Buenos noches!

We have successfully made it to and from Santo Domingo, the captial of the Domincan Republic. The rain seemed to be determined to keep us from having fun in the capitol on Friday night, but we stuck it out and by about 9 pm the rain had stopped and we could do a little exploring. We weathered the rain at a local restaurant where a merengue band stopped by to sing happy birhtday to Hannah as well as a several other familiar toons.

We were very fortunate to be able to stay at Betty´s hostel during our time in Santo Domingo. Bettye is a native of Tennessee who has lived in the DR for many, many years, but still refuses to let go of her southern accent. She runs a fine art gallery - not just an art gallery - out of the lower part of her building, and houses travelers in the upstairs quarters. It had all the ammenties we needed, and ONLY the ammenities we needed. Some in the group purchased some beautiful paintings and pieces of jewelry from Dominican artists at Bettye´s, while others braved al mercado, the huge market that is open on Saturdays. At al mercado, bargaining is the name of the game, and we were able to get some good deals on bowls, jewelry, rum, etc.

Saturday the gringos braved the beach, which was a bad idea for some, but lots of fun for everyone! It turned out that those of us most concerned about getting burned actually got burned, and those with a more leisurely approach to applying sunscreen now look beautifully tanned. Everyone was able to enjoy the water and the Presidentes and SkimIces. Later that day after we had liberally applied aloe vera, we ventured to another restaurant for italian food - which was delicious - then out onto the central plaza where there was live music, singing, and dancing. The national dance troop performed several traditional dances, then invited everyone up to dance the merengue. Of course, since it´s obvious we are  not from these parts, we were all dragged up to dance with the locals. Some of us have picked up the dances, while others - like myself - cannot move our hips without moving our trunk, shoulders, and arms at the same time. Definitley not a suave Domincan dancer yet!

This morning we had a guest join us for breakfast at Bettye´s. His name was Eduardo, and he is said to be a national treasure. Eduardo sat and talked with us about why the DR is the way it is. Elections will be held here in about 3 weeks, and Eduardo educated us about the difference between the two parties and the emotions behind the upcoming elections. In a nutshell, there is no difference between the two parties, very unlike the differences between parties in the US. Each candidate promises to improve the same things - education, economy, and health care - and have very similar ways that they want to accomplish these changes. He explained to us that the reason the country is the way it is goes back to poor education - a common problem in many developing countries - teachers are being taught by poor teachers, who then teach students who turn out to be poor students. There is never any progress because the standards are non-existent. The government is suppose to contribute 4% to education - only 4%! - and they don´t. Currently, they give less than 2% to educaiton - herein lies the problem. Listening to his wisdom really opened our eyes to the complex structure of a developing country.

Now we´re back at base camp with warm showers, mosquito nets, tranquility, and peace of mind. We all enjoyed an afternoon off to prepare us to return to service work tomorrow. One more week!

Hasta luego,

Ali, Megan, and Katie G

Kids at CONANI Followed by a Bachata Dance Party

Hola!

One of the other service sites that we have been at is CONANI.  CONANI is a government run orphanage for kids with disabilities.  There are about 70 children of all ages with varying levels of disability, therefore it tends to be controlled chaos there.  We spend every morning beginning with feeding the children breakfast.  We then come together and decide the game plan for the day including physical therapy and general interactions with the children.  It can be difficult at times because many of the children are not able to communicate regardless of the language barrier.  However, their smiles and laughter brighten up the whole day.  The limited staff there do an excellent job of meeting the children´s basic needs, however we are able to spend individual time with the children focusing on social interaction and mobility.

Its never a dull moment at CONANI.  While treating the children, we also need to keep an eye out for children running their wheelchairs down the ramp into a wall, jumping through the window into the therapy room, and locking themselves in the closet.  Nevertheless, we may leave the site exhausted but by the evening we are able to smile and laugh at all the memorable moments and children.  Over the next few visits, we plan on collaborating with the staff on feeding positions for the children.

The children have been so warm and are hungry for attention. Seeing these children with so many physical and emotional needs and the lack of resources available to them can be heartbreaking. Despite their circumstance, they run around the orphange playing and laughing with us. They have welcomed us into their lives with open arms. Humbling. We reflect on our own lifes, and our support from our families, friends, and communities. What a completely different world. It has been difficult at times, especially knowing the privileges and comfortable lives we come from. We come to this orphange knowing that after two weeks we will leave and return to our lives. Our hope is to return with a renewed sense of purpose to use the opportunities that have been handed to us to continue to serve the communities we live in.

This afternoon, we toured Centro Leon, an art and culture museum. We learned about the history of Hispanola as well as the origins of the Dominican culture.  The Dominican culture has both Spanish and African influences. The museum also included several modern and contemporary art pieces that were quite thought provoking. Of course, we could not help following the tour with a Presidente and dessert!

Later in the evening we had our first merengue and bachata dance lessions at ILAC to celebrate the Creighton students´ end of their semester. Us gringas did not even need any Presidentes to get us out on the dance floor! We are looking forward to this weekend. We will be taking off to Santo Domingo for some cultural learning and relaxation at the beach.

Besitos!

Ann, Jess, and Andrea...who were renamed to Isa, Yessica, and Elena

Vistitando la Batey Libertad, aka Visit to Batey Libertad.

Hola!

This afternoon, we took a 45 minute bus trip to Batey Libertad, which is a community in the Cibao valley, of the DR.  This was a community home to dominican citizens and migrant workers from Haiti, established in the 1940´s.  It was originally established as a state supported agriculture community, and became impoverished with the decline in the Dominican sugar industry.  We were visiting the community today in order to become acquainted with ILAC cooperadores Papito and Agustina and spend some time with the children in the community.  Papito informed us of the many health challenges in the Batey including parasites secondary to poor water conditions, water supply, malnutrition, and communicable diseases.  It was encouraging to see his leadership and the effect it had within such a poor community, as he spoke of the improvements in lodging space, restroom sanitation, and upcoming goals for delivering cleaner water to the community.  He also spoke proudly of his own children and their educational accomplishments. 
     
Currently, in the Batey, 102 families reside in small tin sheet homes, with limited capacity.  The majority of the people living there are children.  Upon our arrival on the bus, the children swarmed around us and began climbing into our arms and onto our backs!  All the children had smiles on their faces and were eager for our attention.  We spent the afternoon playing different games with the children including red light, green light, Simon dice, and sang different songs in spanish.  It was a joy to us, to bring such happiness to all the children simply by being there and playing with them.  Our visit to the Batey was unique in the sense that the children did not typically have much contact with people outside of their own community, and so it was a chance for them to connect with the outside world.  We are looking forward to returning next week on Tuesday, to spend more time interacting with the community. 

Hasta luego,

Hannah, Megan, and John 

el primer dia de Mayo...May Day!

Buenos Noches!

This afternoon started with a light rain which is significant in the DR because the dominicans believe that the water from the first rain on May Day is from the fountain of youth. To soak up this opportunity, many of us danced in the rain on the way back from exchanging money and in the common area of ILAC so that we could be young forever!

We then were on our way to the Mirabel Museum in Salcedo, which was about a 45 minute drive from ILAC.  Many of us had read the book about the Mirabel sisters called In the Time of the Butterflies and we just watched the movie last night so we were excited to see the original house of the sisters.  We we got there, not only was it still raining, but we found out that the Museum was actually not open.  Bummer.  Again, our silver lining was that there was a Bon ice cream shop not too far away, so we all thought that was a good alternative.

Tonight we will be able to reflect on the past two days of our trip and be able to prepare for tomorrow.

Hasta una otra opportunidad para nos hablarlos - aka Until next time

Ann and Ali

Nuestros Primer Dia de Trabajar...aka Our First Day of Work!

Hola!

Today started bright an early with both teams on a guaga and heading to their service sites by 730 in the morning. One group headed to CONANI, an orphanage for children with physical disabilities, and the rest of us - Ann, Katie G., Ali, Hannah, and Sue - headed to ICC or International Child Care center.

ICC has done some fantastic things for the Dominican community. The center began in 1988 as a NGO that is now run completely by Dominicans. Please visit this link to learn more about the history of this global organization. http://internationalchildcare.org/about

The center does many things for the community, including training promotodores, aka community health workers, providing direct care to children, or niños, with various disabilities, and educating families and children about preventative and sexual health. As a testament to their success, ICC now has 350 children on file whom they follow, and have expanded their clinic visits to more than 40 communities. These numbers are HUGE - muy importante - for the Dominican children because having a child with a disability is a social disgrace, and many children are simply left on the side of  the road or on the steps of a church shortly after their disability is discovered. The fact that ICC is helping so many children with disabilities illustrates how much they have helped this community change.

Our role as estudiantes de terapista fisica, or physical therapy students, is to assess and provide a new insight into the therapy of these children. Today, we began our journey with ICC by traveling to a community where parents brought their children to the community center, which is simply an open pavilion on the side of the road. We spent the morning taking histories from the parents and utilizing play therapy to assess and treat los ninos. Although we were providing a novel insight into the conditions and prognoses of these children, it was hard as Americans to feel and believe we were providing care. We saw 3 ninos today, and will not likely see them again during our two weeks in the DR, and they will not be seen by other physical therapists for another year. In a nutshell, this was the child´s and family´s one shot for the year to get their home program updated and to get hope for their child´s future. Talk about pressure. In addition, the parent´s goals were largely unrealistic, and the language prevented us from truly communicating things like prognosis, and we could not provide the same education we could provide for an English-speaking family. We were very fortunate to have Sue Klappa with us to gather histories from the families.

Despite the barriers, the silver lining is that we, the students, DID manage to communicate with los niños and their parents on a very rudamentary level. Spanish is coming back to us quickly after all those years in the classroom, and we´re so thankful for this opportunity to improve in another language, and hopefully make communication with future patients in America more effective.

Hasta Luego - Until tomorrow!

Ali and Ann