Hello again. I can't believe I only have one week left, only 4 more work days and then 5 days at the beach:)
Today we saw 8 kids at ICC, we were back at the office so we had a gazebo and roosters and chickens. When we got there they told us we had 4 kids today, but we had 8, kind of like on Friday when they said we had 5 and we had 8. It's not too bad, we divide and conquer and bust out the evals and our recommendations. Two very Dominican things happened to me at my site today, the first was when a mom scrunched her nose at me (which means she didn't understand what I was saying) and the spanish speaker half of my group was helping the other group, so I got my point across via hand gestures and body movements. The second was one of my patients waving his finger at me. When you don't want something (sunglasses, necklace, pineapple, etc) you just wave your finger and they know you don't want anything. I was tickling my patient and he waved his finger at me, it was great and I knew what both meant. And my last patient of the day started crying before I even got to him, so I didn't get my hands on him, and he continued to cry for at least 30 min while Nathan (my CI) and I talked with his promatora about her concerns for him and we did a little observation while we talked and were able to make some recommendations on what we saw and heard. I was a little worn out after that. However my day was only half over. I could not imagine being at my site for a full 8 hours.
This afternoon my service was at a orphanage for kids with disabilities. We just got to play with the kids and make some recommendations on positioning and things to do with them. I was all kidded out by the end of the day. Hopefully I'll be refreshed tomorrow- another day, another dollar-well maybe not another dollar.
Even though I'm a white girl from South Dakota, I'm starting to feel like I fit in down here. It probably doesn't make much sense, but I feel like we are really immersed in the culture down here, 25 people on a guagua, chickens in F cars, all the street vendors and merchants, I can sing along with songs on the guagua and even name a couple of artists (Frank Reyes is my favorite, I've had one of his songs in my head for about a week now), I feel like I'm used to it. And understanding the nose scrunch and finger wave today at my site, I feel like it's all coming together. And this weekend in Santo Domingo (which is much more touristy) I kept seeing white people and tourists and thinking to myself "Do I look that white and that obvious, because I don't feel it." But I obviously do look that white and that obvious. Just in case I forget I'm quickly reminded by the people calling me Americano and rubio (blonde). I'm glad I felt that way, I really wanted to experience this country and not just come down here for 4 weeks do some PT and leave. I feel like I've really experienced it.
We heard about the shootings at Virginia Tech and it was kind of a reality check. Even though I've seen a lot of things here, I've kind of been living down here in this culture and the states weren't really on my mind and then today I was brought back to that reality and that every country has it's own problems.
Well that's about all for now. Thanks to everyone who keeps leaving messages on my guestbook, it's great to hear from people back home.
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