Fin

Less than 24 hours. That’s how long I have left until my plane takes off for Chicago. We’ve all been asking each other whether or not we are ready to leave. For me personally, I’m really excited to go back to the US, because as soon as I land, I’ll be welcomed back my older brother, who only get to see a few times a year. I’m spending a week visiting all of my aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and grandparents. My mom and my sister will be in Illinois at that time too, so I’ll even get to see them. I can’t wait to be with all my family again. But as excited as I am for Illinois, it’s going to be so hard to say goodbye to this country and the people here. I’m not mentally prepared for it. I haven’t packed yet, or gone souvenir shopping. They’d both make this whole “leaving” thing feel too real.

            My last week in the clinics was a good one. Jane and I spent our last few days entertaining kids in the waiting room. On Monday I drew pictures with the nurse’s 6-year-old son. I drew him a lion and an elephant, because those are the two things that I know how to draw. When I had to leave to go observe the doctors, I let him keep the paper. Later on, he walked into the consultation room, and handed me a paper full of his own drawings. He drew me a cat, a snake, a giraffe, and then a lion that he had based off of my lion. It was so sweet. I still have that paper, and I plan on keeping it.

            Wednesday, I saw three siblings all huddled by their mother. I tried to go talk to them, but they were all very shy. I tried to teach them Rock, Paper, Scissors, but they were to shy to play with me. So I went and got a few sheets of paper and some pens, and convinced the two older kids to come draw with Jane and me. They mainly scribbled, and Jane and I drew a couple more lions and elephants for them. After ten minutes or so, they really started opening up to us. They took pictures with us, and sat on our laps, and tapped on our shoulders to show us their drawings. We even saw sibling rivalries come out when a pen went missing (don’t worry, we found eventually found the pen, and all was well).

            All of the adults in the room were watching us draw and interact with these kids, and laughing because they were absolutely hysterical.  One patient even asked for a picture of him with us, because he thought that it was so cool seeing us Americans working with the kids in the clinic. I’m really going to miss all of the people and patients I have interacted with. They’re all so loving and open. We could ask them one question, and they’d share their life story with us. Or if they had anything at all that they could possibly share with us, like food or mints, they’d offer it to us. No matter how sick, or how poor the people were, they were always so happy, and so grateful for everything they had. Saying goodbye to our doctor was the hardest part. We took a few pictures together, exchanged numbers, and gave her some bread and soda as a gift. Leaving the clinic was a sad moment for me. I’ve had my ups and downs there, but in the end it was an incredible experience, and I am so grateful to have been able to volunteer there. It’s given me a completely new perspective on the health care system, and I want to work in medicine now more than ever.

            Wednesday night was our Goodbye Dinner. The entire group got dressed up, and we went out to dinner with our teachers and the ISA staff. It was a nice dinner, and it was sad thinking that this would be the last time that everyone in the group would be together. It’s funny looking back to the first few times that our group hung out. The group dynamic has changed so much since then. It also feels like the beginning of the trip was forever ago. Like thinking about that first day or two when we visited this museum, and went to the monument for the first time, and had our welcoming barbecue. I feel like that all happened months ago. I remember my first time riding the conchos around, and hearing how noisy the city was, and just getting back to speaking Spanish again, and feeling a little overwhelmed. Now I’m used to all that, and my Spanish is the best it’s ever been. I feel like I’ve been in the DR forever, but I also feel like this trip has gone by so fast. This country feels like another home now, rather than some foreign country I’m visiting. I almost feel like I’m part Dominican.

            Last night, my friend’s house mom wanted to throw a party for us, so Catherine, Natasha and I went over to Mitch and Luke’s house. We ate hamburgers, talked, danced, sang Karaoke, played dominoes, and hung out one last time before we all head back to the states. It was a lot of fun, but again, bittersweet. I’m glad that we all go to the same college, because I have made some amazing friends here. I really hope that we all hang out again, and keep in touch once we go back to our normal lives in Gainesville.

            Tomorrow my host family is driving me to the airport. I don’t even want to write about saying goodbye to them, because I’m sad just thinking about it. My parents here have treated me like I was family this whole time, so saying goodbye is going to be hard. Saying goodbye to my real family is always hard, but I know that I’ll see them again in a few months. With my family here, I doubt that I’ll see them again. As much as I’d love to come back here to the DR, I know that it’s probably not going to happen anytime soon. This trip has been such an adventure. I feel so lucky to have gone through this experience, and I’m so sad to see it all coming to a close.

            I’m really going to miss the Dominican Republic…

Los Perros en La Calle

            It’s almost midnight, and I have to get up early tomorrow for clinics, and I should probably still be cramming for my Spanish final tomorrow. But I HAVE to blog right now, because if I don’t I’ll probably going to go insane. When I signed up for this trip to the DR, I knew that it’d see a lot of people living in extremely bad conditions. But I never thought that I’d see so many animals living in such horrible conditions. I feel nauseous just thinking about all of this. If you'd rather not read about the very sobering animal neglect/cruelty here, stop reading now. Seriously. I won't be offended.           

            I don’t know why this is bothering me so much. I love animals and all, but I’m not an animal-rights-activist by any means. I eat meat, even though I know the animals are treated cruelly. I support testing new medications on animals, as long as it’s as humane as possible. But I literally can’t focus on anything else other than the dogs. Maybe it’s because of the constant barking. Or maybe it’s because of the fact that I have seen so much suffering by these animals, and then seen people not care/make it worse, and on top of that, being told there is nothing I can do to help.

            There are stray dogs everywhere. I’ve gotten used to seeing them just walking around. But within the past week or so, I’ve seen way too many puppies. While I was walking to a café the other day, a little golden retriever/mutt started following my friend and I. He wove between our feet, and looked up longingly at us. Most of the puppies here are born with a sense of hopelessness, and with absolute despair in their eyes. If you coo at them, they sink into a corner, and try to make themselves smaller. But this puppy had a smaller glimmer of hope in his eyes. And I know that sounds super lame and all, but I felt like if I could get this puppy to a vet to get vaccinated, and then washed him up, I could have taken him home and he would have grown up to be a loyal dog.

            I saw another one of these rare, hopeful puppies at the beach this past weekend. My friends and I went to sit down in our chairs, and a puppy crawled out from the shade beneath one of our chairs. He hung out near us for a while, but spent most of the time hiding in the shade. There was one point when he playfully pounced on my toes, but other than that brief moment, he tried to stay out of our way.

            Today in the clinics, we passed by a tiny, black puppy that looked like it had just recently opened it’s eyes. He had what was left of some caution tape tied around his neck. I felt so bad for this little guy, so as I entered the clinic, I whistled at him, and he (very cautiously) followed me in. I figured he would weave between my feet, or pounce on my toes like the last two, but when I turned around, I saw him collapsed in the middle of the cool tile floor right at the entrance. I went to put my white coat down really fast, but when I returned, the puppy with the caution tape was gone.

            I like to think that somebody just shooed him out, but I know that in reality, it was probably a lot harsher than that. Someone probably kicked him out, literally. He probably scampered off to find shelter somewhere. Given his age and the fact that he’s got that caution tape choking him, he probably won’t live much longer.

            But the thing is, here no one cares. It’s just another pest to them. Like I said, people would probably kick him, if he got in their way. It took so much strength to not pick any of these dogs up, but I know that doing so would be dangerous. They don’t trust people, and it’s likely they would freak out, or try to attack. They are also full of diseases, and there are many cases of rabies that go around here.

            There has been a new gang of strays that has been hanging out in the street in front of our apartments. There are 4 males, and 1 female. For the past three days now, I’ve seen a major fight at least once a day. The four dogs tackle each other, scratch each other’s faces up, and bite at each other’s throats. It’s so violent. Usually three end up whimpering away, while the other goes and claims the female as his prize. She’s usually found hiding under some car, trying to avoid all of the males. After that, they all come back together, and continue wandering the streets together. There’s always so much tension, and they’re always growling and snarling and barking at each other until the next fight happens. Just now I saw one of the dogs laying in the shade of a car. I did a double take once I registered that something was off. The dog’s front left leg was bend almost ninety degrees right in the middle. It’s leg was completely broken.

            Usually I wouldn’t feel this bad. I mean, it’s just a dog, and I’m sure that there are people here who are suffering more than that dog is. But the thing is, if a person had a broken arm, everyone would care. At the sound of a car accident, everyone drops what they are doing to go help. If anyone is sick or injured, the family will stop at nothing to get them the care they need. Almost no one is homeless, because no matter how poor the families are, they give each other shelter when they have no where else to go. The families here are always advocating for each other, and always taking care of each other. But it’s the exact opposite for the stray dogs. No one cares. No one is going to take care of the broken arm. The dog is probably going to limb around until he dies. He’ll probably end up rotting on a curb somewhere.

            I’ve always appreciated the work of the Humane Society, ASPCA, PETA, and even animal control. But I’ve never realized how big of an impact they have on my daily life. We are so lucky to live in a society where we don’t witness cruelty, dogfights, strays, and animal suffering and death on a daily basis. I can’t wait to go home and pet my cats, and my brother’s dog, and my uncle’s dog the way I wish I could with all of the dogs here.  It’s going to be rough trying to get any sleep tonight…

Me Falta Una Semana...

            That time of the semester is now upon me. Finals week. Except since this is a 6 week program, it’s more like “Final Day-Or-Two”. Sigh. The volunteering I do is technically a “class”, so our “final” consisted of a PowerPoint presentation about our experience (which I haven’t started yet…) and a day of observation. I was honestly really nervous for our teacher to observe us, because the clinics can be very luck-of-the-draw. Some days they turn out to be super exciting. Others we literally sit on our butts and listen to the doctor talk, and *maybe* something interesting will pop up. So we warned our teacher in advanced.

            Luckily, it turned out to be an incredibly interesting day. The nurses caught quickly to the fact that we were being observed, and they did everything they could to help us out. We started out the day by shadowing a nurse, which Jane and I have never done before. She was really sweet, and excited to hear about our endeavors to learn Spanish and to go into medicine. She actually let me take the blood pressure of a patient. I was really nervous that I’d gotten the wrong numbers, but it turned out that the patient was coming in to get help for her high blood pressure.

            Then the nurse had Jane take the weight of a patient on the scale out in the weighting room.  After the patients saw that we were weighing people, every single person in the room lined up to have us take their weight. There were moms, dads, teenagers, kids, and the elderly all excited to have us weigh them. It was interesting, because their views on weight are very different than ours in the US. Americans tend to be so hush-hush about our weight. We find it rude to ask how much someone weighs, and rude to comment on their physic. This didn’t occur to me until I was actually weighing an overweight patient. I set the balance on the scale, and when I had it just right, I pointed and half-whispered “two hundred fifty four”.  She kept asking me to speak up, and speak up, until I was practically shouting her weight. I thought that maybe she was hard of hearing, but then she turned around to her family and the random strangers near her, and was like “Did you guys hear that? I weigh 254!” And then all of the people began commenting on how “fat” she was.

            I also weighed one of the families that I had seen last Thursday when I was out in the community! Usually, I know absolutely nothing about the home life of the patients I see (this is especially true back at home in the US). But when I saw the family from the community, I had a bigger picture of what their life was like. It was much more holistic that way, and I felt like I knew that family a little more personally than the average family that happens to walk in.

            After that, the nurses had us give an impromptu speech about breastfeeding and nutrition using these prompt-card, and then sent us in to go shadow the doctors like usual. One patient came in with a cardiogram, (recording of the heart), and let us look at it. She took the time to explain how it was taken, and where the different monitors were placed on the body. We also saw a pregnant patient with her first ultrasound, a teenager with syphilis, and talked to quite a few people about blood pressure, blood sugar, fat consumption, and diabetes (All the food here tends to be very sugary and very greasy, so these are some of the most common diseases we see here).

            After our teacher left, things got even more interesting. There was another stray wondering around, the consultation room, and we got to see a patient with a rare spinal deformity. We also had given the doctor a flashlight that morning (after the phone cell phone incident), and we got to watch our doctor use it for the first time. When she performed this pap smear, she was amazed at how well she was able to see, and was very grateful for the gift. She told the resident to put it somewhere safe, and to not waste the battery. They’ve never used a flashlight in the clinics before, so they treated it very carefully. It made me realize how much we take our equipment in the US for granted. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people cuss out the alarm systems on the monitoring machines. It’s crazy to think about how we find such state of the art machines annoying, or an inconvenience at times, while the doctor here holds the flashlight like she would a baby. Now I’m actually looking forward to hearing all of those beeps and alarms on the machines when I get back to volunteering in US hospitals. No matter how obnoxious they can be at times, we are so lucky to have more than just the stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, flashlight, and a few other little miscellaneous tools that they have here.

            Our last patient of the day was a Haitian woman that we’ve seen a few times before. She’s anemic (she doesn’t have enough red blood cells), has O negative blood, and is pregnant. This is a really dangerous pregnancy, because her husband has positive blood. There’s a chance that the baby could end up inheriting the dad’s positive blood. If this happens, and the mom and baby’s blood mix, the mom’s body will think that the positive blood is “foreign”, and her body will make antibodies to attack it. Since this isn’t her first child, the antibodies have already formed, and it’s very likely that she’ll miscarry, unless she goes to the next level up to get treatment. Unfortunately, she only knows Creole, and doesn’t speak any Spanish. The entire consult was back and forth between the mom, the Haitian resident (who speaks Creole, Spanish and English), and the doctor. Just like any immigrant, navigating the health care system is scary when you don’t speak the language. From what the resident has told me, she also seems to be having trouble understanding why it’s so important that she gets medical care. Hopefully, the resident will be able to get through to her, and she’ll get the care she needs.

            While listening to this consult, Jane and I played with her 3-year-old son named Benjie. This kid had these bright, happy eyes, a huge smile, and such a loving personality. I got on the floor and sat with my legs crossed to say hi. He came right up to me, put both hands on my face, and leaned in so that his forehead was almost touching mine. I put my arms around him, and he gave me this radiant smile. Then he started to stick out his tongue and make all of these silly faces at me. When I repeated them back to him, he’d smile even bigger. Even though we couldn’t speak the same language, Benjie’s love and warmth shone through. I have never seen such a kind spirited in my entire life. Dominicans discriminate so much against Haitians, so I’m sure that his family has faced all sorts of adversity in the DR. But Benjie was still so vivacious and lively. That small interaction with him was one of the highlights of my work in the clinics.

            So I’d say that “final” went pretty well.

            I’ve still got an online quiz and an oral exam for my Spanish class that I need to study for. I’m right on the verge of getting an A, and after all my hard work these past six weeks, I want the A as proof of how much I’ve learned and how far I’ve come. I’ve also been working like crazy on my medical terminology class. I’m determined to get it done and out of the way before I start my other classes during the second half of summer. I’ve been working my butt off studying these past few days. Yay for finals. Not.

            On the bright side, I was able to relax a little bit this past weekend. On Friday, I went with Catherine and our friends Luke and Mitch to one last trip to Sosua. I’m really going to miss that beach. We talked and hung out in the water. At one point, we swam out to a small reef, and saw these really bright blue colored fishes. It wasn’t quite as cool as the snorkeling trip, since I couldn’t stick my head into the water, or swim down to look (I have contacts, so I can’t open my eyes under water). But it was definitely fun. It was a very relaxing day with some great people. I really hope that we get to hang out again when we’re all back in Gainesville.

            I only have one more week left here in the DR before I head back to the US! I’m really excited to go to Illinois to see all of my family, but I’m also really sad to be leaving. I’ve had such an amazing experience here, and I’ve improved my Spanish so much. I feel like if I had 6 or so more weeks, I’d be close to fluent. I really hope that I can find a way to keep speaking Spanish. I’d hate to loose all that I’ve worked for. Anyways, I’ll write later this week and let you know how my last few days in the DR go!

                            

Taking Vital Signs!

Consultations with the Doctor 

Benjie

Fábrica de Cigarros, Las Hermanas Mirabal, y Casa Marina Reef

         This past weekend I experienced my favorite part of my trip, as well as my least favorite. My least favorite part was on this Friday. We had a three-part excursion with our group that day. Since one of the DR’s main exports is cigars, we visited the largest cigar factory in the country. Now for those of you who don’t know me all that well, I HATE the smell of smoke. It’s more than simply not liking the smell; cigarette/cigar smoke makes me feel physically sick. So in hindsight, I should have just skipped the factory all together and stayed on the bus. But I figured it wouldn’t be THAT bad, because they’d just be making the cigars, and not smoking them. So how bad could the smell really be? Also, I had promised one of my best guy friends from home, Gabe, that I’d buy him some as a souvenir. So I decided to suck it up and go.

            I lasted all of 10 minutes in the factory. It wasn’t too bad at first. It was interesting watching the workers make the cigars, and the smell was present, but not overwhelming. Then some of the workers light up, and start smoking while they worked. I was scrunched up against the back wall, hating life. I felt dizzy, light headed, nauseous, I couldn’t breathe, I had a massive headache, and my eyes were tearing up. I literally ran out maybe a minute or two after they had started smoking. I ended up hanging out on the bus instead of going on the rest of the tour. Two other girls came out shortly after, once they saw that leaving was an option. I sent some money to my friend who was still on the tour to buy Gabe his stupid cigars, and relaxed and talked to my fellow anti-cigar friends.

            I started to feel better later, because the rest of our trip involved the outdoors. Thank God for fresh air. The second stop was a museum for the Mirabal sisters, who were four extremely important women in Dominican history. The short version of their story is that there used to be a horrible dictator in the 40’s – 50’s. He would kill any one who opposed him, and then control the media to keep the public unaware of what was happening. One of the sisters joined a resistance group, and then later two of her sisters followed. They distributed pamphlets to educate the public about what was happening, and started stocking up weapons for an eventual revolution towards a democracy. They started to become nationally known, and people started to nickname them the butterflies.. But one day while the three sisters were heading home, they were stopped by Trujillo’s forces, and violently murdered. Their death was the beginning of the revolution, and Trujillo was assassinated the following year.

            The museum we visited was eerily beautiful and serene. It was the house that they had lived in right before they had been killed. The rooms had been preserved, and the dinning room table was still set for the dinner the never came home to. Outside where their farmland had been was now a beautiful garden, full of butterflies. I ended up buying a bunch of these little butterfly-shaped key chains (that had the Mirabal sisters commemorative coin in the center) for all of my family. After that, we went on an hour and a half long high through the cacao forest. I absolutely loved being in nature and the fresh air. I also got to see where chocolate comes from. It was definitely more enjoyable than seeing where cigars came from.

            I spent Saturday and Sunday in Sosua with a bunch of my friends. We stayed at this gorgeous resort called Casa Marina Reef Resort. We all ate tons of food, hung out by the pool, and went to the beach the first day. It was a lot of fun just relaxing, and enjoying each other’s company. It felt like I was on vacation, rather than on a study abroad. Sunday was even better than Saturday. We bargained with one of the workers at the resort, and were able to convince them to take us out snorkeling by the coral reefs for only $25 a person. Snorkeling was the one thing that I really wanted to do while we were down here, so I was super excited. We grabbed 3 or 4 loafs of bread from lunch, got all of our gear together, and took a boat out to a reef named Three Rocks.

            The water was crystal clear, and the reefs were gorgeous. There were so many tropical and colorful fish swimming around the reefs. Then we started throwing bread in the water, and all of the fish swam out of the reefs, and up to the surfaces. We were literally swimming in a school of fish. They would brush my legs or arms, or if I was subtle enough I could reach out and touch them. I was giddy the whole time. I’ve snorkeled before, but the fish were always so far below me. At Sosua, they were right next to me. My ears hurt afterwards from diving down into the water so much, but it was so worth it. If I could, I would have stayed for a week or so. But I had service Monday morning, and class Monday afternoon, so I had to head back to Santiago.

            Over the weekend, I had kind of forgotten that there was a “study” part to my study abroad. Oh well. Back to reality…

Hiking through the Cacao Forest!

Playing in the river

Gator Chomping at Playa Sosua