Life in Chapel Thrill

I'm in the midst of a very good book - although rather public health oriented called, "The White Man's Burden" by William Easterly. (I will also say that I am in the middle of 4 books right now - outside of class, that I flip among as the interest suits me...all having to do with public health, social justice, and inequality so get ready for a flurry of ideas as I find myself agreeing with certain books and completely disagreeing with others)

"The White Man's Burden" gives quite a good analogy about what is going on in the world when it comes to foreign aid and ending the plight of the poor. Those who are often involved in the idea of ending poverty are called the "planners". They often figure out what needs to be done in order to get mosquito nets to families in malaria infested areas, get kids into school where they could not previously afford it, etc while creating aid agencies to do the job. Unfortunately, the mosquito nets never make it to the families and those kids never get to school because the planners "plan" and don't follow through past planning. We end up with grandiose ideas and no feasible implementation for sustainability. Then there are, as Easterly calls them, the "searchers" who are able to market their product and get it out to the masses with great success. These are the J.K. Rowlings of the world who find a niche in selling books about wizardry and remove themselves from poverty...completely. The problem is that the poor don't typically spend $30 in the same way that a parent would pay $30 for a book about muggles and wizards. We haven't been very good at marketing ourselves and following through. According to the Chancellor of the UK, malaria medication to prevent half of the deaths around the world would cost about 12 cents per dose and bed nets cost about $4 per net. Not that much money when you think about it although there's always the issue of getting it out to the masses by traveling through areas that resemble where I lived in Kenya...not easy terrain.

The analogy that i enjoyed is quoted as this: "Setting a prefixed (and gradiose) goal is irrational because there is no reason to assume that the goal is attainable at a reasonable cost with the available means. It doesn't make sense to have the goal that your cow will win the Kentucky Derby. No amount of expert training will create a Derby-winning race cow. It makes more sense to ask, "What useful things can a cow do?" A cow can nicely feed a family with a steady supply of milk, butter, cheese, and (unfortunately for the cow) beef." The aid agencies right now are referred to as our "cows" in the world where we are racing to find cures and sustainable projects that are "feasible" in the setting and don't just look good on paper.

The problem is implementation within the system that the necessary item is being applied...not in the US system. We get so lost in setting goals that we think are necessary that we often look past feasibility within a rural setting such as where we worked in Neiba, Dominican Republic. Goals would be a great idea to have. Let's think about what we want to do and how we are going to get it out there. What happens then, when your goals fall through and the community is requiring you to change the goals of your program? Do you continue with the goals because that is what you started out to achieve or do you re-evaluate based on customer satisfaction and actual need? There is the difference, as the author states, between the planners and the searchers. I like the taglines, I must admit.

I also love what the Malawians are doing to combat malaria through bed nets. Instead of handing them out to people who often don't want them or see the need for them (turning them into fishing nets, etc - something I definitely saw on Lake Victoria in Kenya), they have implemented a program whereby those citizens who want them come to the clinic and get them for 3 or 4 cents. Mothers often will come get nets for themselves and for their kids - a market where there is need AND want. Also, the clinic workers get paid 9 cents for every net they sell, so they are always stocked full. Then the richer part of society pays a bit more, thereby subsidizing the cost of the other nets making the program sustainable without outside funding. I must say, as a side note, that bed nets do quite well in catching fish from a lake. (I'm not advocating this though...)

The point I have taken from my reading so far, and from the title, is the idea that since we were "given prosperity and peace", we should find ways for other countries to have the same ideas even when we have no idea how that would be implemented in those other countries. Let's take for example, just for understanding purpose, an upper class retired lawyer who decides he wants to implement programs in Harlem to combat drug use. This is his "goal". He has never lived in or anywhere near Harlem but has decided that is his location of choice and his fight - drugs in Harlem. Do you honestly think that he is going to be able to implement and pursue a successful anti-drug campaign in an area where he has no idea how things are run or the dynamic of the community? Of course not. The same holds true for certain aid agencies, never having set foot in the prospective country, deciding that they want to combat malaria on a "grand scale" with specific goals that would work here and (postulate time - thank you trigonometry) THEREFORE, these programs will work in another country as well. Right.....

I will leave you all with two questions...because I have been rambling too long for a blog that you wish to take only a few minutes out of your day to read...or today - a while longer.

By the way in which we approach the idea of aiding other countries, do we think of ourselves as the "parents" who feel they need to save their children or do we genuinely want to become one in solidarity to improve living conditions? Are we approaching this idea of foreign aid by being a bit patronizing?

Great quote from my Comparative Global Health Systems professor:

"There are two things in this world that you don't want to see made: sausage and legislation"

(In reference to healthcare legislation after it has gone through processing in committee, the house and senate. It often looks quite different once it has been disputed and changed due to differing opinions and the possibility of getting bills passed.)

But isn't that a GREAT quote?!

Well...not only do I have resources at my fingertips when it comes to public health but I also have tons of programs directly targeting the hispanic population in the area. Perfecto! Today I met up with some other students from the medical school here at Carolina to staff a table at the "La Fiesta Del Pueblo" where we took glucose tests and blood pressure as well as had information about local clinics who cater to the hispanic community. The festival itself is quite fun and lasts the entire weekend. There are musicians playing most of the weekend and there are tons of activities for the kids as well as free stuff everywhere. There are sections on education, public safety, health etc that offer various services and information about area projects and businesses. I have included a picture of our booth...at the end of a very very long day.

The students who I was working with today usually help staff a local clinic in Carrboro specifically aimed at the underserved hispanic population. The program they work for is called SHAC: Student Health Action Coalition which brings in medical, graduate, and undergraduate students as well as other professionals who want to volunteer at the clinic. It is run on Wednesday evenings and a variety of services are available. Needless to say, I'm going to be a volunteer. Haha.

The really fun part about today was being able to use my spanish and talk to people about possible risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, BMI as well as just have normal conversations about life in general. I get that feeling again of wanting to go to medical school after public health...here we go again. Haha. I must admit I am still timid but even when I screwed up sentences, they still understood me. I met a guy from Cuba who actually lives in Veradero Beach...the same place that I stayed in whenever I went to Cuba. He knows all the people we stayed with (small world!) and so we talked a little bit about the town and the healthcare system there as compared to here. All would not be possible without my Spanish - yay Community Service Alliance!

I also joined the Student Global Health Committee here which focuses on issues around the United States as well as other countries on issues that affect all of us. We go around to area schools and do talks in their health classes about STDS and HIV and try and open these kids up to a new understanding of their bodies. Unfortunately, Yay Bush! (SARCASM), we cannot talk about anything other than abstinence in the school systems here because...again Yay Bush (SARCASM), someone pushed through that legislation. So we are going to pretend in these talks that these kids are not having sex, nor will they have sex, nor should we talk about protection measures outside of abstinence in case they are having sex. I'm thrilled. Again - note the sarcasm. Oh Politics...

We are also having speakers come in from their respective fields to do campus wide debates about pressing issues throughout our communities, our country, and our world and try and really get the campus involved in major public health issues. In addition, the Catholic Student Center here is having discussions on Fair Trade, closing the School of the Americas, and Latino Advocacy in the United States in the upcoming months. Did I ever mention that I love the University of North Carolina? Yeah - cause I do.

I love Chapel Hill

I can honestly say that I am so thrilled to be here and am amazed at the opportunities that have been given to me. Wow. First of all, my Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Public Health class is a lecture series (from 5-7:30pm...bleh) where people from their specific disciplines in public health come and talk about what they are doing in the field and in the lab in public health. Our speaker tonight was Michael Merson who was head of the WHO's Global Program on AIDS from 1990-1995 and now serves in an advisory capacity for UNAIDS; The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria; The World Bank; and is a member of the Bill and Melinda Gate's Foundation's Global HIV Prevention Working Group. I felt I should have bowed in his presence. Amazing speaker...and amazing projects. He followed a very famous icon at the WHO, Jonathan Mann, who actually started the Global AIDS Initiative when no government would really touch the subject...(Yes, that means our government too...please research Reagan for starters) <--another poke at Reagan...I like doing that.

Sidebar - I would like to point out what Jerry Falwell said not too long after HIV/AIDS topics hit the media, "I believe that when one breaks the laws of nature and the laws of moral decency - And I do believe homosexuality is a moral perversion. When we go against nature, and God of course is the creator of nature, we therefore pay the prices for that. We do reap it in our flesh when we violate the laws of God."

*Sigh*...the outspoken who often shouldn't speak.


If you would like to watch an interesting and informative PBS Special on the "Age of AIDS" since the 1980's...go to:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/aids/view/
(It offers political, medical, and social insights into what was going on and what is still going on in terms of HIV/AIDS)


Needless to say, I am amazed at the resources that are being offered to us here. We have such diverse classes with people who have very different perspectives on this country and countries abroad. My Comparative Global Health Systems class has 2 guys from India, a guy from Kenya, a guy from Tanzania, a few people from South Korea, a guy from Germany, a girl from Spain, a guy from Bangladesh, as well as people who have traveled around the world working in clinics and public health programs. When we got to class yesterday (our first day because we started on Tuesday last week thereby missing Monday class), we were immediately told to get into groups and discuss a worksheet that included a developing country profile + 4 healthcare options that all had their ups and downs. OOOO - Puzzle! Unfortunately, this was like doing one of those Mosaic puzzles...which so far in my experience (and I believe the Michael's experience as well) are virtually impossible.

(Also - I am going to have to come up with more places to go and newer, cooler jobs to do internationally. When people ask me, "so where have you been?" and I answer, "Kenya, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Cuba," people say..."oh...hmmm...nice. I've been to Bangladesh, India, Tanzania, Guatemala, and Brazil." I am among equals and people who FAR exceed my knowledge or understanding of the system. I guess that's why I am in grad school though right?! Yay learning!)

I guess I will leave you with a Martin Luther King quote that I truly believe and am only beginning to understand.

"As long as there is poverty in the world, I can never be rich. As long as diseases are rampant...I can never be totally healthy...We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single dominant destiny and whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be." - Martin Luther King

Ciao,
Kat

Life in Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill

Many of you asked me to continue my blog as I headed off toward Graduate School in Public Health so that you could continue living in my head. As long as you stay quiet while you inhabit my head for awhile we will be fine...I have a lot of studying to do.

Most of you or many of you know that I was accepted into the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for my masters degree in Public Health. I started classes today and had my School of Public Health orientation yesterday. I have never felt so much like I am in EXACTLY the right place. Our orientation began with the usual welcomes and "our doors are open" from our advisors and the Dean. We then split off into our specific programs and I met 5 of the other 7 people who are in my program...yes 7. Public Health Leadership is a bit different in terms of programs there because you have more options in choosing classes and direction. It also means we are a smaller program with more access to our advisors (We have two advisors who split the 8 of us.) Where as the Nutrition, Biostatistics, Maternal and Child Health, and Epidemiology students (as a few examples) have programs that are geared more toward those specific areas and specific course outlines, Public Health Leadership is more of a blanket program where you are able to choose courses that interest you. I have also coupled my degree with a certificate program in Global Health where I have options of courses such as "Water and Sanitation Planning and Policy in Developing Countries", "Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases", "HIV/AIDS in Developing Countries", "US Latino Health Promotion", "Globalization and Health", "International and Comparative Health Systems", etc, etc, etc. In other words - YES KAT IS IN THE RIGHT PLACE.

This semester I am taking several of my core courses (there are 5 in all for my program along with certain categorical electives I have to fulfill) as well as pursuing parts of my Global Health Certificate. I am taking...

Biostatistics - Principles of Statistical Interference
Principles of Epidemiology
Introduction to Health Policy and Administration
Global Health Discussion Series
Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Global Health

I will have to say that the "Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Global Health is already by far my favorite class. Our assigned readings for next week focus on the "Global Burden of Disease as a snapshot of the world today." We will be discussing the "development" out of diseases that still occur in developing countries such as Tuberculosis and malaria into the diseases that are now prevalent in the "developed world" - Heart disease, strokes, cancer, etc. There are three professors team teaching this course who have all traveled to many places throughout the world and have either done their master's thesis or their dissertation about the public health systems in China, Thailand, and Kenya. What is so unique about this course is that we have lecturers come in who are often the top dogs in the business to present certain issues afflicting our world today. Topics such as "The Impact of Globalization on Health and Healthcare Systems", "HIV/AIDS: A Global Update", "The Global Landscape of Malnutrition, Under-nutrition, and Hunger", "Global Tobacco", "Access to Clean Water and Sanitation", Migration, Health, and Latino Experiences", and "Tuberculosis and Malaria: A Global Update" just to name a few.

As many of you know, I traveled to Kenya last year through a group called Village Volunteers (villagevolunteers.org) and worked at the Mama Maria Clinic in a rural village on Lake Victoria. Dealing with certain issues such as the spread of typhoid, schisosomiasis, amoebas (yes Kat loves those!!), and other water born ailments was forcing that village to look at alternative water supplies other than Lake Victoria. Courses such as Water and Sanitation Planning give a nice springboard for possible programs in areas such as these. Also, working in the Dominican Republic with Community Service Alliance (communityservicealliance.org) in a traveling clinic for a week, we were able to really see major effects of malnutrition and parasites on both children and adults among other ailments. I also had the opportunity to see the difference between the rural poor and the urban poor and the problems that face the wide spectrum in between.

From day one in my classes, we have been challenged and pushed to really begin thinking of ideas (solutions is never a good word in this context) to better our world here and abroad. We often find ourselves identifying problems throughout our country and world and the conversation ends there. What we are empowered to do (And this we is the collective we...meaning you too) is begin saying, "ok, what now?" "What can we begin doing to put sustainable projects into practice now and in the near future?"

I told my parents to expect a call after my orientation yesterday. What I really was expecting to say was, "Oh goodness, what have I gotten myself into? Is there a way to get back tuition and just go find a job?" (These are often usual Kat freakouts and my parents, I must say, have become quite used to listening to them over the years.) What I found was whenever I got done with my orientation, I was absolutely elated. You know how the puppy often pees when it's very excited...I didn't go that far...but I was close. I am absolutely thrilled about this opportunity and I have never been so excited to take courses in my life...even when they come with that dreaded word "school". I know that I have been led down the right path and I cannot wait to see what opportunities arise and hopefully my brain and chest will not explode from excitement. Look out world.

If you are interested in a good news source for Public Health as well a good (comical) video about "debunking third world myths"...try...

Harvard World Health News
http://worldhealthnews.harvard.edu/


Hans Rosling: Debunking Third World Myths with the Best Stats You have ever seen
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/92
(if you aren't a science person, you may miss some of it..but it's very intersting anyway...really-watch it)

"My dog" laying outside my unfinished door in my apartment and Freddy with a NC hat on...yeah that´s right, I taught him well.

Feet for pom pom critters (they are in stacks of 10), a few of the crafts I am doing on limited resources, and a mobile I made of African critters. You can ask me later why I didn´t choose something easier like...cats, dogs, rabbits, butterflies, etc. No, Kat chose the African animals...haha

I must say that I have respect for anyone who works out programs for kids of all different ages. I can come up with a lot of ideas for crafts and games...but these are kids who have never experienced a summer camp before. They are a bit easy because even crafts that you would do with the younger kids, the older kids enjoy as well. For instance, I am in the midst of cutting out supplies for the smaller kids to make "pom pom critters" (translate that to spanish...please) and all the volunteers who are in university want to make them too. My work this past week has been coordinating a lot of stuff and getting crafts cut out and ready for the first week of kids. I sat down one day and started cutting out feet for the pom pom critters, cutting out cardboard doughnuts to make them, and getting examples ready. I ended up cutting out 160 feet and over 100 doughnuts. My hands hurt a bit. The next day I had a friend helping with the doughnuts which was very much appreciated. We have 50 kids a week so I need 100 doughnuts a week plus a bunch extra in case they break them or they disappear. (the doughnuts are made out of cardboard to wrap yarn around to begin the process of pom pom critters.) I am then making butterflies with the kids with construction paper and tissue paper so the light can shine through the tissue paper. There´s an item that definitely doesn´t exist in Hato Mayor...haha. The nice part through all of it is that I don´t have to come up with new crafts for each week. (I just have to make 150 copies of everything...haha)

All is going well for me here. I "accidentally" (We all know Kat and animals) made friends with the dog that guards my house (he´s a Rottweiler/Labrador mix who grins like my Dylan does) so now at night he barks at everything to keep me protected. They refer to him as "my dog" now. He keeps me up every night right now and I have come out there and threatened his life several times at 2, 4, and 5 in the morning. I end up trying to throw in naps at random times during the day just to catch up! haha. Life is a funny, funny place, isn´t it?!

Spanish is easier in some ways because I am dreaming in Spanish and thinking in Spanish but there are days that it is hard too because I am in the mentality of home. Because I talk fast in Spanish, everyone talks fast back to me and I get lost in the mumbling of Dominican spanish where they drop "s´s". "Me gusta" becomes "me guta" when spoken and it often makes deciphering words fun. We all need a break sometimes I guess. Don´t worry, it´s still my favorite country!

Oh yeah, I´m going to NC School of Public Health in the fall..."I´m a Tarheel born, I´m a Tarheel bred, and when I die I´m a Tarheel dead..." : )

Life in Hato Mayor has definitely been a change for me since I had gotten quite used to the city and all the opportunities there, etc. I must say the thing I miss most is 11pm Sushi runs with all of my friends to go get Dominican Sushi - sushi with Platano maduro on top (wait til the banana is really ripe and throw it in hot grease. It means the banana is really sweet and is like a dessert here...at least for me) If I needed certain craft supplies for a project I wanted to do, I would just go to the store (in a public car...because I have MASTERED that!) and buy things based on our budget. As it stands, I either have to ask for someone to bring it from the city if they are coming, or send an email to an American group coming and hope that those donations will be brought with them. The first thing I did here was an itemized list of everything specifically that was needed from the US including things like pipecleaners because goodness knows THOSE don´t exist here. There end up being a lot of "what-if´s".

These are times you have to let go of being an American based on a rigid schedule and work through Dominican time and scheduling. I can´t tell you how many times I have told groups that have been down here that they need to just chill out and learn that things don´t happen on a normal time schedule. If there is a meeting at 9am, that really means that the meeting is somewhere between 9:30 and 9:45 and there´s no need to rush to get there and stress yourself out. No, no, no. The "hurry up and wait" that the groups do here seems to bother American mentality. Well...let me let you in on a secret. Dominicans don´t hurry up and wait. They look at the clock, see that it is 8:45 and that they have a meeting at 9. They eat their breakfast at a leisurely pace, drink their coffee, take their shower, and stroll out the door around 9:30. When they get there, usually everyone else is showing up or has already gotten there and there is no need to wait on anything. The meeting can now commence. Easy. Stop stressing out you crazy gringos.

Hato Mayor is definitely much slower and involves a break of several days between meetings...right now because of the rain. It´s like clockwork here. Around...well...now (as I sit in the internet cafe), it begins to rain (pour actually)and doesn´t stop til about 3 or 4 in the afternoon and then starts again around 8 or 9 and rains through the night. You find shelter where you are because there is no need to try and run to a meeting in the rain. Everyone else involved in the meeting is standing under some overhang or is in the next store over waiting out the rain as well. The town floods in certain areas although not like the city and of course Dominican life shuts down. If it´s raining, the mentality is, "We will have a meeting another day or much later today because no one is going to come anyway." Sadly that´s true...or funny because it´s predictable. For instance, I had a scheduled meeting yesterday with Sophia and Ana about organizing the volunteers for this summer camp. The meeting was at 3 and around 1pm, the downpour hit. It rained for 2 1/2 hours and then stopped. We could have taken the motoconcho over there at 3 and gotten a little bit wet, but it would not have mattered anyway. We strolled in around 4:30 and the volunteers were starting to show up. Only 4 of them came but that´s a pretty good turnout with that kind of weather. I was impressed.

As it stands right now, I am in my final stages of planning and getting everything ready for the first week. I have now cut out 40 butterflies out of construction paper (missing 60 more), 300 pieces of tissue paper to go with the butterflies, 140 pairs of feet to go with my pom pom critters, have examples of all of the possible crafts along with explanations in English and Spanish for both sets of volunteers, etc. All the cutting though, I must say with a laugh, has been done with my medical bandage scissors and everyone laughs at me. Hey, you use the supplies you have, right?

I must say that I am ready for a break and am ready to go home, see my parents, see my friends, see my dogs, take my own car to go wherever I want to whenever I want to, and not have to wait on the rain or a motoconcho. They are so worried about the gringa that they don´t let me go anywhere by myself and I often feel like I am 13 again with braces and an awkward grin (Oh wait, I did that again at the age of 22...hahaha) Anyway, back to cutting out feet out of index cards with medical scissors...

So I am in Hato Mayor now, 2 weeks of a small town after getting used to the city. Needless to say it is quite the change and I miss the ability to go anywhere I want to because the stores and places actually existed. At least there´s an ice cream store and an internet cafe here...haha. I am working on a summer camp for the kids here in and around Hato Mayor starting in two weeks. Most of the kids are poorer kids and live in the Barrios surrounding the town (poorer neighborhoods)so Sophia, the organizer, wants to do special stuff with the kids. My problem is writing a curriculum in Spanish when my Spanish is not that good..and then translating it into English for all of the English speaking volunteers who will be coming to help out this summer. Explaining the crafts has been really fun too...haha. I sit there with my dictionary and mime out as many words as I can..haha. This whole idea is new for me - coming up with all the games, all the crafts, the hours, the schedule, the other possible activities including meeting with the headmaster of the school where we will hold the camp, etc. I should be able to plan anything after this...haha.

We visited the school that we worked on last year when I came with Presbyterian Campus Ministry and a lot has been done. Unfortunately there´s a ton more that is needed. Supplies are expensive and contractors here have delayed and delayed on certain items so that the only way things get done are when groups from the States are here to do them. The money is tight and the progress is so slow. It was nice to see some parts finished and saddening to see other parts in the same place that they were a year ago. I´ve attached pictures mainly for those of you who were here with me last year to see progress...and non-progress.

Everyone take care and I will see you soon!

I had to take a picture of it before I left Santo Domingo. The oven in my host family´s house in SD...yeah, can you tell we use it?!

Welcome to rainy season in Santo Domingo...

my girls at Doña Chucha

Things have been crazy here lately with little time to think or write out a blog. We have had two groups from Virginia here...one group only for 10 days and the other group for three weeks. Welcome to being friends with everyone at CSA because you definitely are part of an unpaid contingency of staff.

I have been working at Doña Chucha two days a week in the morning helping the girls out with sport class...no wait...leading sport class completely in Spanish..woohoo Kat! (This sentence deserves and exclamation point...really) This means basically that I break up fights that the girls have every day or they take me aside in the middle of an organized game to stare at my hair and put it in braids.

Doña Chucha is a girl´s orphanage in Santo Domingo with 90 girls from the ages of 5 all the way to the teenage years. The girls are in school there and also live together. Many of them have extended families or parents who just can´t take care of them so often on the weekends, they go out and stay with their family or their family members visit them there. Most of the girls are starving for attention and once you pull out your camera, it is all over. They will all be posing with each other, with flowers, with our PE ball, etc. I love my girls though.

I went to the school a few weeks ago to begin working but when I talked to the director, Fior, the kids didn´t have their sport clothes ready even though we had called to tell them Friday and Monday that I was coming. Mmmk..in that case, I will come tomorrow...but NO...wait, even though I showed up the next day, they weren´t ready again because they were working on stuff for a mother´s day celebration that Friday. (Mother´s Day was this past Sunday, May 27th in the DR) Welcome to Dominican organizations. With some organizations it doesn´t matter how many times you exchange information or visit the place with the schedule of volunteers and programs, nothing seems to be ready. The problem is that these programs and interaction with willing and excited volunteers would benefit the kids here but the kids are suffering because the administration doesn´t have their act together. Don´t get me wrong, there are organizations here like Vision Mundial who are doing amazing jobs in the communities (especially the really really rural communities) and try everything in their power to benefit all the people around them. Unfortunately though, there are a lot of people who seem to be fine with their organization just getting by.

I have been helping out the group from JMU mainly because they are working both at the Down´s Syndrome School and at Doña Chucha so I have had experience with both programs. I have definitely gotten to see the other side of things in terms of leading groups and administrative details dealing with large groups of people.

I´ll get up some pictures in the next few days before I head to Hato Mayor for two weeks. I´m getting close to the time that I´m coming back and all the weeks are flying by right now!! I hope everyone is well and I miss you all!

My kids that I took to Feria del Libros, Guillermo on the computer, Evelyn painting (she´s probably my favorite kid), Lucas...always smiling for the camera, and Lucas and Katherine learning to make pineapple juice.

me and Liz in the middle of our ¨short walk¨ in Hato Mayor for my birthday.
Sophia and Raphael made me a cake for my birthday!!

These past two week I have been working with kids from the Down Syndrome School here in Santo Domingo. The moment I walked in the door my first day the secretary asked me if I could take a group of the kids with me to Feria del Libros and have the kids work on the computers there. Well sure...let me just jump into a new job by being completely uncomfortable in a place I don´t know with 5 kids with Down Syndrome. I would like to file that under the ´not smart´category...just for future reference.

Feria del Libros...just to clear that up, is a book fair with books from all over the Latin world plus 1 or two shops from the USA - South America, Central America, etc...and there are tons of shops and tons of people. There is an area for the kids with puppet shows and book readings, places for ice cream, places for pizza and other food, and tons and tons of book shops. My job with the kids for one whole week was to meet them (thank God not take them) to Feria del Libros and work at this place with computers from 2-4 pm so that the more high functioning down´s kids could get computer exposure. The school had nothing planned for them so they ended up typing brochures for the place where the computers were. At least it was easy enough. The next day, the kids were a good 30 minutes late but they made it. Come Wednesday, no kids. The program is supposed to extend from Monday - Thursday...where are my kids? Knowing full well Dominican time...I waited. Finally after 1 1/2 hours of waiting, I got a phone call from the Director saying that they weren´t coming today. Awesome. Thursday...oh yeah. The same without the call. But I digress...

Yesterday, I got to the school and we worked with beads. At least for the girls. We have one kid, Luis Miguel who sits there, stares at the ceiling and spits through his tongue most of the day. We have other kids who make jokes and are on a very high functioning level. After beads we painted...thankfully with washable paints. I turned around for 5 seconds and Juan Miguel had painted his face a beautiful shade of red...and his hands a nice tint of yellow. Awesome. They really are a joy to work with and I am definitely learning my commands with them in spanish. So, welcome to an update of a few events at the moment. Pictures to follow.

So last weekend I definitely got a good surprise when I got taken to Hato Mayor because Sophia wanted to throw me a party for my birthday. It definitely fit into true Dominican form because plans were canceled or sketchy as all get out and then the trip itself was decided Saturday morning at about 9am...I hadn't even woken up yet...sweet. On Sunday, they took me out to this land that belonged to one of the ladies there...tons of oranges (although according to the kids there, the fruits weren't oranges, they were 'chinas' ...whatever, they are small oranges). We were told that we were going for a walk which turned out to be a hike with these kids through fields, up around the orange trees, mango trees, cacao trees, etc crossing rivers and ducking under barbed wire fences to keep out the animals. Can't keep us out...hehehe. They told us that we were going around the bottom of the mountain and would continue in a circle around the bottom and come back to where we were eating lunch. We got about 3/4 of the way there and Freddy, our guide...maybe 11 or 12 years old disappeared and we couldn't find him at all. We yelled for him for like 5 minutes...NADA. So...we took off back the way we came which took what seemed like forever. The entire walk was in the sun and we were sweating like crazy. All the little kids had taken off their shirts and Elizabeth and I kept saying that we wished we were guys so that we could do away with the shirts that were sticking to our backs. Of course, since we thought we were going for a short walk, we didn't take ANY water at all and drank...hmm...probably a gallon each in a 2 minute sitting. Well...anyway, lunch was ready. We sat around, ate pollo y arroz and cooled off. A few minutes later, everyone came back out singing Happy Birthday...in English. Good Spanish Immersion...hahaha. They had me a cake with a big candle in the middle with TONS of icing. Sweet! We ended up having to take off back for Santo Domingo partially because we still had things to do...but also because it started pouring down rain...haha. Turns out that the presidential party was having a convention in Santo Domingo and all of the buses on the road were full of people being bussed into the city for the convention. Welcome to outright craziness.

Ok, the political party pays to have people bussed into the city when conventions are happening where they pay for the buses for these people, pay each one of them a certain small fee for coming and pay for their food and beer during the convention. This time, they were having a parade around the entire city, there were guaguas (buses) everywhere in the city, and helicopters flying overhead. Of course you couldn't get through with anyone on the phone and good luck if you decided to go anywhere in the city because you would encounter absolute traffic jams no matter what street you were on. Perfect time to stay inside, sleep for awhile, and then watch a movie....without stepping foot outside. Kind of my perfect day anyway.

a day at the clinic when it was still slow enough to take pictures...and our transporation up the mountain

most of our group and digging something green out of a kid´s ear.

The pharmacy at the beginning of the week...and the pharmacy at the end of the week...sweet.

and some of our patients...

a family near where we stayed, one of the views while we drove to the clinics and the roads that we were driving on.

A break from the ordinary to something extraordinary

This past week I was given the opportunity to go to Neyba, a town on the western side of the island to work with a medical group from West Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine. I always get onto the director here because he says that gringos are so easy to spot in the airport and that they stand out like a sore thumb. I stand corrected now. I went with CSA to pick up the group and then immediately drive to Neyba that day. A group of 7 gringos and an Indian doctor walked through the gate looking absolutely bewildered and completely out of place. They might as well have had a sign above their heads shouting, ¨we don´t belong here...can you tell?¨ although their faces did that quite well for them.

We all thought that we were going to be in Neyba but it turns out that after we got to Neyba we still had a 30 minute (Dominican time) drive ahead of us. That means 1 1/2 hours later we arrived at our destination...a conference center on the top of the mountain with a view of the entire area and the valleys surrounding. It was quite a nice center although it was very hard to communicate because there was no cell phone signal at all there. Come on...I know you´re out in the middle of nowhere...but let´s get some cell phone service going on here! (totally a joke). The only thing that the group didn´t quite like was the fact that the conference center only had cold water for showers. It was pretty much exactly like my shower here in the city so it didn´t phase me at all.

The group was mainly second year students with 2 first year med students so they were all pretty new to practicing...and definitely new to clinics in third world countries in poor rural areas. We started the first day working out of the conference center and setting up a pharmacy (I almost spelled that farmacia...woohoo spanish) and a consulation room in two different locations so we could shuttle patients from one to the other without too much congestion. That was easier said than done considering we saw over 200 patients the first day and most of the families had 5-10 kids who were sick at one time. When they got to the pharmacy, they would hand us all of those records at once and we would have to frantically fill all of them. I ended up being the one translating for everyone in the pharmacy which was slightly interesting because I ended up looking up tons of words the first few hours to even figure out how to say certain things. By the end of the day I was a pro and had figured out dosing and how to explain prescriptions quite well.

The second day the group took off in a flatbed pickup truck to climb the steep mountain roads comprised entirely of rock and mud (mainly just really really rocky - although when it actually rains, it is quite a different story). We arrived at a school established by Vision Mundial (a paragraph of praise follows shortly for this organization!) and set up the clinic much the same as before. This was the case every day from then on as we set up shop in different schools in different communities throughout the entire area. Overall, we went to 7 different communities in 5 days and saw around 938 patients...we were a bit tired at the end of the week after working from 9 am to 4 pm with a 1 hour break for lunch. That averages about 33 patients an hour.

What cracked me up A LOT was the fact that the entire group seemed ok at asking for my 'expert opinion' on spanish terms and for medication dosing. Here´s an idea...let´s ask the college graduate questions about dosing...good call. Two days I worked with doctors helping to diagnose patients and translate all of their symptoms into spanish. What was cool was that there were many times where it was so straight forward that you could just diagnose most of the problems based on their symptoms...the parasitic infection was pretty easy...even if they didn´t have it, you gave one prophylactically. I actually found myself teaching the students a lot about third world medicine and how to listen for different things...woohoo.

The last day we treated a community right on the river and got to take the afternoon to hang out on this beautiful river that flows through the community. It was nice because the day before ended up treating patients until 7pm and were absolutely exhausted at the end of the day.

What was soooo fun was that I still had homework for CSA (which I still haven´t finished) because I was given an entire notebook of homework to do. Go treat patients and be one of the 'experts' on medications and spanish...and then come home to more homework than I had for some classes in college...sweet.

I also basically became part of CSA staff this past week because I helped get the group where they needed to be and checked in for updates with CSA. I also helped take the students around the Colonial Zone on their last day and got them to the airport. Maybe there´s hope for me after all...haha.

Overall, an amazing week in which I learned so much Spanish just by being exposed and having to scream out whatever I could to help the patients understand their medication dosing and to understand their symptoms when I was one of their doctors. I think I´m just going to move to the country side and set up shop from now on just to learn more.

Some more pictures from Bahia de las Aguilas. Most gorgeous place I have seen...

A photo to share

Me and Jamie at Bahia de las Aguilas on my one excursion outside of Spanish classes.

The Spanish continues to be hard and has so many rules that I get very confused so many times. I will think I am understanding something and then I try it on my own and have no idea what I am doing. I randomly find myself regressing back into French and giving French names to different items. 6 hours of class a day is quite extreme although it has been good for me - it is definitely what I needed considering my elementary level of Spanish (known as nothing, nada, no Spanish). The only thing I can say is that I wish I had more talking with people so that I can get used to actually speaking. I had Dona Violeta, the Spanish coordinator for CSA, for class the other day and my class was absolutely amazing. I learned more in one class period than I had learned in one week with one of my other teachers. My teacher in the morning is awesome and I usually understand most of what he says to me in class. We get along really well and I enjoy those classes even when I get frustrated. All part of the learning process.

It´s the little things here too that get me through the days. I find myself stopping under a certain tree in the morning just to get a whiff of wet leaves that smell like autumn. There is a corner near my house as I walk to the bus stop in the morning that no one sweeps and the leaves that fall of the tree collect on the sidewalk. When it rains, the leaves fill with water and smell of autumn in the mountains of North Carolina as you hike up the trails that are covered in yellow, red, and orange leaves that have fallen. I´m sure the people around me think I´m crazy because I take a deep breath and smile ever so slightly every time I come to that specific corner. Lovely that it almost got me hit by a car the other day because I wasn´t paying attention at all after that and crossed the road. Oops. Speaking of traffic, that´s definitely another thought that gets me through the day...whether or not I can manipulate public transportation in order to get to work without getting lost. My first day was quite fun in terms of public transportation because I ended up on the other side of the city completely and had to walk 15 blocks. Now I know my way around the city quite well..at least in certain areas. It´s such an accomplishment every morning for me that I made it to work without getting killed as well. Forget the lines on the road for two lanes only - that means 3-4 lanes depending on how tight you are willing to squeeze the cars. The whole system is so hectic but I´ve mastered it! (At least from my house to CSA....yeah that´s about it).

Mornings require coffee and Ana at CSA makes fun of me almost every morning about my coffee taste - completely black. No sugar, no milk. Black. Deybi, my teacher, puts about a pound of sugar in his and swears it´s not that sweet....yeah ok, sure. I like it bitter.

I´m learning faster and am starting to understand more and more spanish although Dominican slang is quite a different story. I need everyone to speak proper spanish to me, por favor. I´m sure it´s like moving to the South and not speaking any English and hearing ¨redneck¨for the first few times. Sometimes I don´t even know what they are saying and I´m from that area. Ah - the wonderful Southern language...

My first week in the Dominican Republic

So, I am new at this whole blog idea. I´m also working on this on a computer with all the webpages in spanish so I hope I figure out what is going on! I will post pictures when I actually take a few around the city and at CSA (Community Service Alliance). I´m trying not to be a tourist yet until I figure out what is going on...besides...I stand out enough here.

My first day was pretty easy except for the fact that I was so tired from getting up so early and flying. The airport in Santo Domingo has been remodeled and looks insanely nice compared to the way it looked last year. There are tons of quotes with gorgeous pictures of the DR all down the halls and I almost didn´t even recognize the airport that I sat in for 2 hours last year waiting on our transportation.

Tony, one of CSA´s drivers came to pick me up at the airport and took me to my host family´s house. It was an extremely quiet ride because well...there´s that whole language barrier thing. Also, as I have now found out, his spanish is all slang so it makes more sense why I just sat there and stared at him in the car that day when he would talk.

Once I got inside my host family´s house, I realized that this was not going to be a Kenya experience...haha. There would be no mudhut, no 2 in thick dirt streets to trudge through to get work, and no lake water for drinking. My house here is actually pretty dang nice. We have a tv, dvd player, vcr, gamecube, and a computer. The only thing we don´t have I think is internet...which is probably good. My room is in the back of the house and is pretty tiny but it suits me well. I have a desk, a bedside table, and a bed...and my own bathroom and shower. The shower is insanely cold and I have to psych myself out every morning just to jump in it long enough to wet myself down, soap up, and rinse off. It´s quite a wakeup call in the morning considering my whole body is shaking after the experience. I have my own fan to keep off mosquitoes but I do honestly believe that I am living with Kamakazi mosquitoes that surpass all airspeeds just to feast on my face. It does not matter if that fan is aimed directly at my face or if it is at the highest speed possible...I will wake up with a swollen cheek or eye due to flesh feeding at night. I guess I taste good.

My first day of classes I learned public transportation...well...tried. I have the barriers of language, being a small town girl (not from a city), being in a new country completely, and being completely out of element going against me in my plight for learning the stupid buses and cars. I honestly think it would have been smart to try this with me a teeny bit later in my travels than on my second day...anyway.

So, let´s talk about public transportation in the city of Santo Domingo. To get from my house to CSA, I have to take either 2 cars or 1 bus and 2 cars. By car, it should take 15 minutes to get to CSA but since I have to stand out at the road and try to find a car or wait on the bus, it takes a lot longer. Being a gringa too, I have to fight harder for cars because Dominicans will push you out of the way to get into the car before you. It costs me about $2 every day to get to and from work so it gets expensive quickly if I have to do this every day for 3 months.

My first two weeks are intensive spanish only so that I can go work at the volunteer places and have functional spanish as well as work with a medical team soon. I never am completely sure what I am doing or when I am doing it because sometimes things change and plans have to be rearranged.

It´s frustrating not knowing a language and being a perfectionist, I want to know it all now! I want a Matrix program that can just be downloaded into me and ´pow!´I know spanish!!! (probably cheaper way to go as well!)

I will continue with updates I promise even though I am behind on this already! Blogs are new ideas for me!