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.