Batey Juliana

Yesterday was a fun day. I got to go back out with Dr. Garcia in the afternoon to the bateyes, like I did this fall. In the morning, I worked here cleaning my room (surprise it needed done I know), and then I logged patients from our clinic this spring. On Day #1, in Jicome we saw 221 patients, at least that got recorded! Not too shabby for 4 providers.

After lunch I spent some time hanging out with Luz Maria. She found one of the pieces from L,R,C in the dirt on the ground that apparently got lost last week sometime. Then I reviewed the hospital tour video that Bryson has put together. Looks pretty cool. If I can I'll post a link at some point.

So the Batey was an interesting excursion. When we arrived there were only about 3 people sitting around, but this was the sight we came upon. A lady was plucking this chicken to prepare for dinner! How disgusting! If I had to do that to eat chicken, I'm pretty sure I'd quickly become a vegetarian! Look how big his feet are without his feathers! Poor guy! :)

The next thing we did, since there were still only a few people, is look at Dr. Garcia's pictures from Haiti. He went over with another doctor for 2-3 days and did consulting in two different areas. He said it was tragic and terrible to see but I think he enjoyed serving the people in Haiti. He brought his computer for us to see them on, but we had to go inside the chicken lady's home to see because of the glare. At one point while going thru the slideshow I looked around and I was standing with 2 Domincians, 1 Korean volunteer, and about 6 Haitians. It was an eye openeing moment, just to be there with these people and to see the shock on their faces as the pictures scrolled through. One lady recognized several of the buildings that had been destroyed and another lady kept asking what the "tent city" places were. She didn't know or seem to understand that people were actually living in makeshift homes made out of tarps and sheet! But as I thought about it, they live in extreme poverty. They have little resources for water and food, I'm sure they don't have TV or Internet to look at CNN and all the stories and pictures. So, for them this may have been the first they had seen of the devastation that took place in their country, and probably affected their families!

Inside her home was a sight also. I wanted to take pictures but felt intrusive. In the room we were in was a pile of unripe bananas sitting in dirty water on the cement floor. In another room, which I assume was the kitchen area, was a bottle of Crisol vegetable oil opened with a funnel sitting in it, and probably a few critters and dirt! And in the bedroom was a double sized mattress with sheets, propped on cans or something to hold it up above the ground and a moto without a front tire with clothes stacked up on it. I wish I could reproduce this with solid images because it is just amazing to see how these people live, but always have a smile on their face and continue to survive!

The rest of the afternoon I helped out the nurse by vaccinating and taking blood pressures. One guy had a convenient shirt on. It had a huge rip on the side right where his deltoid was, so all Lucia (her made up Dominican name because her Korean name is too difficult to pronounce) had to do was slip the needle through the huge slit and give the shot!

As I started taking one guy’s blood pressure that had asked me, I quickly noticed it was not a onetime only deal. Everyone wanted their blood pressure checked no matter what age they were. They came over and sat down waiting to hear that they had a normal BP. I had to turn the job over to Lucia at one point because my back was hurting from leaning over! But again, just a simple thing that to us may seem crazy, but anything you can do for them they appreciate. It is almost like a game to them, they just want it done because someone is there that can do it, and everyone else is doing it! But it is such a simple task; it is enjoyable to do something so small for them!

Another great image for the afternoon, not typical in the states was a lady breastfeeding out in the open. There were easily 20-30 people hanging out waiting to see the doctor or get shots, etc and she just popped out her huge boob and starting feeding him. At one point I think her milk wasn’t coming out well so she pulled the baby off, squeezed her nipple some, and then put him back to feed again! No modesty here!

Haitian people are so beautiful and often have the most amazing smiles because their teeth show so bright in contrast to the dark color of their skin. However, typically when you take a picture of a Haitian they have a stoic look with no expression. Even in paintings that are sold around here, the Haitians are painted with no faces. Very interesting!

There were two girls, one age 11 and the other age 6 that came by and got shots and just hung out. Angelina, the 6 year old, loved seeing my pictures so she would tell me to keep taking pictures so that she could look at them. She started with her arm in her mouth, to a picture with no smile, to finally this! A HUGE SMILE!

We loaded up in the truck to leave, and since Dr. Garcia wasn’t going to be working in the bateyes the rest of the week he had these people come get their meds from his main office station not far away. They loaded up in the back of the pickup truck to catch a ride with us, but we soon noticed that we had a semi-flat tire, and a very flat tire with 20 people piled in. So, they had to get out and walk to meet us up there!

When I got back I hung out with the kids for a little while before dinner. I sat down with Jennifer on the patio to tickle her upon her request and quickly got attacked by Nena, Joanni and Franchesca, all climbing on my neck. Jennifer and I went over to the basketball court where we played a game that she made up. She placed three sticks down spaced apart. One marked where the “chicken” had to stand in front of, and the other two were where the other person had to walk into, the unsafe zone. The chicken was turned around and the other person would walk up and then the chicken would turn around and chase the other person. The best part is the first time I did it, I didn’t use my chicken arms and had to do it again with my arms under my armpits to look like a chicken!

After dinner I hung out with Jennifer again. I taught her how to say I Love You in English and she went around to several of the kids and a couple of the leaders saying “I Lub You”. It was cute! Then later I pretended to be a monster and chase her around. Right before the movie bell rang we were walking on a dirt path that she had created with her hands.

The kids watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. While they were watching the movie, Heather, Christine, Bryson and I were in the almacen (storage area) sorting the donations this team brought down. I heard several good laughs so I think they liked the movie.

Today I’ve been quite unproductive and unmotivated. The only thing I’ve done is inventory scrubs after lunch with a couple of volunteers’ help! Maybe I’ll go log some more patients from our clinic my first week back!

Here are my most recent pictures. I have a couple of videos of Luz Maria singing that I’ll try to upload soon, they just take a little longer!

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