Today we did our first clinic! We drove about an hour out to absolutely the poorest place I have ever been in my life. Some of the students had total culture shock, you could tell. I think that the only reason that I didn’t is the fact that I fly on the reservation and I’ve landed at cedar post hogans with dirt floors and no running water. But this was even poorer that that.
Group photos before our first day:
The houses were mud huts or cinderblock with tin and palm leave roofs. The streets were dirt/mud and animals just roamed around. So did the kids. I don’t know if they go to school or if they were out because we were there or what. But there were children everywhere. They were so excited to see us.
As far as I can tell there was one flushing toilet (sort of flushing) in the whole town and little to no running water. The toilet had a sign on it that said “no entrada” and I learned that the toilets are only for special visitors (us) and everyone else uses the bathroom out in the field. This made me feel a little bad for using their toilet even. The toilet handles are all disabled (in most of the places we went) because there isn’t a running water supply to the toilet. There is a bucket and they bring water in after its full enough or bad enough and fill the tank so they can flush it. Makes a flushing toilet back home seem like a luxury
This is the river across the road from town.
The clinic was set up in a church. Dominican’s don’t look like hispanics. They look a lot like Africans. But Haitians look even more like Africans. Some of them (usually closer to the border) still speak only creole, but most of them speak Spanish. I think that was the weirdest thing for me culturally was to see a bunch of African-esque looking people speaking Spanish.
This particular town was mostly Haitian, though they mostly spoke Spanish. Haiti is far more poor than the Dominicans and so the Dominicans will/or have allowed Haitians to come into the country and work in the sugar cane fields. They were required to stay in the town though. This was the case originally with this town, though many of the residents now were born in the Dominican.
The people in the town are told that we are coming. When we get there we go inside and begin setting up our clinic. The begin waiting outside in a line. There is a Solid Rock person outside that gives each person who wants to be seen an numbered paper. There are two lines, one for medical and one for dental. These people will wait in line outside. Some of them wait all day. It was really hot and humid there. Once inside, there is an area for triage (where we take vital signs and asks chief complaint, allergies, meds etc). In triage on the first day I appointed myself the baby weigher and got to weigh all the cute babies! This is where I spent most of my time. Then they line up and wait on a bench to see one of the doctors. After they see the doctor they wait in another line to get their medications. The medications are all donations brought by us from the US.
This is Dr. Sandy Valdez. He speaks English really well. He was so amazing. He taught the students what he was doing and spent a lot of time with them. He was also so amazingly caring and compassionate with the patients.
This is Dr. Fiori Batista. She didn’t speak English so a translator would sit with them so she could explain to the students what she was doing.
Pastor Enol came with us each day and he would take students out to do home visits. They got to do a lot of praying! Good thing most of my girls are LDS and used to praying! Two of them went on missions too. That wasn’t necessarily the case with all the RHS students. Pastor Enol speaks Spanish and Creole. He actually had some relatives in this town. He had a translator with him so that he could talk with the students as well. It was pretty hot and humid out walking around the village.
They found this 80-something year old woman with a wound on her leg. Once the pastor found out I was a nurse and could do home visits, he began sending students to get me whenever a patient couldn’t leave their home. They came and got me for this woman. She had a tiny little camp-type stove in the middle of her room. A few weeks ago her pig ran through the house and knocked her stove over and it burned her leg. She already has poor circulation and her wound was only partially healed. It had a small area of infection and there were gnats all around in the open parts of her wound. I was able to clean her wound and wrap up her leg. We gave her vitamins and an antibiotic.
I went to see another woman after that who only spoke Creole. It was an interesting experience to have translation happen through 3 languages. The pastor would speak with her in creole, he would then translate that into spanish which the translator would then translate into english. It wasn’t as smooth as it sounds. She had some arthritis pain. We gave her some tylenol and a walker that we made out of PVC pipe. The pastor asked me to pray while we were there and I gave a prayer for her in her home. It was really a great thing.
The kids in this village are very outgoing…to an extreme! They swarmed us when we were outside. During lunch the nursing girls and a few others played with the kids. This was seriously so much fun! We danced and blew bubbles. They loved the girls long hair and braided it. They took pictures with our cameras. One girl got ahold of my stethoscope and I showed her how to use it. I was sure I was never going to get it back! But to watch their faces light up when they heard their buddies heart beat was priceless….and I did get my stethoscope back.
The kids would crowd the windows and watch what was happening inside all day long. They would hiss at us (it’s like saying pst or hey!) and try to talk to us. Unfortunately, most of us have no idea what they’re saying
When we got all done seeing people we packed up and made the drive back to San Juan de la Maguana. At the guest house they had some snacks for us and then told us we had about an hour and a half before dinner and we were free to roam around town. Going into town you have to cross a pretty big bridge and there are motorcycles everywhere.
Interesting fact: Motorcycle accidents account for 90% of Dominican trauma related deaths in the Dominican (According to Dr Valdez).
There is a reason for this. They drive like crazy people and there are motorcycles everywhere, there are no traffic laws…or they’re not enforced. People honk and pass and drive all over the place, it’s nuts!
We found the Cathedral and took ourselves on a little tour. It was pretty freaking amazing. The stained glass inside was beautiful. Then you can go out on the roof and climb this extremely sketchy set of spiral stairs until you’re up on the spire. It was super sketchy and my students found out I’m afraid of heights. I’m sure they’d never let you do anything like this in the US….too many lawsuits. But I made it…barely.
Seriously though…It’s sketchy. I got to the top to that bridge and told them I needed the heck off this bridge now and made it over to the building part. Apparently someone has video…I’m sure it’s hilarious.
Me on the bridge, right before the super scary trip down.
The plants here are amazing and colorful. This was growing on a tree outside the cathedral.
The streets are beautiful. The tiny little houses with their windows that all have the plantation-type shutters, a lot of them ancient and wood. But everything is painted so cheerfully!
This is the river that the bridge crosses to get into town. We went into town every day we were there!
For dinner they served us real Dominican food. I liked most of the food. Maybe I’ll do a post on that. It was always rice and beans with something. For breakfast we always had fruit with something else.
