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!
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