Hola Amigos! I have SO much to tell you about this past
week, so I hope you’re ready. On Wednesday, a few of my friends decided to go
out and get piercings! They had been debating getting their belly buttons
pierced, but since it was only 200 pesos ($4) or so, they decided to go for it.
In the US, it’d probably cost around $60, so for only $4, they figured that if
they didn’t like it, they could take it out. And it’s surprisingly safe to get
them here, as long as you go to the right place. Nathania recommended this
accessory store called Inca’s, because she had gone there before to get her
cartilage pierced. She said it was all really sanitary, and it had actually
healed faster than the one she got in the States.
So three of
my friends and I went out to Inca’s. One friend got her cartilage pierced,
another got her belly button pierced, and the other got her belly button and
some other part weird of her ear pierced. I thought about getting one, but
there wasn’t really one in particular that I wanted. I have two piercings now
on each earlobe, and I don’t really wear them too often, so I figured I
probably would wear any other ones either. So I basically showed up to hold my
friends hands, offer moral support, and to take videos. They said that the
piercings weren’t quite as painful as they thought they’d be, but they looked
pretty painful to me. The videos we have are pretty hilarious.
After that
adventure, we went out to ladies night again. We ran into another ISA group
that was from Grand Valley State University in Michigan. I talked to one of the
students from GVSU, and found out that they are all here to study
Kinesthesiology with PUCMM’s baseball team, and to take a Latin History class.
Their program is completely in English, and they only know a few words of
Spanish. I cannot imagine how stressful it would be to study abroad with out
knowing any of the language of the country! It’s been hard enough for me to
navigate around the city, and order food, and talk to my host family, and I’ve
been studying Spanish for over 4 years. One guy was even saying that they don’t
really communicate with their host family at all. The family doesn’t know
English, and they don’t know Spanish, so they basically gesture and point at
things. Props to them, because I would not be able to go 6 weeks this country
without Spanish.
Thursday
morning I decided to go back to the clinics for an extra day. Apparently,
Thursdays are the best days to go to clinics, so I’m probably going to go every
week. I got to clinics around 10am, and around 10:15 or so, all of the medical
students started to arrive in their lab coats. Med school here is different
than in the States. For me to get an MD in America, I have my 4 years of
undergraduate school, and then I have 4 years of medical school. For the
students here, they have 1 year of pre-med requisites, and then 5 years of
medical school. So by the standards here, I’m technically a med student. It was
super confusing before I figured this out, because my conversations with the
students would go like this: “Oh, so you’re in the clinics, you must be a
medical student!” “No, not yet. I’m pre-med.” “So it’s your first year in
school?” “No, I’m in my second year.” “So you’re a medical student?” And we
would just go around in circles like this, until I figured out how different
their system was.
Anyways,
once the med students got there, we started walking towards this really poor
neighborhood. The students have been working with around 20 or so families who
have depression. Most of them don’t even know that they have a problem, and
don’t know anything about depression. The medical students were promoting a
support group/ club called “Smile With Me”. The club had discussion groups
where they could go and talk about their problems and struggles, and receive
support from the other members, who understand what they are going through. The
discussions are also moderated by one of the medical students, who helps to
show people different ways to manage their depression. In addition to the
discussion groups, there was also a calendar of events with fun things like
game nights, and cooking classes so that the patients could go out and have fun
and get to know the other patients.
I was in
complete awe of the neighborhood we were in. It is one of the poorest neighborhoods
in all of Santiago. The houses were basically one-room concrete shells, with
the basic necessities inside. Some even had walls made out of curtains. Kids were wandering all over the streets, and
one house even had a baby sitting unattended on the front steps, chilling and
drinking out of a bottle. I honestly wish I could have taken a picture, but I
felt like taking out my iPhone would almost mock the residents. I actually
found the neighborhood to be kind of beautiful in a way, because even though
everyone had so little, it was still such a vibrant community.
The med
students all split up to go on house visits. When my med student and I got to
our first house, the family welcomed us in with (literally) open arms, kissed
us on the cheek, and told us to sit in the few chairs they had in the house.
The doctor told the patient about the club, and how it was for people who often
feel sad, or feel like they have a lot of troubles. She explained that these
types of feelings can be a problem, and how the club would help her deal with
her feelings. I thought the most interesting part was that the family was
invited to take part in the club and all of its activities too. In the
Dominican culture, family is very important, and very tightknit. By including the
family in the treatment process, the patient is more likely to get better,
because they have their family there to help support them through difficult
times. I was very impressed with the program, and it reminded me a lot of my
health disparities class that I took in the spring.
Being here
has really shown me all of the different aspects that affect people’s health.
It’s all very connected. Those who can read are stuck with jobs like street
vending, that don’t make a lot of money. People get sucked into the cycle of
poverty, and there is no easy way to get out. Getting an education is nearly
impossible. The public schools get very little funding, so they’re not very
good. The teachers themselves aren’t very well educated, and there is no
structure at all to the schools. For a good education, you have to go to
private school, which is extremely expensive. If you don’t have birth
certificate, you can’t go to school. Most of the kids who were born in poverty
don’t have a birth certificate, so there is basically no way for them to climb
out of poverty. It’s super depressing, but it also makes me glad that I’ve
studying health disparities. Hopefully I’ll be able to work on reducing these
kinds of disparities someday in the future.
I don’t
want to leave you on a heavy note, so I’ll tell you about really cool
mini-excursion we had today! One huge part of the Dominican culture (that I had
no clue about until I got here) is the Dominican Carnival, which is celebrated
in February. The Carnival dates all the way back to the time of Christopher
Columbus. The celebration displays an upside-down world, where the devil rules,
and everything is opposite. It’s a giant satire of the Devil. Each part of the
country has it’s own unique form of the Devil. Here in Santiago, it’s a Lechon,
which is a troll-like Devil. Every year for the carnival, people will dress up
in these amazingly elaborate masks with giant horns, and these body suits that
are covered in bells and whistles and beads. The decoration on the horn tells
you what part of Santiago the Lechon is rom. Then the Lechones will march down
the street, cracking their whips and dancing around. They also carry around
these rattles made out of cow bladder than has been cleaned, sanitized, and
dried, and they use it to hit people with, until they hit somebody so hard with
it that the rattle breaks.
Today we
went to the workshop of one of the costume makers. He told us all about the
history, showed us how they made the masks, and even let us help a little with
making one. After that, we had a mini Carnival, and two of the workers dressed
up, and cracked their whips, danced around, hit us with the rattles, and then
had us dance with them. It was so much fun. They let us hold and try on the
masks, and everything! I’m so used to going to a museum and not being allowed
to touch anything, but at the workshop we were allowed to touch and wear and dance
around with the masks! It was soooo much fun! If you want to watch the video I took from today's mini-Carnival, I posted a link below the picture! :)
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| I got to try on my favorite Carnival mask! |
CLICK TO WATCH TODAY'S MINI CARNIVAL
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