Volunteer Field Trip Day and Goodbyes!

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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!