sat in my lap and was being all lovey-dovey and cute. I'd squeeze him tight and he would scream, and this continued for a few minutes. Then somehow, Tito came around and Luis Alberto changed and farted on me and starting being bad! He got nice again, and we played a little hand game that Heather taught him earlier in the day. You tap fists and say Pound It, then twist and say Lock It, then put it in your pocket, then put your two pointer fingers together longways and say Break the Pickle, which the other person splits with their fingers, and then you say Tickle Tickle Ticklet. He would do it, then I would do it. I love hearing him speak English!
We headed up for dinner and finally I could share the chocolate with everyone at dinner since the group was gone. I had been sharing it in secret from the kitchen refrigerator but this time we brought out the bag! After dinner, I heard lots of chanting, yelling coming from the kids so I walked over to see what was going on. Nena was standing on the patio wall, and the other little girls were all standing in chairs. She was leading "culto" which had now turned into her doing English chants from summer camp. It was hilarious! She'd chant something and they would all repeat back. This went on for another 3-4 minutes until they all went wild and started jumping on Bryson and I and not wanting us to leave. I took a few self administered pictures of Luz Maria and I and when I had to leave to shower for church, I literally had to run away to get out because they cling to your shirts or legs and won't let you leave!
We headed to church for the evening and there was guest from Santo Domingo who sang 3 songs from his worship CDs. I sat by Little Nicole at church and she ended up laying her head down in my lap and sleeping towards the end. There is a round of gripe (colds) going around here at the orphanage and she is one of the sick ones.
After church Coco treated us to movie night in her apartment. She popped popcorn on her stove and bought soda for us. It was a great treat. We watched Slumdog Millionaire and then called it a night!
Monday, November 30, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Happy Birthday EMMA!
First I have to wish Emma a Happy 28th Birthday! Welcome to the club :) Hope you had a great day!
Today was a field trip day for me. Heather had to teach her class at the English Institute so I took the team to Dajabon, the Haiti/Dominican border, and was the caboose again. It is always interesting to go there because each trip is a little different. Today there was an older Dominican lady with a disposable camera trying to take a picture of the Asian students that are here with the group. There was also a man that yelled out and said "Are they Chinese? Or do they just look Chinese?". It is funny how fascinated they are but I suppose if they never leave their island they don't see many people from foreign countries.
The market was a more crowded today than last time because it was Friday versus Monday, but definitely not as crowded as I have seen. It was a peaceful day, and we made it through without too many difficulties.
We headed back into town and I hung out in my room until time to head to lunch in town. We ate lunch at Comedor Adela where they serve buffet style food. It is always way too much food, especially before heading to the beach to lay out! They have everything though, rice, bean, chicken, beef, goat, mashed potatoes, spaghetti, broccoli, these little wheat things called quepers, stewed eggplant, meatballs, cheese empanadas, bread, cake, pineapple, and watermelon. It is an amazing assortment of food and I used to eat so much when I would come only for 1-2 weeks but now that we go with groups often, I've learned not to stuff myself!
From there we headed to the beach for a couple of hours. It was a hot day at the beach. I kept having to wipe my face on my pillow/towel because I'd be dripping sweat and wake up. But, it was great! On the drive home I saw an interesting lady walking down the street. She had shorts on and you could only see her left leg and on the right side she had a crutch that she was using to walk with. I didn't think much of it until I happened to look down at the crutch and she had a small foot that was actually holding on to the crutch with her toes. She must have had a shortened leg with some type of deformed foot attached. It was interesting and I didn't want to be a noisy onlooker but medical stuff like that always peeks an interest in me!
After returning from the beach we had free time until dinner and then again after dinner until 8pm when the older kids went to church. I hung out after dinner and tickled Ari, with her newly removed front tooth, chased around Nena, and Luz Maria and then sat and hung out with Nena for a while to cool off.
Tonight we had movie night with the group and watched Elf. I hadn't seen that is a while so it was great watching it. Made me excited for Christmas time! Julie and Heather baked cupcakes during the movie and they were done right as the movie finished. Great ending to a great day!
Today was a field trip day for me. Heather had to teach her class at the English Institute so I took the team to Dajabon, the Haiti/Dominican border, and was the caboose again. It is always interesting to go there because each trip is a little different. Today there was an older Dominican lady with a disposable camera trying to take a picture of the Asian students that are here with the group. There was also a man that yelled out and said "Are they Chinese? Or do they just look Chinese?". It is funny how fascinated they are but I suppose if they never leave their island they don't see many people from foreign countries.
The market was a more crowded today than last time because it was Friday versus Monday, but definitely not as crowded as I have seen. It was a peaceful day, and we made it through without too many difficulties.
We headed back into town and I hung out in my room until time to head to lunch in town. We ate lunch at Comedor Adela where they serve buffet style food. It is always way too much food, especially before heading to the beach to lay out! They have everything though, rice, bean, chicken, beef, goat, mashed potatoes, spaghetti, broccoli, these little wheat things called quepers, stewed eggplant, meatballs, cheese empanadas, bread, cake, pineapple, and watermelon. It is an amazing assortment of food and I used to eat so much when I would come only for 1-2 weeks but now that we go with groups often, I've learned not to stuff myself!
From there we headed to the beach for a couple of hours. It was a hot day at the beach. I kept having to wipe my face on my pillow/towel because I'd be dripping sweat and wake up. But, it was great! On the drive home I saw an interesting lady walking down the street. She had shorts on and you could only see her left leg and on the right side she had a crutch that she was using to walk with. I didn't think much of it until I happened to look down at the crutch and she had a small foot that was actually holding on to the crutch with her toes. She must have had a shortened leg with some type of deformed foot attached. It was interesting and I didn't want to be a noisy onlooker but medical stuff like that always peeks an interest in me!
After returning from the beach we had free time until dinner and then again after dinner until 8pm when the older kids went to church. I hung out after dinner and tickled Ari, with her newly removed front tooth, chased around Nena, and Luz Maria and then sat and hung out with Nena for a while to cool off.
Tonight we had movie night with the group and watched Elf. I hadn't seen that is a while so it was great watching it. Made me excited for Christmas time! Julie and Heather baked cupcakes during the movie and they were done right as the movie finished. Great ending to a great day!
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Feliz Dia de Acción de Gracias! Happy Thanksgiving!
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Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends! I'm sure everyone ate until they were miserable which is always great but terrible at the same time! Although I missed being with my family to celebrate Thanksgiving, I had a fun time with the kids this evening as they came over to celebrate with us.
Back up a little to tell you some about the day. This morning I started working on the Adult Medicine Unit and got the objectives set, now just have to work on the resource materials for the objectives which is what takes so long!
After this, we headed back into the hospital to finish filming. We ran into a guy from town that had a 25 day old baby girl in his lap. She was all bundled in pink and very precious! We said hello to Dr. Garcia, and then started taping. It started off a little rough because I asked him if we could tape a chart and he said that was illegal. I guess there are some privacy laws at least here. I was pretty sure none of that existed but I guess it's good to know patients still have a little privacy. So, we moved on to the ER which was pretty busy and I went inside to ask if we could film. They said we had to talk to the director, which I explained we had, and then she said we needed a note from him. So, we pitched that idea also.
From there we headed out to the lobby area and taped some of the basic exam rooms and then headed upstairs to the HIV/AIDS ward. This was interesting because I had never been up there. It is only about 2 years old. As we came up the stairs, a young girl about 8-9 was at the top outside the door singing and dancing. She continued as we were standing there watching and we talked to her. Then her Mom came to get her to go back inside. We walked in, introduced ourselves and were told to ask the doctor if we could film. They walked us into a consult room where the doctor was with the dancing girl and her Mom and we just interrupted them, upon their request, and asked. The doctor was very friendly and said tape whatever you want, and told us we weren't a problem at all being there. As Bryson filmed, I stood at the front desk area and ended up talking with a lady that lives in Batey Madre. She saw my OO shirt and recognized it, saying we help out a lot in the bateyes.
From there we walked around filming so it looked like we were walking thru the hospital. We saw the guy with cast on, talked to a guard from the jail that was there guarding a patient, and then went upstairs and saw the same 16 year old girl from yesterday. As we were talking to her, her Mom came down the hallway with the same doctor we had spoken to in the HIV/AIDS ward. Makes me wonder if that is what she has??
The end of the hospital tour was the best. We asked the people in the chart room if we could take a picture and they invited us in. Imagine the size of a sitting room in an average American home and the room was maybe that size. In there, they have stored 40 years worth of manilla folders that serve as the patients charts. It was a mad house! People were stepping over charts, shelves had charts basically falling out of them, stuffed to the brim! It was an OCD person's nightmare and even was overwhelming for me who we all know is not very neat! They had drawers with letters on the front and each drawers had 100s of index cards with the patient's information and file folder number. They'd find these cards, find the number, and then go searching for the chart. So, every morning patients show up wanting to be seen (no appointments made), and the get their names, find their index cards, pull their charts, then staple a small square with a number on it and give the patient a matching "ticket". After receiving their ticket, the go sit and wait for their number to be called. INSANITY is all I can say about that! I'll have to post a link to the video once it gets finished!
From there we headed out of the hospital and back for lunch.
After lunch I went to help Coco set up for our make shift dental office. The Reilly's are both dentists so they offered to help do some extractions on two of the kids that had really bad teeth. Little Ari was first, the twin with the rotted broken front tooth. She came upstairs a little frightened and by the time he finished just looking she was ready to go. As TJ numbed her from the back (the palate), numbing medicine came squirting thru the front where there was an abscess.They got her front tooth out, with a little crying and holding down and then moved on to her brother who has about 4-5 teeth rotted to the gums.
He was terrified because he had heard his sister crying and he took a little more convincing to get numbed. Bribery with some play trucks helped! He screamed so loud as they were numbing him and it was breaking my heart. I had the job of holding his head still while Pastor Ramon held the flashlight and his arms. There were 3 others helping hold down legs and hands also. As TJ pulled out the first tooth, he was amazed at how big it was and it had an abscess on the bottom! For being 5, and terrified he did excellent. He was still a little dazed and fussy even an hour or so later just from the shock I think.
Next they started screening the other kids that weren't at school and found several cavities in most of the kids teeth, but small ones that can be fixed in the spring when we have big clinics. Pili and Edison also had to have teeth removed and they both did well. They were scared but held their mouths opened and were very brave for what was going on!
After doing the orphanage kids, Caela, the Hopkins daughter actually had a baby tooth that didn't fall out and needed removed so they moved on to her. And from there, they took out a tooth of the guy that does everything around here for us, like drive the bus, run errands, repair things, fill up water jugs, basically anything that needs done! It was interesting because he had a tooth next to his canine (which was missing) that was leaning over sideways because of his severe gum disease. They told him it needed to come out and he at first refused. His reasoning wasn't because of pain but because of what people would say. He didn't want people to comment on his appearance and he wasn't sure when he'd have time to go get a partial denture made so he could cover up the missing tooth. After some convincing he allowed them to do it, and it saved him 500 pesos. Yes, an extraction back home is about $160-200 dollars, and here it is $15!
Once our dental clinic closed, I went and hung out with the kids a little, checking in on the former patients who all were well and had forgotten! Ari was even showing off her new missing tooth. One interesting note, as she was getting her tooth removed, her twin was outside the door and knew something was going on. She was crying I think more than Ari, and continued to cry for about 10-15 minutes afterwards, even though Ari was calm. It was bizarre how upset she was and it wasn't even her being worked on!
I got to talk to my family today which was great to hear everyone's voices and after that I spoke with Coco who had gone to the post office and I had a package! Thanks to Laura, I received a box full of chocolate Halloween candy! It took 22 days to arrive but I've already had and shared several pieces and the wait was worth it! THANKS SO MUCH SMITH FAMILY!
I went and hung out for a bit with Jennifer, Joanni, and Mineli. They were braiding a Barbie doll's hair, one that Ari had won as her reward for being a good patient.
We got to "dress up" (not wear OO shirts) for dinner so I went to shower and get ready for our big Thanksgiving feast. The group made placemats with all the kids names on them and we set out crayons for them to color their placemats when they came over for dinner. The kids were all anxiously awaiting under the tree and kept inching closer and closer waiting for the bell to ring. Pastor said a few words, prayed and then we enjoyed a little skit done by 4 of the girls. They did a pantomime to a couple of songs but the CD was skipping so it got cut short a little. It is always cute to see them perform for us! Then, everyone sprinted to the front. We helped the little ones get their plates and the others were served buffet style. On the menu tonight was: mashed potatoes, chicken, yams, carrots, peas, stuffing, sweet bread, and cranberry sauce. I had a little bit of everything except cranberry sauce! I sat with the older girls and had a great time! As I was waiting for the orphanage kids and staff to go thru the line, I snapped some shots of the kids enjoying their huge plates of food. It is amazing how much they eat here, even the 3-4 year olds!
After dinner we had the Dajabon talk with the group, as I'll be headed there again tomorrow to lead this team because Heather has to teach at the Institute. Good night!
Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends! I'm sure everyone ate until they were miserable which is always great but terrible at the same time! Although I missed being with my family to celebrate Thanksgiving, I had a fun time with the kids this evening as they came over to celebrate with us.
Back up a little to tell you some about the day. This morning I started working on the Adult Medicine Unit and got the objectives set, now just have to work on the resource materials for the objectives which is what takes so long!
After this, we headed back into the hospital to finish filming. We ran into a guy from town that had a 25 day old baby girl in his lap. She was all bundled in pink and very precious! We said hello to Dr. Garcia, and then started taping. It started off a little rough because I asked him if we could tape a chart and he said that was illegal. I guess there are some privacy laws at least here. I was pretty sure none of that existed but I guess it's good to know patients still have a little privacy. So, we moved on to the ER which was pretty busy and I went inside to ask if we could film. They said we had to talk to the director, which I explained we had, and then she said we needed a note from him. So, we pitched that idea also.
From there we headed out to the lobby area and taped some of the basic exam rooms and then headed upstairs to the HIV/AIDS ward. This was interesting because I had never been up there. It is only about 2 years old. As we came up the stairs, a young girl about 8-9 was at the top outside the door singing and dancing. She continued as we were standing there watching and we talked to her. Then her Mom came to get her to go back inside. We walked in, introduced ourselves and were told to ask the doctor if we could film. They walked us into a consult room where the doctor was with the dancing girl and her Mom and we just interrupted them, upon their request, and asked. The doctor was very friendly and said tape whatever you want, and told us we weren't a problem at all being there. As Bryson filmed, I stood at the front desk area and ended up talking with a lady that lives in Batey Madre. She saw my OO shirt and recognized it, saying we help out a lot in the bateyes.
From there we walked around filming so it looked like we were walking thru the hospital. We saw the guy with cast on, talked to a guard from the jail that was there guarding a patient, and then went upstairs and saw the same 16 year old girl from yesterday. As we were talking to her, her Mom came down the hallway with the same doctor we had spoken to in the HIV/AIDS ward. Makes me wonder if that is what she has??
The end of the hospital tour was the best. We asked the people in the chart room if we could take a picture and they invited us in. Imagine the size of a sitting room in an average American home and the room was maybe that size. In there, they have stored 40 years worth of manilla folders that serve as the patients charts. It was a mad house! People were stepping over charts, shelves had charts basically falling out of them, stuffed to the brim! It was an OCD person's nightmare and even was overwhelming for me who we all know is not very neat! They had drawers with letters on the front and each drawers had 100s of index cards with the patient's information and file folder number. They'd find these cards, find the number, and then go searching for the chart. So, every morning patients show up wanting to be seen (no appointments made), and the get their names, find their index cards, pull their charts, then staple a small square with a number on it and give the patient a matching "ticket". After receiving their ticket, the go sit and wait for their number to be called. INSANITY is all I can say about that! I'll have to post a link to the video once it gets finished!
From there we headed out of the hospital and back for lunch.
After lunch I went to help Coco set up for our make shift dental office. The Reilly's are both dentists so they offered to help do some extractions on two of the kids that had really bad teeth. Little Ari was first, the twin with the rotted broken front tooth. She came upstairs a little frightened and by the time he finished just looking she was ready to go. As TJ numbed her from the back (the palate), numbing medicine came squirting thru the front where there was an abscess.They got her front tooth out, with a little crying and holding down and then moved on to her brother who has about 4-5 teeth rotted to the gums.
He was terrified because he had heard his sister crying and he took a little more convincing to get numbed. Bribery with some play trucks helped! He screamed so loud as they were numbing him and it was breaking my heart. I had the job of holding his head still while Pastor Ramon held the flashlight and his arms. There were 3 others helping hold down legs and hands also. As TJ pulled out the first tooth, he was amazed at how big it was and it had an abscess on the bottom! For being 5, and terrified he did excellent. He was still a little dazed and fussy even an hour or so later just from the shock I think.
Next they started screening the other kids that weren't at school and found several cavities in most of the kids teeth, but small ones that can be fixed in the spring when we have big clinics. Pili and Edison also had to have teeth removed and they both did well. They were scared but held their mouths opened and were very brave for what was going on!
After doing the orphanage kids, Caela, the Hopkins daughter actually had a baby tooth that didn't fall out and needed removed so they moved on to her. And from there, they took out a tooth of the guy that does everything around here for us, like drive the bus, run errands, repair things, fill up water jugs, basically anything that needs done! It was interesting because he had a tooth next to his canine (which was missing) that was leaning over sideways because of his severe gum disease. They told him it needed to come out and he at first refused. His reasoning wasn't because of pain but because of what people would say. He didn't want people to comment on his appearance and he wasn't sure when he'd have time to go get a partial denture made so he could cover up the missing tooth. After some convincing he allowed them to do it, and it saved him 500 pesos. Yes, an extraction back home is about $160-200 dollars, and here it is $15!
Once our dental clinic closed, I went and hung out with the kids a little, checking in on the former patients who all were well and had forgotten! Ari was even showing off her new missing tooth. One interesting note, as she was getting her tooth removed, her twin was outside the door and knew something was going on. She was crying I think more than Ari, and continued to cry for about 10-15 minutes afterwards, even though Ari was calm. It was bizarre how upset she was and it wasn't even her being worked on!
I got to talk to my family today which was great to hear everyone's voices and after that I spoke with Coco who had gone to the post office and I had a package! Thanks to Laura, I received a box full of chocolate Halloween candy! It took 22 days to arrive but I've already had and shared several pieces and the wait was worth it! THANKS SO MUCH SMITH FAMILY!
I went and hung out for a bit with Jennifer, Joanni, and Mineli. They were braiding a Barbie doll's hair, one that Ari had won as her reward for being a good patient.
We got to "dress up" (not wear OO shirts) for dinner so I went to shower and get ready for our big Thanksgiving feast. The group made placemats with all the kids names on them and we set out crayons for them to color their placemats when they came over for dinner. The kids were all anxiously awaiting under the tree and kept inching closer and closer waiting for the bell to ring. Pastor said a few words, prayed and then we enjoyed a little skit done by 4 of the girls. They did a pantomime to a couple of songs but the CD was skipping so it got cut short a little. It is always cute to see them perform for us! Then, everyone sprinted to the front. We helped the little ones get their plates and the others were served buffet style. On the menu tonight was: mashed potatoes, chicken, yams, carrots, peas, stuffing, sweet bread, and cranberry sauce. I had a little bit of everything except cranberry sauce! I sat with the older girls and had a great time! As I was waiting for the orphanage kids and staff to go thru the line, I snapped some shots of the kids enjoying their huge plates of food. It is amazing how much they eat here, even the 3-4 year olds!
After dinner we had the Dajabon talk with the group, as I'll be headed there again tomorrow to lead this team because Heather has to teach at the Institute. Good night!
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women
Today is the day of the assasination of the Mirabel sisters and therefore the day of elimination of violence against women.
Today was a fun and different day for me. Bryson and I left right after breakfast to meet Dr. Garcia at the hospital. We are doing a video tour of the hospital to show groups in the spring because often times it is difficult to take large groups through the hospital. I interviewed Dr. Garcia asking him about the history of the hospital, how people pay, the different services provided, and what areas it serves. After his interview, he took us to find the director of the hospital, Dr. Reinoso for an interview. He hadn't arrived yet so we waited a bit for him and then went and interviewed him. He is an internist and talked about the teaching aspects of the hospital and the HIV/AIDS program/ward that they have. From there we toured around on our own some, and talked with the radiology tech and he showed up the equipment there. They have an old x-ray machine from the 1950s that looks like something out of Frankenstein!
On our tour we talked with a man who was in an accident and had a full leg cast, we saw many other men inpatient and a couple of kids. One guy got up out of bed holding his IV bag in one hand and his catheter bag in another. We got some good shots downstairs before heading upstairs. We also got a shot of the huge laundry machine and the kitchen where they were cooking. I learned today that they put plastic over the rice while it is cooking to keep the steam in to cook it more. So much for BPA worries here! They also were spraying roach killer on the counters while cooking! SANITARY!
We went upstairs and ran into a girl that was walking the hall with her IV bag in hand. She was shorter than me, probably about up to my shoulder and her arms and legs were smaller than my wrists (and I have small wrists). She obviously had some sort of genetic or growth problem. But she was very sweet and let us film her and talked with us about where she went to school, etc. She was coming out to the nurses station to watch TV, she had an extra IV pole set up by a lounge chair and enjoyed some cartoons.
We continued on upstairs, which is all women, and started talking with a lady in one of the beds. She asked me if I knew her neice, who lives in NY and studies medicine. She went on and on and couldn't understand why I didn't know her. She said we look alike! :) Her sister did marry an American but for some reason I just don't think I look like a half Dominican/half American girl!
We went to my favorite area next, the mother/baby rooms! There was a 5 day old little boy that was adorable. I talked with his Mom a little while Bryson filmed him.
From there we toured around the OR, which is quite impressive compared to the States. They make us put on gowns to walk back, but not really sure how that is keeping anything sterile! ;) We didn't finish filming but had to head back so he could teach Spanish to the Hopkins family.
After returning, I sat with Ari for a bit while she was coloring. She said something I found so funny! She was talking to Franchesca who is 4, they are about the same age, and told her that if she colored her back ugly she wasn't going to love her, but if she colored it pretty she would love her. So, Franchesca colored, not so well (remember she is only 4 and a little behind at that) and Ari said, "No te quiero" which means I don't love you. It was hilarious! Then she told me I wasn't her friend so I'd tickle her until she said, Ok you are my friend!
After lunch, I hung out with the kids for a bit. I did some coloring and was disappointed in my lack of coloring skills. I used to think I was good, but now I'm not!
I headed out to Batey Maguaca today with the crew and gave some vaccinations. I took some decent pictures. One boy had gone fishing and had about 8 fish that I got a picture of, got a garland Christmas tree, and some other shots of people.
Tonight we had activity night with the kids and had them over to our side to play games. I played Candyland several times with Mancho and won twice even though he kept cheating. He would rig it so he advanced to the end with the princess card and I'd go back to the beginning. But I still won because he'd draw another card that would send him backwards! We had puzzles, Jenga, coloring, Betty Spaghetti and other games out for about an hour.
Wednesday night is always culto, the little worship service on the patio so we went over there to participate in this. Luz Maria fell asleep on my lap and she snores louder than a grown man. Apparently she had a true problem with her sinuses so she snores crazy loud! After culto I spent a little time with Carolina before heading to my room because of the mosquitos.
A couple more things that I forgot from the past couple of days. Two nights ago I walked into the bathroom to brush my teeth and saw in the window a tarantula about the size of an egg, maybe a little bigger. We have screens on our window so it couldn't come in but it still was gross! I softly screamed and had Heather come to look at it. I stood in the corner while she looked through the screen and said "Wow you can see how fuzzy it is!". Meanwhile I wasn't too entertained but she blew on it to see what it would do and apparently they don't hold on and it fell over the wall! Oops! :) We put up some toilet paper in the area where the screen is not completely intact with the wall and covered it with duct tape. Didn't want any chance of that thing squeezing thru, if it didn't fall to its death before that.
Then, the next morning I was running down the street working out and by the sewer drain, which I was closest to out of the 3 in my group, there was an even bigger tranatula! I did a few high knees and quickly moved over to the right. Bryson got a stick to see if he could get it to bite because he could see its teeth! It scurried down the crack in the drain and we continued on. In my 8 other trips, I had maybe seen 1-2 of these, but I guess being here longer you see more! :)
Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow! I'm jealous somewhat of the great food everyone will be enjoying! We are having dinner with the kids which will be fun, but not all the same food :( I hope everyone enjoys their day off work and time with friends and family and enjoying great food!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
4 Weeks Left! AHHH!
So this past Saturday was my 4 week mark until I come home. I'm both excited to see everyone at home, but sad to leave here because I'll be half way done with my trip and time has flown by! I'm sad to be missing Christmas, New Year's, Noche Especial (a slumber party with the girls), and King's Day down here but know I'll love being home also!
This weekend things were kind of slow and I decided to help the orphanage staff ladies clean rice. The rice that they buy here has little rocks, dirty rice, and other random things it in that aren't edible, so everyday they set up a table and sort thru the rice to clean it. I thought it would be kind of fun, which it was for a while, but after staring at a white table, sifting thru white rice for about 20 minutes, I started getting a little nauseated. It was like getting car sick almost. I had to retire from my rice cleaning days and decided to walk into town to the local grocery store just to get out and move around.
Yesterday was a pretty normal day. I worked in the morning on some Sex Ed stuff and then spent the afternoon in Batey Juliana with Dr. Garcia. On the way to the batey I noticed in one of the cow pastures that the troughs for water were made out of huge tires cut in half. Also, they had big barrels that were cut in half and used for troughs. They are very resourceful here using things we'd typically throw away for different things.
When we arrived there were very few patients but slowly more arrived. There were about 20 men that came to be seen, and about 2-3 women. There are very few women in this batey, although it is slowly growing. The people here are constantly changing also. The men seem to come and go out of this batey. I took some BPs but mainly just hung out because we were vaccinating. There was a girl there about 9 years old that had dirty blonde hair and was lighter than most Dominicans. Her dad also had blondish hair and was lighter skinned. It is weird to see blonde Dominicans!
After I returned back to the orphanage, I hung out with Mineli for a little bit on the patio area. Then I went upstairs to take the test that the Hopkins family had just taken to see how well I knew past tense. It was difficult!
After dinner we had a little bit of free time before movie time with the kids. I went over and was giving Nicol a massage and got one in return. Some of the older kids went to a concert that was being offered by another church. They had to pay 30 pesos so only those with money saved up could go. The kids get a few pesos everyday to buy snacks at school, but sometimes they will save their pesos for events such as this or to buy something bigger.
We watched Toy Story which I hadn't seen for a while. Franchesca sat with me and fell asleep not too long into the movie. Heather and Julie made brownies for the kids and they handed those out right as the movie ended. They love special treats like this! We also got to enjoy some from a second batch after they finished cooking. TASTY!
Today was a day of work here at the orphanage. I worked on the Sex Ed unit this morning and this afternoon, finishing it just before 5pm! This morning I also went to the hospital to talk to the director about an interview. Bryson is going to make a video tour of the hospital to show the groups in the spring and we want to do some personal interviews with Dr. Garcia and Dr. Reinoso the director of the hospital. While we were waiting for his secretary to return to her office, a lady from Jaramillo (one of the bateyes) walked by and as I was saying hello to her and shaking her hand, she said "Hola, Elizabeth". I was shocked she knew my name, but it was pretty awesome at the same time! Another reason this batey is quickly becoming one of my favorites!
We found out from another doctor that we work with in the local clinic, that Dr. Reinoso had gone to the capitol this morning so after waiting 20 minutes for his secretary who never showed up, we headed to pick up the teachers from the Institute.
We came back and had a little break before lunch. I played a dice game with the Hopkins, High/Low. It was fun! I'll have to take that one home with me. They know a lot of great games!
After lunch, we had lots of free time to siesta and hang out. I went over and saw the kids for a bit and ended up sitting with Lisy and tickled her! Surprise, I know! It was fun though because at one point she was lying on the ground pretending to sleep and I then pretended to sleep, then stooped over as I was "sleeping" and then my arms would "fall" onto her belly and start tickling her!
I came back and rested for a little before working for the rest of the afternoon. After finishing the unit, I headed out with the kids again. Ari, Luz Maria, and Yanina were at the mesita and asked for some coloring books. I brought them out and hung out while they colored and also read the Caballos (horses) book. The leader from the team this week brought out some paint and was working with Winston. She would have him draw something on paper with a white crayon pressing hard and then paint on top of it and it would show up. He enjoyed this! We did that up until dinner time!
After dinner, I helped Coco sort donations along with Jennifer and Vivian. We had to pull Vivian out of her bed at 6:45 to help, she goes to bed so early, it cracks me up! They brought tons of clothes, a pile on the table that taller than me! We sorted through these separating them into boys and girls, shirts, shorts, pants, etc.
After sorting for over an hour I headed out to hang out with the kids for about 45 minutes until separation time. There weren't many kids out and William kept asking for books to read so I went and got three books. I called him over and sat with him under the light post and read the 3 books to him. He loves sitting and reading! Often times, he, Bryson and Winston will sit and read together. Both he and Winston are very very shy, so to have him open up to me is rewarding!
Tomorrow we are going to film the video tour of the hospital which should be fun and then I will head out to Batey Maguaca in the afternoon. I haven't been there yet with Dr. Garcia this trip, but went a couple of weeks ago with Bill and Cara who were here on a site visit. We'll see if any of the kids remember me! Should be a good picture taking opportunity. I haven't been taking many recently because I've been working in my room which is very exciting to document with pictures! :)
This weekend things were kind of slow and I decided to help the orphanage staff ladies clean rice. The rice that they buy here has little rocks, dirty rice, and other random things it in that aren't edible, so everyday they set up a table and sort thru the rice to clean it. I thought it would be kind of fun, which it was for a while, but after staring at a white table, sifting thru white rice for about 20 minutes, I started getting a little nauseated. It was like getting car sick almost. I had to retire from my rice cleaning days and decided to walk into town to the local grocery store just to get out and move around.
Yesterday was a pretty normal day. I worked in the morning on some Sex Ed stuff and then spent the afternoon in Batey Juliana with Dr. Garcia. On the way to the batey I noticed in one of the cow pastures that the troughs for water were made out of huge tires cut in half. Also, they had big barrels that were cut in half and used for troughs. They are very resourceful here using things we'd typically throw away for different things.
When we arrived there were very few patients but slowly more arrived. There were about 20 men that came to be seen, and about 2-3 women. There are very few women in this batey, although it is slowly growing. The people here are constantly changing also. The men seem to come and go out of this batey. I took some BPs but mainly just hung out because we were vaccinating. There was a girl there about 9 years old that had dirty blonde hair and was lighter than most Dominicans. Her dad also had blondish hair and was lighter skinned. It is weird to see blonde Dominicans!
After I returned back to the orphanage, I hung out with Mineli for a little bit on the patio area. Then I went upstairs to take the test that the Hopkins family had just taken to see how well I knew past tense. It was difficult!
After dinner we had a little bit of free time before movie time with the kids. I went over and was giving Nicol a massage and got one in return. Some of the older kids went to a concert that was being offered by another church. They had to pay 30 pesos so only those with money saved up could go. The kids get a few pesos everyday to buy snacks at school, but sometimes they will save their pesos for events such as this or to buy something bigger.
We watched Toy Story which I hadn't seen for a while. Franchesca sat with me and fell asleep not too long into the movie. Heather and Julie made brownies for the kids and they handed those out right as the movie ended. They love special treats like this! We also got to enjoy some from a second batch after they finished cooking. TASTY!
Today was a day of work here at the orphanage. I worked on the Sex Ed unit this morning and this afternoon, finishing it just before 5pm! This morning I also went to the hospital to talk to the director about an interview. Bryson is going to make a video tour of the hospital to show the groups in the spring and we want to do some personal interviews with Dr. Garcia and Dr. Reinoso the director of the hospital. While we were waiting for his secretary to return to her office, a lady from Jaramillo (one of the bateyes) walked by and as I was saying hello to her and shaking her hand, she said "Hola, Elizabeth". I was shocked she knew my name, but it was pretty awesome at the same time! Another reason this batey is quickly becoming one of my favorites!
We found out from another doctor that we work with in the local clinic, that Dr. Reinoso had gone to the capitol this morning so after waiting 20 minutes for his secretary who never showed up, we headed to pick up the teachers from the Institute.
We came back and had a little break before lunch. I played a dice game with the Hopkins, High/Low. It was fun! I'll have to take that one home with me. They know a lot of great games!
After lunch, we had lots of free time to siesta and hang out. I went over and saw the kids for a bit and ended up sitting with Lisy and tickled her! Surprise, I know! It was fun though because at one point she was lying on the ground pretending to sleep and I then pretended to sleep, then stooped over as I was "sleeping" and then my arms would "fall" onto her belly and start tickling her!
I came back and rested for a little before working for the rest of the afternoon. After finishing the unit, I headed out with the kids again. Ari, Luz Maria, and Yanina were at the mesita and asked for some coloring books. I brought them out and hung out while they colored and also read the Caballos (horses) book. The leader from the team this week brought out some paint and was working with Winston. She would have him draw something on paper with a white crayon pressing hard and then paint on top of it and it would show up. He enjoyed this! We did that up until dinner time!
After dinner, I helped Coco sort donations along with Jennifer and Vivian. We had to pull Vivian out of her bed at 6:45 to help, she goes to bed so early, it cracks me up! They brought tons of clothes, a pile on the table that taller than me! We sorted through these separating them into boys and girls, shirts, shorts, pants, etc.
After sorting for over an hour I headed out to hang out with the kids for about 45 minutes until separation time. There weren't many kids out and William kept asking for books to read so I went and got three books. I called him over and sat with him under the light post and read the 3 books to him. He loves sitting and reading! Often times, he, Bryson and Winston will sit and read together. Both he and Winston are very very shy, so to have him open up to me is rewarding!
Tomorrow we are going to film the video tour of the hospital which should be fun and then I will head out to Batey Maguaca in the afternoon. I haven't been there yet with Dr. Garcia this trip, but went a couple of weeks ago with Bill and Cara who were here on a site visit. We'll see if any of the kids remember me! Should be a good picture taking opportunity. I haven't been taking many recently because I've been working in my room which is very exciting to document with pictures! :)
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Mosquitos EVERYWHERE!
So yesterday in town they fumigated the streets for mosquitos. Well guess where mosquitos go when the streets in town are fumigated...they come to the outskirts of town to the orphanage! Wow, I feel like I could bathe in 100% DEET and still get bit constantly. Usually I only wear bug spray in the AM and right before dinner but now I'm constantly wearing it. The only cool thing about the fumigation is tons of yellow butterflies (probably moths) have come in to the orphanage to seek refuge also so that is very pretty to see!
Today I spent some time studying Spanish with the family as they reviewed for their test tomorrow. I still have a lot to learn!
I spent the rest of the morning hanging out with some of the kids. All the leaders got new cell phones this weekend because the contract had run out on the others. So, the kids got the orphanage staff's old phones to use as music players only. We discovered that their old phones and our new phones have bluetooth so Carolina sent me a Spanish song to my phone that is now my ringtone. I'll probably miss my phone calls now forgetting what my ringtone is!
As I was headed up to our little Sunday worship service, I was stopped by one of the kids because a page had been torn out of a book that they kids were reading. Well that turned into a disaster. They started blaming each other and then 3-4 of them teamed up on Joanni and started calling her names, throwing rocks, balls, etc at her, pulling her hair ties out and just being plain ugly. So, I stayed down with her trying to protect her from the other little girls and ended up reading Little Red Riding Hood with her and another book. The second book was a shapes book and just had a bunch of pictures in it asking about the different shapes. We turned this into a game which was fun! As soon as she'd turn the page we'd find something and say "this is me" or "that is you", of course making ourselves the pretty dancers and the other person the worm or clown. We went thru the book 2-3 times playing this game which I'm glad I spent the time with her, removing her from the other little girls.
After lunch today, I sat around and talked with TJ and Susan, the parents of the Reilly family. They are both dentists from Georgia, who went to OSU and are from Ohio. They do a lot of traveling and so we were talking about this and just enjoying each other's company. After that I headed to my room to rest for a little while. My one hour nap turned into a 2.5 hour nap! Apparently I was more tired than I thought.
Several of the other volunteers went to the beach this afternoon, but since I napped I did not go. After waking from my slumber, I went and hung out with the kids for a while before dinner. I sat with Luis Alberto and pretended to steal his snack from him. We played this last night as I was sitting with him. He'd start to put the cracker in his mouth and I'd pull his hand away and "try" to eat it. They get snack early on Sundays because they eat dinner later after church!
Several of the other little kids and older kids were just hanging out waiting to head to church. Leonel was telling me about going to get Luis Alberto from his house to come to the orphanage and how he ran away and hid and they had to go back the next day to get him. I can't imagine how scary it would be to leave your Mom and/or Dad and head to a strange place at 5 years old! But I know they are better off here now, with food, shelter and someone to look after them!
While we were hanging out and they were enjoying their snacks, I decided to take pictures of the kids with my new cell phone. I got an adorable picture of Luz Maria with cracker crumbs all over her face which is now my background phone picture. I love it!
After dinner tonight I headed up to get ready for church. Church is always fun just sitting with the kids and working on my Spanish by trying to translate. Well tonight, the lady that was leading the singing part of church decided that us Americans needed to sing. She called Bryson up and asked for anyone else that knew how to sing to come up. The kids start yelling mine and Heather's names to go up and sing. I tried to warn them that I couldn't sing, but since Bryson was up there alone, Heather convinced me to go up with her to not leave him hanging. We went up and sang "This is the Day" in English. Luckily, they like to clap with every song here so it drowned out our singing, not to mention none of us were singing into the microphone! After we sang it in English, two of the boys came up and sang it in Spanish with us. I didn't know the words in Spanish so I just stood up there for that portion. Dad and DJ, you guys should be proud of me. I've joined the Dominican choir, well just as a guest singer for one day! :)
When we returned from dinner, the team from St. Margarets had just arrived. We greeted them and I helped wash the dishes after they ate dinner. I then headed up to my room because the mosquitos started feasting on my legs thru my scrub pants!
Off to bed to start another exciting "work" week!
Today I spent some time studying Spanish with the family as they reviewed for their test tomorrow. I still have a lot to learn!
I spent the rest of the morning hanging out with some of the kids. All the leaders got new cell phones this weekend because the contract had run out on the others. So, the kids got the orphanage staff's old phones to use as music players only. We discovered that their old phones and our new phones have bluetooth so Carolina sent me a Spanish song to my phone that is now my ringtone. I'll probably miss my phone calls now forgetting what my ringtone is!
As I was headed up to our little Sunday worship service, I was stopped by one of the kids because a page had been torn out of a book that they kids were reading. Well that turned into a disaster. They started blaming each other and then 3-4 of them teamed up on Joanni and started calling her names, throwing rocks, balls, etc at her, pulling her hair ties out and just being plain ugly. So, I stayed down with her trying to protect her from the other little girls and ended up reading Little Red Riding Hood with her and another book. The second book was a shapes book and just had a bunch of pictures in it asking about the different shapes. We turned this into a game which was fun! As soon as she'd turn the page we'd find something and say "this is me" or "that is you", of course making ourselves the pretty dancers and the other person the worm or clown. We went thru the book 2-3 times playing this game which I'm glad I spent the time with her, removing her from the other little girls.
After lunch today, I sat around and talked with TJ and Susan, the parents of the Reilly family. They are both dentists from Georgia, who went to OSU and are from Ohio. They do a lot of traveling and so we were talking about this and just enjoying each other's company. After that I headed to my room to rest for a little while. My one hour nap turned into a 2.5 hour nap! Apparently I was more tired than I thought.
Several of the other volunteers went to the beach this afternoon, but since I napped I did not go. After waking from my slumber, I went and hung out with the kids for a while before dinner. I sat with Luis Alberto and pretended to steal his snack from him. We played this last night as I was sitting with him. He'd start to put the cracker in his mouth and I'd pull his hand away and "try" to eat it. They get snack early on Sundays because they eat dinner later after church!
Several of the other little kids and older kids were just hanging out waiting to head to church. Leonel was telling me about going to get Luis Alberto from his house to come to the orphanage and how he ran away and hid and they had to go back the next day to get him. I can't imagine how scary it would be to leave your Mom and/or Dad and head to a strange place at 5 years old! But I know they are better off here now, with food, shelter and someone to look after them!
While we were hanging out and they were enjoying their snacks, I decided to take pictures of the kids with my new cell phone. I got an adorable picture of Luz Maria with cracker crumbs all over her face which is now my background phone picture. I love it!
After dinner tonight I headed up to get ready for church. Church is always fun just sitting with the kids and working on my Spanish by trying to translate. Well tonight, the lady that was leading the singing part of church decided that us Americans needed to sing. She called Bryson up and asked for anyone else that knew how to sing to come up. The kids start yelling mine and Heather's names to go up and sing. I tried to warn them that I couldn't sing, but since Bryson was up there alone, Heather convinced me to go up with her to not leave him hanging. We went up and sang "This is the Day" in English. Luckily, they like to clap with every song here so it drowned out our singing, not to mention none of us were singing into the microphone! After we sang it in English, two of the boys came up and sang it in Spanish with us. I didn't know the words in Spanish so I just stood up there for that portion. Dad and DJ, you guys should be proud of me. I've joined the Dominican choir, well just as a guest singer for one day! :)
When we returned from dinner, the team from St. Margarets had just arrived. We greeted them and I helped wash the dishes after they ate dinner. I then headed up to my room because the mosquitos started feasting on my legs thru my scrub pants!
Off to bed to start another exciting "work" week!
Saturday, November 21, 2009
It's A GIRL!
So as most of you may already know, DJ and Jo are having a baby girl. I have to say I was surprised because I was thinking it would be a boy but I'm super excited and just happy everyone is healthy. Good thing I'm here and can't go shopping for cute clothes! Will save me lots of money! :)
So yesterday was a pretty calm, relaxing day. I worked in the morning on some Spanish worksheets trying to improve my grammar and then spent the rest of the time working on the Sex Ed unit. After lunch, I hung out with the kids on the stairs going up to the boys rooms. Luis Alberto and I played throwing rocks into a puddle of water at the bottom of the stairs. This was semi-entertaining somehow. Mineli and David were "bathing" in the sink outside of the laundry room and getting everything soaking wet. Then the workers were Dominican mopping, pouring soapy water onto the floor and sweeping it out, the laundry room and little Mineli who is 6 was helping to sweep. How many 6 year olds in the states do this?
For the afternoon, I continued to work some on the Sex Ed unit and also tried to do some ordering of medications from an organization named Heart to Heart International. I had to predict how much Tylenol, Benadryl, antibiotics, etc we would need for 6 weeks of clinics. So, how much Tylenol, etc for about 6000 patients. This was a daunting task because it is so hard to predict what we'll see and need.
Before dinner, I spent some time with the kids just sitting around doing a whole lot of nothing. I did lift Ari, one of the little twins, up to try to make a basket but the ball went about 1 inch from her hand and then fell back down towards her head and me.
For dinner, we got to go out for pizza. YUMMY! Brooke did her closing, she was a 2 week volunteer, and she had nice things to say to everyone. We also got to "dress up", meaning we didn't have to wear our OO t-shirts. What a small pleasure to wear a non-uniform shirt and jeans. I love the level of dress up here! :)
Coco also treated us to ice cream after pizza which was a great end to the evening. I had a chocolate ice cream bar with chocolate fudge on it. It hit the spot! After this we came back and I read some before going to bed.
This morning after breakfast Heather and I had to clean our room. We hadn't cleaned it well in 3-4 weeks and were having ants and cockroachs in our room. So, it was time to get down and dirty. We Dominican mopped our bedroom floor and then put on gloves and scrubbed the bathroom. I scrubbed the walls, the floor and she worked on the toilet and sink. It smells better now but our toilet still stinks like urine often. We'll have to clean it more often I think!
For the rest of the day we just have free time to catch up on whatever, hang out with the kids, etc. A family of 4 with two kids aged 7 and 8 are coming tonight around dinner time and a one weeker guy is coming in late this evening. Tomorrow a team from Canada, an all girls school, is coming down with 16 people. So welcome back team mode! :) For now, I'll enjoy my free quiet and peaceful time until the new people arrive and we welcome them!
Miss you all and love you!
So yesterday was a pretty calm, relaxing day. I worked in the morning on some Spanish worksheets trying to improve my grammar and then spent the rest of the time working on the Sex Ed unit. After lunch, I hung out with the kids on the stairs going up to the boys rooms. Luis Alberto and I played throwing rocks into a puddle of water at the bottom of the stairs. This was semi-entertaining somehow. Mineli and David were "bathing" in the sink outside of the laundry room and getting everything soaking wet. Then the workers were Dominican mopping, pouring soapy water onto the floor and sweeping it out, the laundry room and little Mineli who is 6 was helping to sweep. How many 6 year olds in the states do this?
For the afternoon, I continued to work some on the Sex Ed unit and also tried to do some ordering of medications from an organization named Heart to Heart International. I had to predict how much Tylenol, Benadryl, antibiotics, etc we would need for 6 weeks of clinics. So, how much Tylenol, etc for about 6000 patients. This was a daunting task because it is so hard to predict what we'll see and need.
Before dinner, I spent some time with the kids just sitting around doing a whole lot of nothing. I did lift Ari, one of the little twins, up to try to make a basket but the ball went about 1 inch from her hand and then fell back down towards her head and me.
For dinner, we got to go out for pizza. YUMMY! Brooke did her closing, she was a 2 week volunteer, and she had nice things to say to everyone. We also got to "dress up", meaning we didn't have to wear our OO t-shirts. What a small pleasure to wear a non-uniform shirt and jeans. I love the level of dress up here! :)
Coco also treated us to ice cream after pizza which was a great end to the evening. I had a chocolate ice cream bar with chocolate fudge on it. It hit the spot! After this we came back and I read some before going to bed.
This morning after breakfast Heather and I had to clean our room. We hadn't cleaned it well in 3-4 weeks and were having ants and cockroachs in our room. So, it was time to get down and dirty. We Dominican mopped our bedroom floor and then put on gloves and scrubbed the bathroom. I scrubbed the walls, the floor and she worked on the toilet and sink. It smells better now but our toilet still stinks like urine often. We'll have to clean it more often I think!
For the rest of the day we just have free time to catch up on whatever, hang out with the kids, etc. A family of 4 with two kids aged 7 and 8 are coming tonight around dinner time and a one weeker guy is coming in late this evening. Tomorrow a team from Canada, an all girls school, is coming down with 16 people. So welcome back team mode! :) For now, I'll enjoy my free quiet and peaceful time until the new people arrive and we welcome them!
Miss you all and love you!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Return to the norm, for a couple of days at least!
So yesterday was a normal, no group day for me. In the morning I worked on the Infectious Disease unit once again! I pretty much finished it, just needs some minor touch ups.
In the afternoon, I hung out with the kids for a little bit before heading to the batey. Yesterday was Franchesca's birthday so I poured a handful of water on her head. She turned 4!
We went to Jaramillo which is becoming one of my favorite bateyes. It is super small and poor but the people there are nice and there are a ton of kids! Yesterday we had a car full headed out there. Me, Dr. Garcia, Guillermina (the nurse), the female doctor that has been working with us, and now the new Korean nurse has arrived. Her name is Lucia and her Spanish is limited but she has learned a lot for only having studied Spanish about 2 months now.
I arrive at his house a 2pm and we head out to pick up the others typically. We stopped first a his friend's house to pick up their grandson to take him to school. Then we headed to get Lucia, the doctor, fill up some gasoline, drop off the grandson at school, and then pick up Guillermina. We headed out to Jaramillo and at first it was slow. I had nothing to do so I walked around with Guillermina and saw a baby I had been told about the week before that is about 2 weeks old. He was sleeping on the bed with a mosquito net around him so I didn't get to steal him but just peek. We heard some kids laughing and playing in one of the houses so I went to check on them because there were no adults. I played with him for a few minutes. They'd come out of the back room, peek around the door and then I'd come around the building and they'd go running. We played this for a while. The front door of their house was wooden and to the right of this, the wall was cardboard boxes from floor to ceiling with cut out holes in them. Then beside that was a piece of wood that one of the neighbor boys was pulling on and was very loose. Such extreme poverty, but still pretty happy people!
About 10-15 minutes after we arrived, several people came with their babies. There are two other bateyes/communities that Dr. Garcia does not go to and I believe most of these people came from there. It is just down the dirt road. We had about 20-30 people come for vaccines and it was crazy. I gave 3 doses of Penta (the combo vaccine for 2,4,6 month babies), about 8-9 doses of DPT to some other babies because we ran out of Penta, 15ish Td shots to adults, children over 5 years and the pregnant women, and MMR to 4 children. It was a busy vaccine day. We actually stopped vaccinating because we ran out of vaccines and syringes.
Lucia helped give vaccines and take BPs. Dr. Garcia saw 41 patients with the help of the other doctor. It was amazing how busy we were but it was so much fun! The babies were adorable, tiny compared to the ones at home.
One guy was showering while I was playing with the other kids and when he left the area I went to check it out. Imagine a concrete house/room being constructed and an space left for a window. He was standing inside a structure like that, with an open "window area" that was about the size of a shower back home. He had a bucket and a mug/cup that he used to pour the water on his head. He lathered up right in front of us, but he was covered by the structure from about mid-chest down. From the other side though it was completely opened. My camera was dead so I didn't take it with me yesterday but next time we go I'll try to get a picture.
We headed back home and there were 21 Haitians in the back of our trucks. About 10 adults and 11 children including babies up to about 6-7 year olds. They hitched a ride to their communities that weren't too far away. It was a crazy sight and I hated not having my camera! One of the ladies asked me if I liked her daughter and wanted to take her with me. I said yes and they started laughing. I really wanted this 3 year old boy that had dreads/braids. He was adorable!
We got back and headed to see the boy with the cleft lip/palate. His grandfather who I have a picture of, I blogged about him before, died about 6 days ago. He was 89 years old and fell a couple of weeks ago and was bedridden. I knew it wouldn't be long before he expired. So, the sister of the cleft lip boy is going to take help from Dr. Garcia. They are going to give her $5000 pesos a month (about $150) to help her feed and take care of her brother without having to work. She is only 17 years old and he encouraged her to finish high school but then she'll basically just receive a "paycheck" for looking after her brother. They wanted to put him in an institution because no one wants the responsibility of looking after him, but she agreed to stay with him, at least for now. Coco is going to help them with clothes and toiletry items, etc also. It will be interesting to see how this works out.
The rest of the evening I just spent time with the kids. They had culto last night, their little worship service but it was a little different because Pastor had to leave to take one of the boys to the hospital because he had stomach pains. So, Jaury who is 9 years old preached in a voice so quite no one could hear him. He tried at least which was cute and then Marta, Pastor's wife, stood up and lectured the other kids about listening and respecting their peers. Franchesca fell asleep in my arms, and later Luz Maria did the same. She was sleeping with her eyes slight cracked open which was creepy!
Today I worked on a new unit, Sex Ed! Woohoo! I'm sure volunteers will just love teaching this unit! :) I did that this morning and then went out to Batey Walterio this afternoon. Before leaving for the batey, I went to see the kids here at the orphanage. I walked over and found Luis Alberto, 5 years old, with a rock the size of my fist. He was flattening metal bottle tops to play a game. They throw down a top and try to flip over one that is on the ground and if it flips over, they win that top. All the kids have been collecting these bottle tops and playing recently.
I hadn't been to Walterio yet since I've been here because I somehow missed it everytime he went. It is a larger batey but we had very few patients. Guillermina didn't go today so there were no vaccines, just consults. I took some blood pressures and just relaxed. One of the ladies that works with Dr. Garcia from this batey is 20 years old. I was taking her blood pressure and noticed her arm had burn scars. I asked her about this and she showed me her chest where she had a lot of scarring, especially on her upper chest and between her breasts. She said when she was almost 2 years old, she was playing and her cousin pushed her and a thing of hot beans fell on her and burned her arm, chest, leg and part of her face that you can't notice now. She didn't have any surgeries but just had this scarring. Wow!
We drove around a little afterwards for Dr. Garcia to take some pictures. His daughter is studying architecture in college and she needs pictures of different style homes. He was saying that the homes in the bateyes were built before Dominicans lived there, and were constructed by North Americans so they are not true Dominican styles of architecture.
Tonight we have a free night with the kiddos and just time to relax! Looking forward to an easy night. It is nice having no groups here and just chilling with the kids!
In the afternoon, I hung out with the kids for a little bit before heading to the batey. Yesterday was Franchesca's birthday so I poured a handful of water on her head. She turned 4!
We went to Jaramillo which is becoming one of my favorite bateyes. It is super small and poor but the people there are nice and there are a ton of kids! Yesterday we had a car full headed out there. Me, Dr. Garcia, Guillermina (the nurse), the female doctor that has been working with us, and now the new Korean nurse has arrived. Her name is Lucia and her Spanish is limited but she has learned a lot for only having studied Spanish about 2 months now.
I arrive at his house a 2pm and we head out to pick up the others typically. We stopped first a his friend's house to pick up their grandson to take him to school. Then we headed to get Lucia, the doctor, fill up some gasoline, drop off the grandson at school, and then pick up Guillermina. We headed out to Jaramillo and at first it was slow. I had nothing to do so I walked around with Guillermina and saw a baby I had been told about the week before that is about 2 weeks old. He was sleeping on the bed with a mosquito net around him so I didn't get to steal him but just peek. We heard some kids laughing and playing in one of the houses so I went to check on them because there were no adults. I played with him for a few minutes. They'd come out of the back room, peek around the door and then I'd come around the building and they'd go running. We played this for a while. The front door of their house was wooden and to the right of this, the wall was cardboard boxes from floor to ceiling with cut out holes in them. Then beside that was a piece of wood that one of the neighbor boys was pulling on and was very loose. Such extreme poverty, but still pretty happy people!
About 10-15 minutes after we arrived, several people came with their babies. There are two other bateyes/communities that Dr. Garcia does not go to and I believe most of these people came from there. It is just down the dirt road. We had about 20-30 people come for vaccines and it was crazy. I gave 3 doses of Penta (the combo vaccine for 2,4,6 month babies), about 8-9 doses of DPT to some other babies because we ran out of Penta, 15ish Td shots to adults, children over 5 years and the pregnant women, and MMR to 4 children. It was a busy vaccine day. We actually stopped vaccinating because we ran out of vaccines and syringes.
Lucia helped give vaccines and take BPs. Dr. Garcia saw 41 patients with the help of the other doctor. It was amazing how busy we were but it was so much fun! The babies were adorable, tiny compared to the ones at home.
One guy was showering while I was playing with the other kids and when he left the area I went to check it out. Imagine a concrete house/room being constructed and an space left for a window. He was standing inside a structure like that, with an open "window area" that was about the size of a shower back home. He had a bucket and a mug/cup that he used to pour the water on his head. He lathered up right in front of us, but he was covered by the structure from about mid-chest down. From the other side though it was completely opened. My camera was dead so I didn't take it with me yesterday but next time we go I'll try to get a picture.
We headed back home and there were 21 Haitians in the back of our trucks. About 10 adults and 11 children including babies up to about 6-7 year olds. They hitched a ride to their communities that weren't too far away. It was a crazy sight and I hated not having my camera! One of the ladies asked me if I liked her daughter and wanted to take her with me. I said yes and they started laughing. I really wanted this 3 year old boy that had dreads/braids. He was adorable!
We got back and headed to see the boy with the cleft lip/palate. His grandfather who I have a picture of, I blogged about him before, died about 6 days ago. He was 89 years old and fell a couple of weeks ago and was bedridden. I knew it wouldn't be long before he expired. So, the sister of the cleft lip boy is going to take help from Dr. Garcia. They are going to give her $5000 pesos a month (about $150) to help her feed and take care of her brother without having to work. She is only 17 years old and he encouraged her to finish high school but then she'll basically just receive a "paycheck" for looking after her brother. They wanted to put him in an institution because no one wants the responsibility of looking after him, but she agreed to stay with him, at least for now. Coco is going to help them with clothes and toiletry items, etc also. It will be interesting to see how this works out.
The rest of the evening I just spent time with the kids. They had culto last night, their little worship service but it was a little different because Pastor had to leave to take one of the boys to the hospital because he had stomach pains. So, Jaury who is 9 years old preached in a voice so quite no one could hear him. He tried at least which was cute and then Marta, Pastor's wife, stood up and lectured the other kids about listening and respecting their peers. Franchesca fell asleep in my arms, and later Luz Maria did the same. She was sleeping with her eyes slight cracked open which was creepy!
Today I worked on a new unit, Sex Ed! Woohoo! I'm sure volunteers will just love teaching this unit! :) I did that this morning and then went out to Batey Walterio this afternoon. Before leaving for the batey, I went to see the kids here at the orphanage. I walked over and found Luis Alberto, 5 years old, with a rock the size of my fist. He was flattening metal bottle tops to play a game. They throw down a top and try to flip over one that is on the ground and if it flips over, they win that top. All the kids have been collecting these bottle tops and playing recently.
I hadn't been to Walterio yet since I've been here because I somehow missed it everytime he went. It is a larger batey but we had very few patients. Guillermina didn't go today so there were no vaccines, just consults. I took some blood pressures and just relaxed. One of the ladies that works with Dr. Garcia from this batey is 20 years old. I was taking her blood pressure and noticed her arm had burn scars. I asked her about this and she showed me her chest where she had a lot of scarring, especially on her upper chest and between her breasts. She said when she was almost 2 years old, she was playing and her cousin pushed her and a thing of hot beans fell on her and burned her arm, chest, leg and part of her face that you can't notice now. She didn't have any surgeries but just had this scarring. Wow!
We drove around a little afterwards for Dr. Garcia to take some pictures. His daughter is studying architecture in college and she needs pictures of different style homes. He was saying that the homes in the bateyes were built before Dominicans lived there, and were constructed by North Americans so they are not true Dominican styles of architecture.
Tonight we have a free night with the kiddos and just time to relax! Looking forward to an easy night. It is nice having no groups here and just chilling with the kids!
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Volunteer Field Trip Day and Goodbyes!
http://picasaweb.google.com/Geedz913/DajabonAndFestival?feat=directlink
So yesterday was a long but fun day. We headed out after breakfast for the border town between the DR and Haiti, Dajabon. It is about an hour from Monte Cristi. Once we arrived, we lined up single file to head to the bridge over the Massacre River. When Trujillo, the dictator of the DR, was in power he took several hundred Haitians to this river and killed them, trying to whiten the race, so it is now called the Massacre River. The market is very congested with people pushing large carts, wheelbarrows, riding motos, even driving cars and hundreds of people running through with large loads of supplies. We stay single file to try to make it through safely!
We got to the bridge, and just observed for several minutes. You see people carrying large boxes on their heads, running with their wheelbarrows, just trying to cross as many times as possible. The market is only open 4 hours on Monday and on Friday and it is the only time Haitians can come over and buy food and supplies to take back to sell or use. You can see the stress on their faces as they are hurrying across the bridge and it is a cultural experience that words could never explain. It is true poverty! Apparently this marketplace was featured on the Discovery Channel and in NY Times.
There are UN peace officers from Uruguay that guard the bridge. We are not allowed to cross over onto the Haiti side of the bridge for safety reasons so we just stay on the Dominican side and observe. People cross the river by foot, and there are large buses and trucks on the other side ready to take all the goods back. There are also Haitians in Dajabon selling toys, clothes, etc., all stuff that they have received as donations and now are trying to make money with.
After coming off of the bridge, we actually headed down a couple of streets in the market. As we tried to turn down the first street, there was a small pickup truck on the street. The street is probably as wide as my driveway at home but with people on both sides selling goods laid out, so imagine a truck trying to pass by. We had to stand and wait for it to back out of the street for about 5 minutes. After it left, we were able to walk thru but there were tons of people on the other side waiting to come thru since they were held up as well. People are constantly pushing you around, trying to get by with large items on their heads or in their hands, and sometimes even making a beeping noise to get you out of their way.
As we passed through the market there were all kinds of hygiene products, clothes, food, fresh produce, etc. I love the produce section because they always have fresh cilantro that smells awesome! We headed out of the market and headed back home. We don't actually buy anything in the market, we just go for the cultural experience.
After returning we headed to lunch in town at a local restuarant for a buffet lunch. Then from there we headed to the beach. It was a nice, warm day at the beach. I laid out for a while and swam a little too. At one point the waves got pretty strong and I dove thru one, came up to wipe my eyes and got drilled by a big wave, thrown down and lost my suit bottom for a second! I got out shortly after that :)
After the beach, we came back and had dinner and then set up for our festival with the kids. The group made different booths for the kids to go to that included a magic show, ring toss, Coke vs. Kola Real, pin the tail on the donkey, ball toss, candy walk, face painting and a fishing booth. They all had to get a ticket from each booth and then they could go fishing for a prize. The candy walk became a popular hit and by the end of the night kids had like 5 suckers each plus more candy! They ended up just sitting in the seats and waiting for a number instead of walking around until the music stopped.
After the festival, the kids watched a slideshow of pictures from the past couple of weeks that Bryson put together. They always enjoy seeing pictures of themselves because they pose for so many and never get to see them again. After this we did closing with the group, a chance for people to reflect on the week and it was good to hear what everyone had to say. Many of them were crying and very emotional which was touching because they all come from pretty wealthy backgrounds so it was good to see them appreciate the small things like most people do when they come down.
This morning we had the team just clean out their living areas, help pick up things from the week and spend time with the kids before they headed out around 10:30 to head to the airport. After they left, I headed up to do some work but was having a hard time staying awake!
This afternoon I spent time working on health units again until 5pm. I went and hung out with the kiddos for a while before dinner. It was time to take out Arianni's stitches so I went to find her on the playground and told her and she climbed down from the slide and went running and crying into her bedroom. I went and got my scissors and she was carried out by one of the older girls screaming. I had an audience of about 12 kids while Pastor Ramon held her and I removed the stitches from the back of her head. She did well, but screamed the whole time. After I cleaned off the instruments, I came back down and held her, patting her bottom until she fell asleep in my arms and I held her for about 20-30 minutes until time for dinner.
After dinner, we just had free time with the kids and I spent the evening playing HORSE with Jessica. I won twice which was amazing because she could make shots behind the 3-point mark but not up close. I made one backwards shot! :) She was funny because she wanted to play me in basketball but she was fouling left and right, pushing me around, etc. I was horrible too though so it was entertaining!
After "playing" basketball I sat with Lisy and she fell asleep in my arms after a while. She was snoring like an old man! It was cute!
Back to the health corps work the rest of this week and we have another team coming in this weekend. Hope everyone is doing well back home! Miss you!
So yesterday was a long but fun day. We headed out after breakfast for the border town between the DR and Haiti, Dajabon. It is about an hour from Monte Cristi. Once we arrived, we lined up single file to head to the bridge over the Massacre River. When Trujillo, the dictator of the DR, was in power he took several hundred Haitians to this river and killed them, trying to whiten the race, so it is now called the Massacre River. The market is very congested with people pushing large carts, wheelbarrows, riding motos, even driving cars and hundreds of people running through with large loads of supplies. We stay single file to try to make it through safely!
We got to the bridge, and just observed for several minutes. You see people carrying large boxes on their heads, running with their wheelbarrows, just trying to cross as many times as possible. The market is only open 4 hours on Monday and on Friday and it is the only time Haitians can come over and buy food and supplies to take back to sell or use. You can see the stress on their faces as they are hurrying across the bridge and it is a cultural experience that words could never explain. It is true poverty! Apparently this marketplace was featured on the Discovery Channel and in NY Times.
There are UN peace officers from Uruguay that guard the bridge. We are not allowed to cross over onto the Haiti side of the bridge for safety reasons so we just stay on the Dominican side and observe. People cross the river by foot, and there are large buses and trucks on the other side ready to take all the goods back. There are also Haitians in Dajabon selling toys, clothes, etc., all stuff that they have received as donations and now are trying to make money with.
After coming off of the bridge, we actually headed down a couple of streets in the market. As we tried to turn down the first street, there was a small pickup truck on the street. The street is probably as wide as my driveway at home but with people on both sides selling goods laid out, so imagine a truck trying to pass by. We had to stand and wait for it to back out of the street for about 5 minutes. After it left, we were able to walk thru but there were tons of people on the other side waiting to come thru since they were held up as well. People are constantly pushing you around, trying to get by with large items on their heads or in their hands, and sometimes even making a beeping noise to get you out of their way.
As we passed through the market there were all kinds of hygiene products, clothes, food, fresh produce, etc. I love the produce section because they always have fresh cilantro that smells awesome! We headed out of the market and headed back home. We don't actually buy anything in the market, we just go for the cultural experience.
After returning we headed to lunch in town at a local restuarant for a buffet lunch. Then from there we headed to the beach. It was a nice, warm day at the beach. I laid out for a while and swam a little too. At one point the waves got pretty strong and I dove thru one, came up to wipe my eyes and got drilled by a big wave, thrown down and lost my suit bottom for a second! I got out shortly after that :)
After the beach, we came back and had dinner and then set up for our festival with the kids. The group made different booths for the kids to go to that included a magic show, ring toss, Coke vs. Kola Real, pin the tail on the donkey, ball toss, candy walk, face painting and a fishing booth. They all had to get a ticket from each booth and then they could go fishing for a prize. The candy walk became a popular hit and by the end of the night kids had like 5 suckers each plus more candy! They ended up just sitting in the seats and waiting for a number instead of walking around until the music stopped.
After the festival, the kids watched a slideshow of pictures from the past couple of weeks that Bryson put together. They always enjoy seeing pictures of themselves because they pose for so many and never get to see them again. After this we did closing with the group, a chance for people to reflect on the week and it was good to hear what everyone had to say. Many of them were crying and very emotional which was touching because they all come from pretty wealthy backgrounds so it was good to see them appreciate the small things like most people do when they come down.
This morning we had the team just clean out their living areas, help pick up things from the week and spend time with the kids before they headed out around 10:30 to head to the airport. After they left, I headed up to do some work but was having a hard time staying awake!
This afternoon I spent time working on health units again until 5pm. I went and hung out with the kiddos for a while before dinner. It was time to take out Arianni's stitches so I went to find her on the playground and told her and she climbed down from the slide and went running and crying into her bedroom. I went and got my scissors and she was carried out by one of the older girls screaming. I had an audience of about 12 kids while Pastor Ramon held her and I removed the stitches from the back of her head. She did well, but screamed the whole time. After I cleaned off the instruments, I came back down and held her, patting her bottom until she fell asleep in my arms and I held her for about 20-30 minutes until time for dinner.
After dinner, we just had free time with the kids and I spent the evening playing HORSE with Jessica. I won twice which was amazing because she could make shots behind the 3-point mark but not up close. I made one backwards shot! :) She was funny because she wanted to play me in basketball but she was fouling left and right, pushing me around, etc. I was horrible too though so it was entertaining!
After "playing" basketball I sat with Lisy and she fell asleep in my arms after a while. She was snoring like an old man! It was cute!
Back to the health corps work the rest of this week and we have another team coming in this weekend. Hope everyone is doing well back home! Miss you!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Sunday Funday!
Today was a great day with the kids. This morning we put on a Spa for them with manicures, pedicures, massages and facials. The kids had a great time and the group did an awesome job setting up. The little girls were outside playing in the dirt and making mud with water to get their nails dirty before the spa. So nice of them! We had the group make a backdrop for a photo shoot because another team in Canada is going to paint a portrait of each kid for them to have. This was fun and the backdrop that they make was awesome! I have some pictures of it with some of the kids posing. Carolina gave me a manicure which included scrubbing my hands and nails with a toothbrush, she didn't have to cut them obviously because they are also short, and then she rubbed some lotion on them and painted my nails with clear polish. Oh the luxury of living here :)
As soon as the spa ended, it started to pour down rain. It is a lot of fun playing with the kids in the rain here. I went over and hung out inside for a bit with one of the twins who had a rough, pouty morning and then I went outside and played in the drizzle. The boys were on the basketball court running thru the big puddles, standing under the drainage pipes from the roof of a building, basically like showering in the rain water and then pouring water on the volunteers with water bottles they had. The little girls were inside, playing slip-n-slide on the concrete comedor floor. They would run, then land on their knees sliding across the floor. Looked painful to me, but the kids here are so tough!
Wilkie, one of the boys that used to live here but now lives in Santiago came today to meet with Coco. He had lunch with us and I got to catch up with him some. He is a very sweet boy and it is also fun to see the older kids that have left the orphanage. I talked with him some after lunch before heading up for a nap.
After siesta we had a short activity with the kids. We read with them for about 30 minutes; I sat with Luz Maria and read Clifford in Spanish. Then we did crafts for 30 minutes, making bracelets, stenciling, and coloring. They enjoy making beaded necklaces and bracelets and they all had them on, even tonight at church.
After the activity I hung out with some of the local boys from town that came in to visit. They have grown up around the orphanage and are very nice, respectful boys!
I got ready for church, had our little weekly worship with John on the roof and then headed to dinner. After dinner, we had a talk with the group about our trip to Dajabon, the border town between the DR and Haiti, that we are taking tomorrow morning. We then headed to church and had a short sermon tonight. I sat in the back with the older kids and some of the boys from town and they were more distracting than the younger kids. Carolina was singing as Pastor was preaching, and everyone else was chitter chatting from time to time. Oh well, guess after sitting there for 3 hours I'd get restless too!
That's all for tonight. Tomorrow is the field trip day for the group, we tour Dajabon in the morning and head to lunch in town, then to the beach for the afternoon. Hard to believe their week is almost over! Tomorrow night we are having a festival/carnival with the kids which should be exciting!
Here are my pictures from today!
http://picasaweb.google.com/Geedz913/SundayActivities?feat=directlink
As soon as the spa ended, it started to pour down rain. It is a lot of fun playing with the kids in the rain here. I went over and hung out inside for a bit with one of the twins who had a rough, pouty morning and then I went outside and played in the drizzle. The boys were on the basketball court running thru the big puddles, standing under the drainage pipes from the roof of a building, basically like showering in the rain water and then pouring water on the volunteers with water bottles they had. The little girls were inside, playing slip-n-slide on the concrete comedor floor. They would run, then land on their knees sliding across the floor. Looked painful to me, but the kids here are so tough!
Wilkie, one of the boys that used to live here but now lives in Santiago came today to meet with Coco. He had lunch with us and I got to catch up with him some. He is a very sweet boy and it is also fun to see the older kids that have left the orphanage. I talked with him some after lunch before heading up for a nap.
After siesta we had a short activity with the kids. We read with them for about 30 minutes; I sat with Luz Maria and read Clifford in Spanish. Then we did crafts for 30 minutes, making bracelets, stenciling, and coloring. They enjoy making beaded necklaces and bracelets and they all had them on, even tonight at church.
After the activity I hung out with some of the local boys from town that came in to visit. They have grown up around the orphanage and are very nice, respectful boys!
I got ready for church, had our little weekly worship with John on the roof and then headed to dinner. After dinner, we had a talk with the group about our trip to Dajabon, the border town between the DR and Haiti, that we are taking tomorrow morning. We then headed to church and had a short sermon tonight. I sat in the back with the older kids and some of the boys from town and they were more distracting than the younger kids. Carolina was singing as Pastor was preaching, and everyone else was chitter chatting from time to time. Oh well, guess after sitting there for 3 hours I'd get restless too!
That's all for tonight. Tomorrow is the field trip day for the group, we tour Dajabon in the morning and head to lunch in town, then to the beach for the afternoon. Hard to believe their week is almost over! Tomorrow night we are having a festival/carnival with the kids which should be exciting!
Here are my pictures from today!
http://picasaweb.google.com/Geedz913/SundayActivities?feat=directlink
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Team Mode = Busy Busy!
Today was a fun day with the kids and very eventful, especially for a Saturday. Typically we use Saturdays to clean and just hang out with the kids and rest but since the group game during the week and are here for the weekend, we had a full day of activities.
The team had prepared to do a version of the Olympics with the kids so we did that this morning. Typically the kids here don't do well with organized activities, they prefer to do their own things, but today they cooperated well. The older boys played hockey outside on the basketball court, Dominicans versus Canadians. They had a lot of fun with this, even in the extreme heat! The younger kids and girls were in the comedor on our side doing several activities such as limbo, skip-bo, jump rope, coloring, and playing with Betty Spaghetti, these dolls that have spaghetti hair that you build and put together. All the kids had a great time and were well behaved. I walked around taking picture, did some Skip-Bo with the kids, and read The Little Red Hen to Joanni two times through.
After the games ended, the team gave each kid a goodie bag with things like t-shirts, hats, candy, sunglasses, footballs, cars, princess wands, hairbows, etc. They all loved receiving them. It was like Christmas for them. However, one cultural note. The kids here receive gifts like this and enjoy them and appreciate them but don't preserve toys like we do back home. For example, they got Nerf like footballs at 11:30 and by 4:30pm one of the kids had his torn into 3-4 pieces and was wearing part of it like a hat. It isn't that they don't like the gifts, they just use them for a while and then discard them or tear them apart to make something else out of them. This is common here and different from back home but not a sign of disrespect or anything.
After lunch we had free time with the kids. I still had my camera so I went and took a few more pictures of some of the kids with their new gadgets and toys. They looked cute in their new sunglasses!
We then headed into town with the group to head to the souvenir store, the clock tower, and the Cuban museum here in town. The Cuban museum is the location where a document was signed to free Cuba from Spain's rule. We also went to the English Institute and decorated with Christmas lights that the group brought down. The streets have a contest here in Monte Cristi and apparently at the corner of the English Institute they put up a big archway and decorate the entire street from the Institute down so it is a pretty big deal. I'm excited to see this before I leave, closer to Christmas.
I walked back to the orphanage with some of the group that wanted to walk and then hung out in the park with the little kids for a bit. Then I went and sat with Winston and William. They are brothers and are both very quite but sweet boys. I sat and talked with them for a little while until it was time for me to go shower!
After dinner, we planned with the group for the next two days. Tomorrow morning they are going to do a Spa with massages, manicures, pedicures, and facials. Monday evening we are going to do a big carnival, like a spring fling/state fair type of thing and the kids love this! So we planned who was going to do what, etc.
Later we went into town for ice cream, and drove by the English Institute to see the lights all lit up at night. They looked good!
We came back and the group continued to prepare for the Spa tomorrow. They are making flowers out of coffee filters, frogs out of those little ketchup holders that they have a Wendy's, and they were painting a sheet with various things for a backdrop for a photo shoot tomorrow when the kids are finished. I'm excited to see how it goes tomorrow morning!
We have several fun activities coming up with the kids which will be a lot of fun and hopefully I'll get some great pictures. I have several pictures from the last several days so enjoy!
http://picasaweb.google.com/Geedz913/SJRWeek?feat=directlink
The team had prepared to do a version of the Olympics with the kids so we did that this morning. Typically the kids here don't do well with organized activities, they prefer to do their own things, but today they cooperated well. The older boys played hockey outside on the basketball court, Dominicans versus Canadians. They had a lot of fun with this, even in the extreme heat! The younger kids and girls were in the comedor on our side doing several activities such as limbo, skip-bo, jump rope, coloring, and playing with Betty Spaghetti, these dolls that have spaghetti hair that you build and put together. All the kids had a great time and were well behaved. I walked around taking picture, did some Skip-Bo with the kids, and read The Little Red Hen to Joanni two times through.
After the games ended, the team gave each kid a goodie bag with things like t-shirts, hats, candy, sunglasses, footballs, cars, princess wands, hairbows, etc. They all loved receiving them. It was like Christmas for them. However, one cultural note. The kids here receive gifts like this and enjoy them and appreciate them but don't preserve toys like we do back home. For example, they got Nerf like footballs at 11:30 and by 4:30pm one of the kids had his torn into 3-4 pieces and was wearing part of it like a hat. It isn't that they don't like the gifts, they just use them for a while and then discard them or tear them apart to make something else out of them. This is common here and different from back home but not a sign of disrespect or anything.
After lunch we had free time with the kids. I still had my camera so I went and took a few more pictures of some of the kids with their new gadgets and toys. They looked cute in their new sunglasses!
We then headed into town with the group to head to the souvenir store, the clock tower, and the Cuban museum here in town. The Cuban museum is the location where a document was signed to free Cuba from Spain's rule. We also went to the English Institute and decorated with Christmas lights that the group brought down. The streets have a contest here in Monte Cristi and apparently at the corner of the English Institute they put up a big archway and decorate the entire street from the Institute down so it is a pretty big deal. I'm excited to see this before I leave, closer to Christmas.
I walked back to the orphanage with some of the group that wanted to walk and then hung out in the park with the little kids for a bit. Then I went and sat with Winston and William. They are brothers and are both very quite but sweet boys. I sat and talked with them for a little while until it was time for me to go shower!
After dinner, we planned with the group for the next two days. Tomorrow morning they are going to do a Spa with massages, manicures, pedicures, and facials. Monday evening we are going to do a big carnival, like a spring fling/state fair type of thing and the kids love this! So we planned who was going to do what, etc.
Later we went into town for ice cream, and drove by the English Institute to see the lights all lit up at night. They looked good!
We came back and the group continued to prepare for the Spa tomorrow. They are making flowers out of coffee filters, frogs out of those little ketchup holders that they have a Wendy's, and they were painting a sheet with various things for a backdrop for a photo shoot tomorrow when the kids are finished. I'm excited to see how it goes tomorrow morning!
We have several fun activities coming up with the kids which will be a lot of fun and hopefully I'll get some great pictures. I have several pictures from the last several days so enjoy!
http://picasaweb.google.com/Geedz913/SJRWeek?feat=directlink
Happy Belated Birthday BECKY!
Wow it has been so different having a team here this week. It stays so much busier and I feel like I'm never in my room or when I am I'm passing out from exhaustion. But it also fun to see the kids super excited to have people to play with and getting to meet the people from the team.
Thursday was a long day with the wake up bell being at 5:40am! We took the team to the little mountain that is in the rainbow picture and we hiked up it for a sunrise hike. We hung out at the top of the mountain and walked back to head back for breakfast at about 7am. We were able to see the sunrise as we came down the mountain because it was tucked behind El Morro (the large mountain). It was beautiful!
At breakfast we sang Happy Birthday to one of the volunteers from the group. Here in the DR they pour water on people to celebrate their birthdays so I was on water duty, but almost poured the water on the wrong kid! Oops!
I took the group into Francisco Javier, one of the local public schools, for English teaching in the morning. They taught grades preschool-2nd in the morning and the kids were super excited. As we walked thru the gates they were yelling, Americanos, Americanos. The little preschool class was super cute, they were coloring and learning animals so they were making all the animal sounds! At recess, a little girl about 5-6 found me and attached herself to me for the rest of recess. She didn't talk much but followed me around and sat with me. The did a little presentation during recess where they had about 10 people each with a ribbon and they weaved thru each other braiding the ribbon on the pole to which they were attached. I think they are preparing an act for the Independence Day parade/show that they have in February.
When we returned from school I hung out with Arianni and had her on my lap riding the horse and dropping her between my knees. Her giggle is adorable!
In the afternoon, Heather took the group to the schools to teach, and I went to Las Aguas with Dr. Garcia. This is not a batey, but an old community on the same farm that is similar to the bateys. It had about 8-10 houses in the community that I could see and was very dusty and secluded. When we arrived there were about 10 people sitting around a table waiting for us. I took some blood pressures, helped give tetanus shots, and of course took pictures of the kids! They had a scale that they hung in the tree and put the babies in a seat like one of those jumpy things you hang from a door frame and they were weighing the babies in this. Old school!
One little 18 month old boy had a pacifier that he would drop onto the dirt ground and then come back to it several minutes later and put it back in his mouth! There was a 93 year old man there that looked great for his age (if that is his real age). In the campos (these far secluded villages), the people have a slight change in dialect. For example, typically they say "doctor" here but in the campos they'll change the "r" to an "i" and it sounds like "doctoy". One of the men, who was probably in his 30s, was saying "doctoy", "doctoy", and it sounds so different, almost childish but it is just their difference in education.
Before we left I was holding one of the little babies and when they took her away from me she started crying! I wanted of course to take her with me but that probably wouldn't go over so well. They gave us glasses of orange flavored juice as we were leaving that once again shows the kindness of the people here. They have barely anything but want to give something to us for helping them.
Once we got back into town, I got dropped off at the park by the English Institute and came up with a workout for Friday. Then I came back to the orphanage, played with Franchesca some until dinner time, hanging her upside down and having her walk on her hands. After dinner, we had a movie night with the kids since Pastor was gone and they didn't have church. After the movie, I came to my room and hit the pillow at 9:30 and didn't remember falling asleep!
Friday morning I did a fun workout that I had planned Thursday. Vivian, Bryson and I ran to the park and did a circuit using the park benches, the gazebo in the middle, and the space available and then jogged back home. It was a lot of fun!
After breakfast, we went to the school again in the morning and I walked around just making sure everything was running smoothly. At recess, a little 6 year old boy found me and attached himself to me. One girl came up to him and asked him if he knew me and he said, "yes, she is my friend." There was a girl in 3rd grade that used to live here at the orphanage and she came up and sat with me for some of recess as well. I'm not sure if she remembered me but we talked some about her cousins that also used to live here so I'm sure she knew that I knew her.
After school we came back the orphanage and I headed into town to run a few errands. I checked for the Halloween candy Laura, but it hasn't arrived yet! They had two bags of packages but they were waiting for the customs inspector to come check them and I hear this can sometimes take a week so we'll see!
After lunch I took an hour nap! Then I worked some on my health curriculum since Heather took the group back into the schools in the afternoon.
We took the group for a dip in the ocean after they got back from teaching up until dinner time. The beach now with the change of seasons is all rocks. Somehow the sand has all been covered by these large rocks and the tide is way up compared to even a week ago. It was overcast so I just read some in my book while the group swam in the ocean.
We came back, had dinner, and then got the group set up for the history talk and the movie "In the Time of the Butterflies". While they were watching the movie I went and hung out with some of the kids. I played a little basketball with Jessica but was horrible. Then I talked with Leonel for a while and played a version of "MASH" with Jessica. I am going to have a pink wedding dress, white shoes, a gold veil, 10 kids, my boyfriend's name is Jason, I am going to live in a one story house on the mountain, have a 5 tiered wedding cake, Jason' suit is going to be white with pink, our honeymoon is 30 days, and I can't remember the rest but can't wait to what my life has in store for me! After learning my future, I hung out with Nicol, one of the oldest girls, and we just chatted with Heather until separation time.
With about 5 minutes left in the movie, we were waiting to turn off the DVD when everyone starting getting out of their chairs. There were 2 spiders walking around so I killed one (so proud of myself) while Bryson tackled the other. After the movie, the group worked on making goodie bags to give the kids today and Heather and I opened the OO Store to sell sweatshirts, scrubs, etc. We hung out and talked with Coco and did inventory until 11pm when I went to bed!
Thursday was a long day with the wake up bell being at 5:40am! We took the team to the little mountain that is in the rainbow picture and we hiked up it for a sunrise hike. We hung out at the top of the mountain and walked back to head back for breakfast at about 7am. We were able to see the sunrise as we came down the mountain because it was tucked behind El Morro (the large mountain). It was beautiful!
At breakfast we sang Happy Birthday to one of the volunteers from the group. Here in the DR they pour water on people to celebrate their birthdays so I was on water duty, but almost poured the water on the wrong kid! Oops!
I took the group into Francisco Javier, one of the local public schools, for English teaching in the morning. They taught grades preschool-2nd in the morning and the kids were super excited. As we walked thru the gates they were yelling, Americanos, Americanos. The little preschool class was super cute, they were coloring and learning animals so they were making all the animal sounds! At recess, a little girl about 5-6 found me and attached herself to me for the rest of recess. She didn't talk much but followed me around and sat with me. The did a little presentation during recess where they had about 10 people each with a ribbon and they weaved thru each other braiding the ribbon on the pole to which they were attached. I think they are preparing an act for the Independence Day parade/show that they have in February.
When we returned from school I hung out with Arianni and had her on my lap riding the horse and dropping her between my knees. Her giggle is adorable!
In the afternoon, Heather took the group to the schools to teach, and I went to Las Aguas with Dr. Garcia. This is not a batey, but an old community on the same farm that is similar to the bateys. It had about 8-10 houses in the community that I could see and was very dusty and secluded. When we arrived there were about 10 people sitting around a table waiting for us. I took some blood pressures, helped give tetanus shots, and of course took pictures of the kids! They had a scale that they hung in the tree and put the babies in a seat like one of those jumpy things you hang from a door frame and they were weighing the babies in this. Old school!
One little 18 month old boy had a pacifier that he would drop onto the dirt ground and then come back to it several minutes later and put it back in his mouth! There was a 93 year old man there that looked great for his age (if that is his real age). In the campos (these far secluded villages), the people have a slight change in dialect. For example, typically they say "doctor" here but in the campos they'll change the "r" to an "i" and it sounds like "doctoy". One of the men, who was probably in his 30s, was saying "doctoy", "doctoy", and it sounds so different, almost childish but it is just their difference in education.
Before we left I was holding one of the little babies and when they took her away from me she started crying! I wanted of course to take her with me but that probably wouldn't go over so well. They gave us glasses of orange flavored juice as we were leaving that once again shows the kindness of the people here. They have barely anything but want to give something to us for helping them.
Once we got back into town, I got dropped off at the park by the English Institute and came up with a workout for Friday. Then I came back to the orphanage, played with Franchesca some until dinner time, hanging her upside down and having her walk on her hands. After dinner, we had a movie night with the kids since Pastor was gone and they didn't have church. After the movie, I came to my room and hit the pillow at 9:30 and didn't remember falling asleep!
Friday morning I did a fun workout that I had planned Thursday. Vivian, Bryson and I ran to the park and did a circuit using the park benches, the gazebo in the middle, and the space available and then jogged back home. It was a lot of fun!
After breakfast, we went to the school again in the morning and I walked around just making sure everything was running smoothly. At recess, a little 6 year old boy found me and attached himself to me. One girl came up to him and asked him if he knew me and he said, "yes, she is my friend." There was a girl in 3rd grade that used to live here at the orphanage and she came up and sat with me for some of recess as well. I'm not sure if she remembered me but we talked some about her cousins that also used to live here so I'm sure she knew that I knew her.
After school we came back the orphanage and I headed into town to run a few errands. I checked for the Halloween candy Laura, but it hasn't arrived yet! They had two bags of packages but they were waiting for the customs inspector to come check them and I hear this can sometimes take a week so we'll see!
After lunch I took an hour nap! Then I worked some on my health curriculum since Heather took the group back into the schools in the afternoon.
We took the group for a dip in the ocean after they got back from teaching up until dinner time. The beach now with the change of seasons is all rocks. Somehow the sand has all been covered by these large rocks and the tide is way up compared to even a week ago. It was overcast so I just read some in my book while the group swam in the ocean.
We came back, had dinner, and then got the group set up for the history talk and the movie "In the Time of the Butterflies". While they were watching the movie I went and hung out with some of the kids. I played a little basketball with Jessica but was horrible. Then I talked with Leonel for a while and played a version of "MASH" with Jessica. I am going to have a pink wedding dress, white shoes, a gold veil, 10 kids, my boyfriend's name is Jason, I am going to live in a one story house on the mountain, have a 5 tiered wedding cake, Jason' suit is going to be white with pink, our honeymoon is 30 days, and I can't remember the rest but can't wait to what my life has in store for me! After learning my future, I hung out with Nicol, one of the oldest girls, and we just chatted with Heather until separation time.
With about 5 minutes left in the movie, we were waiting to turn off the DVD when everyone starting getting out of their chairs. There were 2 spiders walking around so I killed one (so proud of myself) while Bryson tackled the other. After the movie, the group worked on making goodie bags to give the kids today and Heather and I opened the OO Store to sell sweatshirts, scrubs, etc. We hung out and talked with Coco and did inventory until 11pm when I went to bed!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Day 1 with SJR! (St. John's Ravencourt)
http://picasaweb.google.com/Geedz913/LosBateyesYMas?feat=directlink
This morning was the first day for the team that arrived last night. We had a long morning of general OO orientation, English teaching orientation, and we toured the town close to the orphanage as well as the orphanage. This lasted several hours and is often painful for the team involved because it is a lot of rules thrown at them at once, but they did well and we got thru it pretty quickly. We had about an hour before lunch to hang out with the kids some and Heather and I planned a get to know you game for after lunch.
After lunch, we did introductions and asked everyone to say what super power they could have if they were a super hero. Mine was to be able to fly anyway super fast, so I could come home to visit or come here to visit, etc. We then played a game where we put a character or famous person's name on everyone's forehead and they had to ask Yes or No questions and try to figure out who they were. This is always fun but I'm horrible at it. I had trouble guessing mine and I knew all the characters because I made them up! I was Dora!
I went and got my stuff ready to go to the batey with Dr. Garcia and then hung out at the mesita with the kids. They were all piled around there because the group was hanging out. I sat with Yessica and Nicol for a while talking with them.
Today I headed out to Batey Higuero, one I haven't been to yet since I've been here, but one of my favorites from the past. It is a small little batey and I'm not sure why I love it so much but I do. Mom and Jo, this is the one you went to where they all wanted their pictures taken! There was a 4 year old girl there that I recognized from 2 years ago. I asked her how old she was and she said 6, but was corrected by her Mom and told she was only 4. I told her I had a picture of her from when she was 2 and her Mom was surprised I remembered her. I remember her because Dr. Garcia was giving a little talk and her Mom picked her up and started breastfeeding her in front of everyone and I remember thinking she seemed a little too old to be doing that! :) There were a couple of kids that would have taken pictures all day had I let them but it was fun going back there. I gave several tetanus boosters and took BPs.
As we finished up I had asked to use the outhouse! Bad idea. It was disgusting. It was weird. It just had this cement square with the center cut out but you could walk around it 360 degrees. I couldn't figure out if I was supposed to stand on top of it and pee or squat, so instead of soiling my pants I just decided to hold it! As I walked over there, Guillermina, the nurse, asked me to throw away the syringe papers. I asked where the trash can was and she just pointed to a pile of trash in front of the outhouse and said to just throw them there on the ground. Such a weird concept, I felt bad littering but could tell where I threw them was a burnt pile of trash that will just get burnt again.
We headed back home and were given some bananas by one of the men that lived in the batey so we all enjoyed those on the drive back.
After dinner tonight the group sorted their donations. They brought so much stuff! It was amazing and awesome to have so many donations. They have made goodie bags for all of the kids to give them at the end of the week and I know the kids will be super excited about these.
Instead of culto tonight, since Pastor Ramon is out of town, we did a game night with the kids on our side. We set up multiple tables with CandyLand, Jenga, Old Maid, coloring books, etc and had all the kids over to play. They had been asking for a while about game night so it was fun to get to enjoy this time with them. My camera battery was dead so I didn't get any pictures unfortunately. I played L,R,C for a bit and then I played Spoons with some people. Mancho, who is about 9-10 years old, was playing and he nevered looked at the table. One round we had all taken a marker (spoon replacement) and we continued "playing" for another minute or so before he even realized he had lost.
One last thing, I found out tonight that Arianni, the other twin, fell off the table today and got three stitches in the back of her head. That makes three now. Franchesca who looks like the twins, and both of the twins. She has a little patch on the back of her head shaved and 3 sutures! I thought I was done removing sutures but I guess not! :)
This morning was the first day for the team that arrived last night. We had a long morning of general OO orientation, English teaching orientation, and we toured the town close to the orphanage as well as the orphanage. This lasted several hours and is often painful for the team involved because it is a lot of rules thrown at them at once, but they did well and we got thru it pretty quickly. We had about an hour before lunch to hang out with the kids some and Heather and I planned a get to know you game for after lunch.
After lunch, we did introductions and asked everyone to say what super power they could have if they were a super hero. Mine was to be able to fly anyway super fast, so I could come home to visit or come here to visit, etc. We then played a game where we put a character or famous person's name on everyone's forehead and they had to ask Yes or No questions and try to figure out who they were. This is always fun but I'm horrible at it. I had trouble guessing mine and I knew all the characters because I made them up! I was Dora!
I went and got my stuff ready to go to the batey with Dr. Garcia and then hung out at the mesita with the kids. They were all piled around there because the group was hanging out. I sat with Yessica and Nicol for a while talking with them.
Today I headed out to Batey Higuero, one I haven't been to yet since I've been here, but one of my favorites from the past. It is a small little batey and I'm not sure why I love it so much but I do. Mom and Jo, this is the one you went to where they all wanted their pictures taken! There was a 4 year old girl there that I recognized from 2 years ago. I asked her how old she was and she said 6, but was corrected by her Mom and told she was only 4. I told her I had a picture of her from when she was 2 and her Mom was surprised I remembered her. I remember her because Dr. Garcia was giving a little talk and her Mom picked her up and started breastfeeding her in front of everyone and I remember thinking she seemed a little too old to be doing that! :) There were a couple of kids that would have taken pictures all day had I let them but it was fun going back there. I gave several tetanus boosters and took BPs.
As we finished up I had asked to use the outhouse! Bad idea. It was disgusting. It was weird. It just had this cement square with the center cut out but you could walk around it 360 degrees. I couldn't figure out if I was supposed to stand on top of it and pee or squat, so instead of soiling my pants I just decided to hold it! As I walked over there, Guillermina, the nurse, asked me to throw away the syringe papers. I asked where the trash can was and she just pointed to a pile of trash in front of the outhouse and said to just throw them there on the ground. Such a weird concept, I felt bad littering but could tell where I threw them was a burnt pile of trash that will just get burnt again.
We headed back home and were given some bananas by one of the men that lived in the batey so we all enjoyed those on the drive back.
After dinner tonight the group sorted their donations. They brought so much stuff! It was amazing and awesome to have so many donations. They have made goodie bags for all of the kids to give them at the end of the week and I know the kids will be super excited about these.
Instead of culto tonight, since Pastor Ramon is out of town, we did a game night with the kids on our side. We set up multiple tables with CandyLand, Jenga, Old Maid, coloring books, etc and had all the kids over to play. They had been asking for a while about game night so it was fun to get to enjoy this time with them. My camera battery was dead so I didn't get any pictures unfortunately. I played L,R,C for a bit and then I played Spoons with some people. Mancho, who is about 9-10 years old, was playing and he nevered looked at the table. One round we had all taken a marker (spoon replacement) and we continued "playing" for another minute or so before he even realized he had lost.
One last thing, I found out tonight that Arianni, the other twin, fell off the table today and got three stitches in the back of her head. That makes three now. Franchesca who looks like the twins, and both of the twins. She has a little patch on the back of her head shaved and 3 sutures! I thought I was done removing sutures but I guess not! :)
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Blog Withdrawls?
Has anyone wondered if I was still alive :) I am, just have been busy!
Saturday I picked up the two visitors and we headed back to the orphanage. We had dinner, sat down and chatted a little and then I headed to play with the kids since I hadn't seen them for 2 days. I was in the kids kitchen area sitting with 4 little girls and we starting acting out "5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed". Bryson has read this book multiple times now and they still never get sick of it. I spread my legs apart and became the bed and 3 of them "slept" in the bed and one girl, Nena (the one that reminds me of Sydney) was the Mom. She would lay down and the kids would starting jumping and then one would fall and she was take them over to a chair, tell them not to jump, pretend wrap their heads up and go back to sleep.
After this got old, we hid under the table and were sleeping again in one big "bed". Negra, the caretaker started yelling at them for being under the table, until she saw me and said, "No, no keep playing". Two of the girls left to use the bathroom and me and the other two went to hide from them per Nena's request. Well, they never returned because they were told to stay in their room to get ready for bed. Nena kept waiting for them to come, calling them to come, and they wouldn't. Finally, Negra came out looking for the two because she thought they were disobeying and when I popped up she again said "No, no it's okay, keep playing". I felt like I was getting them in trouble! It was time for them to go to bed so I left and headed back to my room too!
Sunday we did a short orientation with Bill who is a DPT (physical therapist), and Cara who is a PA, along with a new 2 week volunteer from St. Louis. We walked them around town near the orphanage to show them some different things and we gave them a tour of the orphanage grounds. After this, Bill, Cara, Coco and I went to the rehab center and met with Dr. Garcia. Bill and several of his students that will be coming in March will be working in the rehab center with the physical therapists. Dr. Garcia was super excited because this is the first PT group that will be coming down, so he was very grateful and excited to start a new "intercambio" (interchange). We had lunch, went to the beach, took them on a short hike of the moutain in the rainbow picture and then went to the ocean to swim. The view from up top is beautiful, I'll get some pictures this week. The waves were huge at the beach so I didn't swim because they were scary big! That evening I went to church with the kids and then came back to rest.
Monday was a full day of activities with Cara and Bill to show them more of what to expect when their team comes down in March. They've gone to Honduras for the past several years with teams but because of the US warning about traveling there, they had to change locations. I'm excited to have a team of PTs and PAs to work with, and they are well traveled and know how things work so it should be an awesome week in the spring!
I showed them a brief slideshow of Dominican Health Information with some of my pictures from the past and then we headed to the hospital to do a tour. Unfortunately, Monday was the celebration day of Constitutional Day so everything was shut down but we were still able to walk thru since the ER was open. We toured around the hospital, got to see the OR which is not normal, but didn't get to see the radiology room which is awesome. I'll post an old picture with my next album.
We then took them to see the English Institute to show them a possible place they may be staying. After this, we stopped by a local painter who does oil paintings and he is awesome. He does anything you want, you can email him pictures, etc. so I might bring one back for him to paint when I return. Cara and Bill both bought pictures for their homes, and I'm sure it was more than this guy will sell all month. He paints in his "living room" but it isn't like a house at home, when you walk in the open doors, you are in his living room. We showed them the clock tower, Catholic church and then headed back for lunch.
After lunch, we went out to the bateyes to show Cara where she'll be doing clinics. We went to Batey Maguaca, one of the larger ones, and the kids were so excited. They kept asking if we were coming to do camps again but we had to tell them we were just there to show the medical people around. About 10-15 kids followed us around and gave us a tour, showing all the different fruit trees. One of the little girls I picked up was about 2 and didn't have a diaper and had peed all over her pants which I didn't notice until I felt something wet on me. Oh well, she was still cute and innocent! :)
From there we went to Jaramillo, one of the smaller bateyes and several of the people recognized me from being there twice already with Dr. Garcia. A lot of the people there are Haitian and speak little Spanish so one of the men that I've talked with before came up and starting speaking with us in Spanish because he is Dominican. He gave us a little tour, took us into a colmado inside of a house. It was actually the house that Dr. Garcia worked in before but the other side. I have pictures of the bed on cans as a bed frame, this same house. One lady came in to see us with her baby and she said "You have a bunch of pictures of my baby". I guess they all recognize me from taking their baby's pictures.
We stopped back on the way home at the prison because it has the prettiest view of town. I got some pictures. We also stopped for ice cream which is always a nice treat!
When we returned, I hung out with Jazmin, the older girl that used to live here but now lives in town. I enjoy spending time with her! It was movie night with the kids, but I instead went and got some physical therapy from Bill because my knee has been bothering me. He worked on Sharon first to relieve her headache, then worked on my knee and did some awesome stretching and found so very sore trigger points. He was brillant and I was super impressed. He teaching the DPT students at his university in PA, St. Francis University.
I sat and talked with him for a while, showing him the teaching units I've been working on and just chatting. I'm excited to work with both of them in the spring and enjoyed having some medical people down to talk with!
During the movie, Julie and Heather made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for the kids and so we enjoyed those afterwards. YUMMY!
Sharon sadly left this morning, her grandmother is sick and so Heather and I are team leaders for the team that arrived tonight. It was sad saying good bye to her; Heather and I hung out with her for a couple of hours last night before heading to bed.
This morning, we went for a "short" warmup run up the airport road and there happened to be three Dominican ladies walking at the top of the road by the gate. They opened the gate that goes back into the airport and offered for us to walk with them. Typically this is off limits but since they were going to go walking, we took the offer and went with them. The airport is tiny, the runway is only 2KM long so very small planes only and they only fly in country, no external flights land here. We ran down the end of the runway (hoping for no planes to land ;)) and got to see a beautiful view of the sunrise and the salt flats.
After breakfast, I worked on my curriculum until time for lunch. After lunch, I hung out with some of the kids for a little bit. They were playing a game with flattened bottle caps where they throw one cap onto another trying to flip it over and if they do, they win that cap. Two of the little girls started trying to pull up my skirt and at that point I knew it was time for me to leave and head back to my room.
I took a short nap, and then started working again, this time on the MAP International Free Travel Pack of medications that I ordered. We want to make the process easy for all the providers signing up so I filled out the long sheet with multiple questions about our trip and worked with Tom to organize all the documents needed for this. I worked a little more on some of the curriculum and then went to dinner.
After dinner, I spent time with the kids because I hadn't much over the past several days. Caela was out with Yessica, Yenni, and Paola and Yessica was singing. It was pretty awesome to listen to her and at one point there were about 10 kids all sitting around and signing songs or listening. They were singing Christian songs in Spanish that I knew in English so it was cool to sing them in a different language (or listen and try to sing). Luke and Caele sang Lean On Me together and all the kids loved sitting and listening!
A group from Saint John's Ravencourt, a high school in Canada, arrived tonight around 8:30 and Heather and I did some quick announcements while they got settled and ate dinner. Then we met with their team leaders to go over the plans for the week. It should be fun having a team, they have been here several times before and Roberta, their leader is super excited as this is her 4th trip. Time for bed, early 7:30 breakfast tomorrow, which is 6:30 at home! I'll try to keep up with my blog this week but I'll be a little busier trying to do health work and working with the team. I'll also try to post some more pictures soon from the past several days.
Saturday I picked up the two visitors and we headed back to the orphanage. We had dinner, sat down and chatted a little and then I headed to play with the kids since I hadn't seen them for 2 days. I was in the kids kitchen area sitting with 4 little girls and we starting acting out "5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed". Bryson has read this book multiple times now and they still never get sick of it. I spread my legs apart and became the bed and 3 of them "slept" in the bed and one girl, Nena (the one that reminds me of Sydney) was the Mom. She would lay down and the kids would starting jumping and then one would fall and she was take them over to a chair, tell them not to jump, pretend wrap their heads up and go back to sleep.
After this got old, we hid under the table and were sleeping again in one big "bed". Negra, the caretaker started yelling at them for being under the table, until she saw me and said, "No, no keep playing". Two of the girls left to use the bathroom and me and the other two went to hide from them per Nena's request. Well, they never returned because they were told to stay in their room to get ready for bed. Nena kept waiting for them to come, calling them to come, and they wouldn't. Finally, Negra came out looking for the two because she thought they were disobeying and when I popped up she again said "No, no it's okay, keep playing". I felt like I was getting them in trouble! It was time for them to go to bed so I left and headed back to my room too!
Sunday we did a short orientation with Bill who is a DPT (physical therapist), and Cara who is a PA, along with a new 2 week volunteer from St. Louis. We walked them around town near the orphanage to show them some different things and we gave them a tour of the orphanage grounds. After this, Bill, Cara, Coco and I went to the rehab center and met with Dr. Garcia. Bill and several of his students that will be coming in March will be working in the rehab center with the physical therapists. Dr. Garcia was super excited because this is the first PT group that will be coming down, so he was very grateful and excited to start a new "intercambio" (interchange). We had lunch, went to the beach, took them on a short hike of the moutain in the rainbow picture and then went to the ocean to swim. The view from up top is beautiful, I'll get some pictures this week. The waves were huge at the beach so I didn't swim because they were scary big! That evening I went to church with the kids and then came back to rest.
Monday was a full day of activities with Cara and Bill to show them more of what to expect when their team comes down in March. They've gone to Honduras for the past several years with teams but because of the US warning about traveling there, they had to change locations. I'm excited to have a team of PTs and PAs to work with, and they are well traveled and know how things work so it should be an awesome week in the spring!
I showed them a brief slideshow of Dominican Health Information with some of my pictures from the past and then we headed to the hospital to do a tour. Unfortunately, Monday was the celebration day of Constitutional Day so everything was shut down but we were still able to walk thru since the ER was open. We toured around the hospital, got to see the OR which is not normal, but didn't get to see the radiology room which is awesome. I'll post an old picture with my next album.
We then took them to see the English Institute to show them a possible place they may be staying. After this, we stopped by a local painter who does oil paintings and he is awesome. He does anything you want, you can email him pictures, etc. so I might bring one back for him to paint when I return. Cara and Bill both bought pictures for their homes, and I'm sure it was more than this guy will sell all month. He paints in his "living room" but it isn't like a house at home, when you walk in the open doors, you are in his living room. We showed them the clock tower, Catholic church and then headed back for lunch.
After lunch, we went out to the bateyes to show Cara where she'll be doing clinics. We went to Batey Maguaca, one of the larger ones, and the kids were so excited. They kept asking if we were coming to do camps again but we had to tell them we were just there to show the medical people around. About 10-15 kids followed us around and gave us a tour, showing all the different fruit trees. One of the little girls I picked up was about 2 and didn't have a diaper and had peed all over her pants which I didn't notice until I felt something wet on me. Oh well, she was still cute and innocent! :)
From there we went to Jaramillo, one of the smaller bateyes and several of the people recognized me from being there twice already with Dr. Garcia. A lot of the people there are Haitian and speak little Spanish so one of the men that I've talked with before came up and starting speaking with us in Spanish because he is Dominican. He gave us a little tour, took us into a colmado inside of a house. It was actually the house that Dr. Garcia worked in before but the other side. I have pictures of the bed on cans as a bed frame, this same house. One lady came in to see us with her baby and she said "You have a bunch of pictures of my baby". I guess they all recognize me from taking their baby's pictures.
We stopped back on the way home at the prison because it has the prettiest view of town. I got some pictures. We also stopped for ice cream which is always a nice treat!
When we returned, I hung out with Jazmin, the older girl that used to live here but now lives in town. I enjoy spending time with her! It was movie night with the kids, but I instead went and got some physical therapy from Bill because my knee has been bothering me. He worked on Sharon first to relieve her headache, then worked on my knee and did some awesome stretching and found so very sore trigger points. He was brillant and I was super impressed. He teaching the DPT students at his university in PA, St. Francis University.
I sat and talked with him for a while, showing him the teaching units I've been working on and just chatting. I'm excited to work with both of them in the spring and enjoyed having some medical people down to talk with!
During the movie, Julie and Heather made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for the kids and so we enjoyed those afterwards. YUMMY!
Sharon sadly left this morning, her grandmother is sick and so Heather and I are team leaders for the team that arrived tonight. It was sad saying good bye to her; Heather and I hung out with her for a couple of hours last night before heading to bed.
This morning, we went for a "short" warmup run up the airport road and there happened to be three Dominican ladies walking at the top of the road by the gate. They opened the gate that goes back into the airport and offered for us to walk with them. Typically this is off limits but since they were going to go walking, we took the offer and went with them. The airport is tiny, the runway is only 2KM long so very small planes only and they only fly in country, no external flights land here. We ran down the end of the runway (hoping for no planes to land ;)) and got to see a beautiful view of the sunrise and the salt flats.
After breakfast, I worked on my curriculum until time for lunch. After lunch, I hung out with some of the kids for a little bit. They were playing a game with flattened bottle caps where they throw one cap onto another trying to flip it over and if they do, they win that cap. Two of the little girls started trying to pull up my skirt and at that point I knew it was time for me to leave and head back to my room.
I took a short nap, and then started working again, this time on the MAP International Free Travel Pack of medications that I ordered. We want to make the process easy for all the providers signing up so I filled out the long sheet with multiple questions about our trip and worked with Tom to organize all the documents needed for this. I worked a little more on some of the curriculum and then went to dinner.
After dinner, I spent time with the kids because I hadn't much over the past several days. Caela was out with Yessica, Yenni, and Paola and Yessica was singing. It was pretty awesome to listen to her and at one point there were about 10 kids all sitting around and signing songs or listening. They were singing Christian songs in Spanish that I knew in English so it was cool to sing them in a different language (or listen and try to sing). Luke and Caele sang Lean On Me together and all the kids loved sitting and listening!
A group from Saint John's Ravencourt, a high school in Canada, arrived tonight around 8:30 and Heather and I did some quick announcements while they got settled and ate dinner. Then we met with their team leaders to go over the plans for the week. It should be fun having a team, they have been here several times before and Roberta, their leader is super excited as this is her 4th trip. Time for bed, early 7:30 breakfast tomorrow, which is 6:30 at home! I'll try to keep up with my blog this week but I'll be a little busier trying to do health work and working with the team. I'll also try to post some more pictures soon from the past several days.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Road Trip!
Friday was field trip day with 10 of the orphanage kids (mainly the high schoolers). We headed out bright and early at 7am and loaded the bus to head about 2.5 hours away close to Santiago and to the center of the DR. I sat with Yessica, a 13 year old girl, that is probably one of the only kids actually in her correct grade based on her age, and a 4th year student at the English Institute.
We stopped in Santiago for a bathroom break and Coco bought some candy for us, some sugar cane candy like those peppermint sticks that you buy at Cracker Barrel that melt in your mouth! As we stopped, we noticed that one of the back tired looked flat so our next stop was the Gomeria (tire shop). We pulled up on the side of the road like we were parallel parking and got our tire changed with 26 people on the bus! Peguero, our driver, actually was cranking the tire himself...wonder if he got a cut of the pay :) They took the tire off and started to fill it with air, and then we heard BOOM and the inside of the tire had popped so time for a new tire!
We headed out and went to a park to sit and eat our snacks that Coco had prepared for us. Each person got a PB sandwich on a sweet roll, box of raisins, an apple, lime cookies, and cheese crackers! Apples here are expensive (23 pesos a piece...36 pesos = 1 USD) so the kids only get them at Christmas. Well they are out in the markets now being sold because it is close to Christmas so we got to enjoy them! Tasty!
After leaving the park we walked to a church that had stained glass windows that came from Italy. They were very pretty and the church was large! We walked through the church and then headed back to the bus to travel to our next stop.
The next stop was the Mirabel Sister's museum. The Mirabel sisters are well known in the Dominican Republic because of their fight to get Trujillo, the Dominican dictator, out of power. Minerva was the leader of the sisters and she went to law school but was unable to practice law because she did not give in to Trujillo's romantic leads. The sisters were known, in a movement against Trujillo, as the butterflies (las mariposas). They fought in this movement despite being put in jail, tortured, the incarceration of their husbands, etc. Finally Trujillo decided to get rid of them and had their car stopped on the highway after visiting their husbands in jail, and he had men take them into a sugarcane field and kill them along with their driver. People began to follow their cause and take notice after their murders, and six months later Trujillo was assisinated. Dede, one of the four sisters, still lives and was at the museum that we went to. The museum is the house where the sisters lived for the last 10 months of their lives with their Mom. We toured the house, spoke with Dede, and saw the mosulieum where the sisters and one of their husbands are now buried. If you are interested, there is a movie about these sisters called "In the Time of the Butterflies" with modern actors, etc and it tells the story well!
After the museum, we headed to lunch. We went to a place called La Sirvena. I can't begin to explain how big this place was. It was like 2-3 Sam's Clubs in one building but stuff was sold like at Krogers, not in bulk. They had a dry cleaners, a pharmacy, a Jet Blue Airlines booth, food, clothes, deli, furniture, EVERYTHING! They had a food court as well, which is where we ate. We had Domino's Pizza because it was the only choice but it was tasty.
We drove by Los Gigantes baseball stadium, one of the six national teams here in the DR. We couldn't go inside but we got to see it from outside pretty good. We then bought 6 large stalks of sugar cane on the side of the road for the other kids that weren't able to come. These stalks were as tall as me!
We stopped at park that had a gazebo in the middle with a painted ceiling. It was interesting and we took a group picture while we were there!
When then headed to the sister city of Altanta, GA where they had a park with a huge playground. We played around here for a little while before heading to Santiago.
In Santiago, there is a large National Monument and we stopped there to look at it. It sits high up on a hill that overlooks the city which was neat to see because it was dark when we stopped so you could see all the city lights around this monument. They had horse drawn carriages for rides which was an interesting view in the DR.
We made it home about 10:45pm and I headed straight to bed!
Today I'm in the airport. Christine left about an hour ago to head home for a month, she has been here since Jan 3rd and hasn't been home yet! She'll be back Dec. 5th. I'm waiting to pick up a physical therapist and a PA that are coming to do a site visit for the next 3 days before their group comes down in March to do health outreach. Luckily there is free internet here so I'm able to blog, upload pics, and keep myself occupied! That's all for now! Below are my pictures from the field trip!
http://picasaweb.google.com/Geedz913/FieldTripWithOlderKids?feat=directlink
We stopped in Santiago for a bathroom break and Coco bought some candy for us, some sugar cane candy like those peppermint sticks that you buy at Cracker Barrel that melt in your mouth! As we stopped, we noticed that one of the back tired looked flat so our next stop was the Gomeria (tire shop). We pulled up on the side of the road like we were parallel parking and got our tire changed with 26 people on the bus! Peguero, our driver, actually was cranking the tire himself...wonder if he got a cut of the pay :) They took the tire off and started to fill it with air, and then we heard BOOM and the inside of the tire had popped so time for a new tire!
We headed out and went to a park to sit and eat our snacks that Coco had prepared for us. Each person got a PB sandwich on a sweet roll, box of raisins, an apple, lime cookies, and cheese crackers! Apples here are expensive (23 pesos a piece...36 pesos = 1 USD) so the kids only get them at Christmas. Well they are out in the markets now being sold because it is close to Christmas so we got to enjoy them! Tasty!
After leaving the park we walked to a church that had stained glass windows that came from Italy. They were very pretty and the church was large! We walked through the church and then headed back to the bus to travel to our next stop.
The next stop was the Mirabel Sister's museum. The Mirabel sisters are well known in the Dominican Republic because of their fight to get Trujillo, the Dominican dictator, out of power. Minerva was the leader of the sisters and she went to law school but was unable to practice law because she did not give in to Trujillo's romantic leads. The sisters were known, in a movement against Trujillo, as the butterflies (las mariposas). They fought in this movement despite being put in jail, tortured, the incarceration of their husbands, etc. Finally Trujillo decided to get rid of them and had their car stopped on the highway after visiting their husbands in jail, and he had men take them into a sugarcane field and kill them along with their driver. People began to follow their cause and take notice after their murders, and six months later Trujillo was assisinated. Dede, one of the four sisters, still lives and was at the museum that we went to. The museum is the house where the sisters lived for the last 10 months of their lives with their Mom. We toured the house, spoke with Dede, and saw the mosulieum where the sisters and one of their husbands are now buried. If you are interested, there is a movie about these sisters called "In the Time of the Butterflies" with modern actors, etc and it tells the story well!
After the museum, we headed to lunch. We went to a place called La Sirvena. I can't begin to explain how big this place was. It was like 2-3 Sam's Clubs in one building but stuff was sold like at Krogers, not in bulk. They had a dry cleaners, a pharmacy, a Jet Blue Airlines booth, food, clothes, deli, furniture, EVERYTHING! They had a food court as well, which is where we ate. We had Domino's Pizza because it was the only choice but it was tasty.
We drove by Los Gigantes baseball stadium, one of the six national teams here in the DR. We couldn't go inside but we got to see it from outside pretty good. We then bought 6 large stalks of sugar cane on the side of the road for the other kids that weren't able to come. These stalks were as tall as me!
We stopped at park that had a gazebo in the middle with a painted ceiling. It was interesting and we took a group picture while we were there!
When then headed to the sister city of Altanta, GA where they had a park with a huge playground. We played around here for a little while before heading to Santiago.
In Santiago, there is a large National Monument and we stopped there to look at it. It sits high up on a hill that overlooks the city which was neat to see because it was dark when we stopped so you could see all the city lights around this monument. They had horse drawn carriages for rides which was an interesting view in the DR.
We made it home about 10:45pm and I headed straight to bed!
Today I'm in the airport. Christine left about an hour ago to head home for a month, she has been here since Jan 3rd and hasn't been home yet! She'll be back Dec. 5th. I'm waiting to pick up a physical therapist and a PA that are coming to do a site visit for the next 3 days before their group comes down in March to do health outreach. Luckily there is free internet here so I'm able to blog, upload pics, and keep myself occupied! That's all for now! Below are my pictures from the field trip!
http://picasaweb.google.com/Geedz913/FieldTripWithOlderKids?feat=directlink
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Cada Dia, Para Ti Yo Vivo
So this morning as you guys saw, I had an excellent view while working out! It was spectacular to see in person and it seemed to fade some as soon as I went to get my camera! This morning after breakfast I met with Coco and Bryson to discuss our plans for the visitors we have coming this weekend.
A Doctor of Physical Therapy and a PA who has her PhD and teaching at St. Francis University in PA, are coming to do a site visit on Saturday. We found out earlier in the week that tomorrow is Constitution Day here so everything is shut down on Monday for the holiday. So, kind of bad timing for them to visit because everything will be closed but we have worked out some times for them to visit the Rehab Center and the hospital is open because of the ER.
After meeting with Coco, Arianni and her brother Luis Alberto came over to the mesita where we were sitting and starting talking and playing with us. I hung out with them for a bit and then headed up to my room to shower for the day!
The rest of the morning I played around online, talked to my Mom, and headed to do dental inventory! Nancy, THANK YOU!, labeled all the pictures I took of the tools we had and I went and counted what we had. This took longer than I thought. I had hoped to be done at lunch but wasn't even half way done.
At lunch, Coco bought some sugar cookies for us from the bakery so we got to enjoy those. Yummy! I then headed back up to do some more dental inventory. Still didn't finish before I had to leave to head into town.
I went to speak to the director of the Rehab Center to work out a time to meet with her to open the center to tour with the visitors. She wasn't there at first so I went with Coco to Lilo's the little market place and helped her pick up stuff for goodie bags she made for us tomorrow.
When I got back I played with Ari a little bit. Two of the little girls had a puzzle with food on it, so we would go to the "colmado" (little place to by food) and buy drinks, apples, etc. and "eat" the puzzle pieces. I couldn't play for too long because I wanted to finish dental inventory today! I headed back up and finished before Spanish class started.
Before dinner I hung out with the kids. I just sat on one of the benches with Luz Maria and talked with some of the teenage girls. Then we went to the mesita and read with some of the kids. They really enjoy reading which is good!
After dinner, I went back out and hung out with the kids again. They were a little crazy tonight. Jennifer fell asleep in my lap which was sweet. Freddie was sitting next to Christine and copying everything she said in English. He kept saying "I'm a girl". It was hilarious and his English was pretty good although I'm sure he didn't know a lot of what he was saying. He does know girl though! I went inside and sat with Lisy and tickled her for a while. Heather was singing with Arianni, one of the 3/4 year olds and it was adorable. She was standing on the top of the table, just signing at the top of her lungs a song called Cada Dia! It was so precious and I wish I had my camera so I could have gotten a video. She sang this and another song and was dancing along on the table!
Tomorrow we eat breakfast at 6:30 and leave at 7:00am to head to the center of the DR and tour and hang out. Should be fun and I'm excited to get to spend time outside of the orphanage with 10 of the kids! Get ready for a lot (hopefully) of pictures from tomorrow!
A Doctor of Physical Therapy and a PA who has her PhD and teaching at St. Francis University in PA, are coming to do a site visit on Saturday. We found out earlier in the week that tomorrow is Constitution Day here so everything is shut down on Monday for the holiday. So, kind of bad timing for them to visit because everything will be closed but we have worked out some times for them to visit the Rehab Center and the hospital is open because of the ER.
After meeting with Coco, Arianni and her brother Luis Alberto came over to the mesita where we were sitting and starting talking and playing with us. I hung out with them for a bit and then headed up to my room to shower for the day!
The rest of the morning I played around online, talked to my Mom, and headed to do dental inventory! Nancy, THANK YOU!, labeled all the pictures I took of the tools we had and I went and counted what we had. This took longer than I thought. I had hoped to be done at lunch but wasn't even half way done.
At lunch, Coco bought some sugar cookies for us from the bakery so we got to enjoy those. Yummy! I then headed back up to do some more dental inventory. Still didn't finish before I had to leave to head into town.
I went to speak to the director of the Rehab Center to work out a time to meet with her to open the center to tour with the visitors. She wasn't there at first so I went with Coco to Lilo's the little market place and helped her pick up stuff for goodie bags she made for us tomorrow.
When I got back I played with Ari a little bit. Two of the little girls had a puzzle with food on it, so we would go to the "colmado" (little place to by food) and buy drinks, apples, etc. and "eat" the puzzle pieces. I couldn't play for too long because I wanted to finish dental inventory today! I headed back up and finished before Spanish class started.
Before dinner I hung out with the kids. I just sat on one of the benches with Luz Maria and talked with some of the teenage girls. Then we went to the mesita and read with some of the kids. They really enjoy reading which is good!
After dinner, I went back out and hung out with the kids again. They were a little crazy tonight. Jennifer fell asleep in my lap which was sweet. Freddie was sitting next to Christine and copying everything she said in English. He kept saying "I'm a girl". It was hilarious and his English was pretty good although I'm sure he didn't know a lot of what he was saying. He does know girl though! I went inside and sat with Lisy and tickled her for a while. Heather was singing with Arianni, one of the 3/4 year olds and it was adorable. She was standing on the top of the table, just signing at the top of her lungs a song called Cada Dia! It was so precious and I wish I had my camera so I could have gotten a video. She sang this and another song and was dancing along on the table!
Tomorrow we eat breakfast at 6:30 and leave at 7:00am to head to the center of the DR and tour and hang out. Should be fun and I'm excited to get to spend time outside of the orphanage with 10 of the kids! Get ready for a lot (hopefully) of pictures from tomorrow!
Buenos Dias!
I couldn't resist posting this on the blog itself! While I was working out this morning on the roof, this was the maginficent view that I had. The colors were so much more vibrant than the picture captured but you still get an idea of what a great start to the day I had! :)
Here is the link from the few pictures I took yesterday. http://picasaweb.google.com/Geedz913/BateyIsabel?feat=directlink
Here is the link to my Videos. http://picasaweb.google.com/Geedz913/MyVideos?feat=directlink
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Take Two...
This morning's workout was a lot of fun. We ran about 35 minutes and did several activities randomly in between running like I had mentioned yesterday. It was difficult but a great workout! We got a few funny looks because we were stopping to do jumping jacks, or lunge, or side step but we got some waves too :)
This morning I tried to work on the Infectious Disease unit but the internet was down most of the morning so I didn't get a lot of work done. I actually napped because I was worn out from going to be late last night and getting up early this morning.
The Hopkins Family as I have mentioned is learning Spanish so today for lunch we had a "Spanish" only lunch. We weren't allowed to speak English. It is good to do this but a lot more difficult also. Most of the Hopkins kids were silent during lunch but we tried to talk with them to get them to speak in Spanish.
During siesta I went out and played with the kids for a little while before I had to leave. I just sat out there with some of the younger girls and held them :)
This afternoon I went back to Batey Isabel and it was very interesting. One woman came in with a large 2nd degree burn on her boob basically (chest wall if you want to say). She spilled coffee from the coffee maker onto her chest yesterday and had a burn that was probably about 1 in X 4 inches. It was large! I have a picture that I'll post tomorrow. She wasn't modest at all about letting me take a picture!
After this, we had to give a girl who was probably about 8-10 years old a shot of penicillin in her behind. From what I understand from her Mom, she's had problems with her throat since she was born and now she has kidney problems. I am assuming she has had strep throat a lot and because of that has developed kidney problems which is common if it isn't treated. So, now she has to receive a shot of PCN every month for 6 months and they want to remove her tonsils. She opened her mouth for me to see and her tonsils were enlarged but didn't look red or anything to me, so perhaps these are just prophylactic shots?
The next interesting patient was an elderly man that smokes and his blood pressure was 210/120. The automatic machine would not record it so we had to take it manually. I had the nurse double check me because it was so high! He was acting fine and didn't seem to be bothered by his extremely high blood pressure but apparently he had run out of his medications. I told him he needed to stop smoking and he was just laughing at me for lecturing him. There aren't a lot of people that I see smoking here, I've probably seen about 10 people smoking in my 6 weeks here but I'm sure there are more smokers than I'm aware of.
We saw an elderly man who was brought over on a moto from his house who was having a very difficult time breathing. He said he has had a lot of chest congestion for the past week or so and is having a hard time walking and breathing. Dr. Garcia listened to his lungs, this was the first time I've seen him use a stethescope since I've been here! He gave him 3 different meds to start but I hope he gets better because he looked like he needed to be in the hospital to help him catch his breath!
The last patient we went to see was an 85 year old woman. We went inside her house because she has a difficult time walking. She was complaining of hip pain, leg pain, and a tremor in her left hand. She had a noticeable tremor in her hand, I assume Parkinson's of some degree. She looked pretty good though for her age. She was talking about how her vision is sometimes good and other times very blurry, and just asking how her BP was, etc. She was very precious and thanked us for coming when we left.
When I returned to the orphanage, they asked me to take out Franchesca's two stitches on her forehead. This story earned the title of the blog tonight. Take two...removing stitches from a screaming child, like before. This time I thought it would be easier because they were on her forehead but it was still hard. She was screaming as Pastor Ramon was holding her head and Carolina was holding her legs. She kept jerking her head side to side and the scissors I had were not at all sharp. After several minutes, I got the two stitches out and then held her in my arms for a little while as she calmed down. Jazmin, an 8 year old girl, brought out a little computer like thing for her to play with but it only lit up and didn't play music like it was supposed to. She played with this for a while and Luis Alberto and Luz Maria came and sat in my lap some as well.
Tonight for dinner Coco cooked Linguini Alfredo and pasto with a pesto sauce. They were both very tasty and a nice little change from the norm.
Wednesday nights the kids have culto so I went out and hung out on the wall waiting for culto to start. Luis Alberto came and laid in my lap and we sat there until culto began. Odalis played his drum set that he made earlier in the week, the one I took some pictures of.
After culto, I promised Mancho that he could play one of the games on my cell phone. They were playing yesterday but the time ran out and he didn't get to play. He played, followed by Ariel, then Carmelo until it was separation time from the kids. They all love playing these games on my phone, not sure I'll ever get away with not letting them play now! AHH!
I'm calling it a night early tonight. I'm exhausted from staying up too late last night! One more day of work and then off to our field trip on Friday with 10 of the orphanage kids!
This morning I tried to work on the Infectious Disease unit but the internet was down most of the morning so I didn't get a lot of work done. I actually napped because I was worn out from going to be late last night and getting up early this morning.
The Hopkins Family as I have mentioned is learning Spanish so today for lunch we had a "Spanish" only lunch. We weren't allowed to speak English. It is good to do this but a lot more difficult also. Most of the Hopkins kids were silent during lunch but we tried to talk with them to get them to speak in Spanish.
During siesta I went out and played with the kids for a little while before I had to leave. I just sat out there with some of the younger girls and held them :)
This afternoon I went back to Batey Isabel and it was very interesting. One woman came in with a large 2nd degree burn on her boob basically (chest wall if you want to say). She spilled coffee from the coffee maker onto her chest yesterday and had a burn that was probably about 1 in X 4 inches. It was large! I have a picture that I'll post tomorrow. She wasn't modest at all about letting me take a picture!
After this, we had to give a girl who was probably about 8-10 years old a shot of penicillin in her behind. From what I understand from her Mom, she's had problems with her throat since she was born and now she has kidney problems. I am assuming she has had strep throat a lot and because of that has developed kidney problems which is common if it isn't treated. So, now she has to receive a shot of PCN every month for 6 months and they want to remove her tonsils. She opened her mouth for me to see and her tonsils were enlarged but didn't look red or anything to me, so perhaps these are just prophylactic shots?
The next interesting patient was an elderly man that smokes and his blood pressure was 210/120. The automatic machine would not record it so we had to take it manually. I had the nurse double check me because it was so high! He was acting fine and didn't seem to be bothered by his extremely high blood pressure but apparently he had run out of his medications. I told him he needed to stop smoking and he was just laughing at me for lecturing him. There aren't a lot of people that I see smoking here, I've probably seen about 10 people smoking in my 6 weeks here but I'm sure there are more smokers than I'm aware of.
We saw an elderly man who was brought over on a moto from his house who was having a very difficult time breathing. He said he has had a lot of chest congestion for the past week or so and is having a hard time walking and breathing. Dr. Garcia listened to his lungs, this was the first time I've seen him use a stethescope since I've been here! He gave him 3 different meds to start but I hope he gets better because he looked like he needed to be in the hospital to help him catch his breath!
The last patient we went to see was an 85 year old woman. We went inside her house because she has a difficult time walking. She was complaining of hip pain, leg pain, and a tremor in her left hand. She had a noticeable tremor in her hand, I assume Parkinson's of some degree. She looked pretty good though for her age. She was talking about how her vision is sometimes good and other times very blurry, and just asking how her BP was, etc. She was very precious and thanked us for coming when we left.
When I returned to the orphanage, they asked me to take out Franchesca's two stitches on her forehead. This story earned the title of the blog tonight. Take two...removing stitches from a screaming child, like before. This time I thought it would be easier because they were on her forehead but it was still hard. She was screaming as Pastor Ramon was holding her head and Carolina was holding her legs. She kept jerking her head side to side and the scissors I had were not at all sharp. After several minutes, I got the two stitches out and then held her in my arms for a little while as she calmed down. Jazmin, an 8 year old girl, brought out a little computer like thing for her to play with but it only lit up and didn't play music like it was supposed to. She played with this for a while and Luis Alberto and Luz Maria came and sat in my lap some as well.
Tonight for dinner Coco cooked Linguini Alfredo and pasto with a pesto sauce. They were both very tasty and a nice little change from the norm.
Wednesday nights the kids have culto so I went out and hung out on the wall waiting for culto to start. Luis Alberto came and laid in my lap and we sat there until culto began. Odalis played his drum set that he made earlier in the week, the one I took some pictures of.
After culto, I promised Mancho that he could play one of the games on my cell phone. They were playing yesterday but the time ran out and he didn't get to play. He played, followed by Ariel, then Carmelo until it was separation time from the kids. They all love playing these games on my phone, not sure I'll ever get away with not letting them play now! AHH!
I'm calling it a night early tonight. I'm exhausted from staying up too late last night! One more day of work and then off to our field trip on Friday with 10 of the orphanage kids!
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