Well, we made it. Today is our last official work day. (Tomorrow we'll bring soda and cookies for everyone we work with as a way to say thank you.) In one way, the time has gone very fast and yet I feel like I've been here a lot longer than a month. I'm definitely ready to come home and finish up school and finalize the rest of the wedding plans.
Yesterday morning we went to clinic and had a tour of the hospital (after 40 minutes of "discussing" the tour--nothing moves quickly in the DR). The hospital we are at, Cabral y Baez, is a large hospital that serves a large majority of the Santiago population. Much of the hospital we would consider probably substandard care, but that's what they have here. (Should one of us get sick, we go to another much more modern hospital.)
Most rooms have four hospital beds to a room, plus here in the DR, every person has a family member come and stay to take care of them (only females are allowed to stay the night so the vast majority are female). So that's a total of 8 people together in one room, for weeks on end sometimes.
After our tour, we walked over to Duarte, another outpatient facility and had a special lunch just for us and the other students working there. The typical fare here is rice and beans, cabbage/lettuce with dressing and either fruit (pineapple, melon or papaya) or an eggplant dish. I'm not sick of rice and beans yet. It's very yummy, but I fear gaining weight since I have already had my final dress fitting! No room to expand. I think I might need to work out in the next two weeks. No scale here so I simply judge by how my clothing fits.
In the afternoon, we walked over to Neuva Esperanza to play with some of the more developmentally challenged kids there. I spent most of my time with one girl who had very severe scoliosis and I fear that the scoliosis will eventually make breathing to difficult for her. Her body is very contorted--here in the states she would have had surgery, but that's not the case here. Two of the students wrote down (in Spanish) some positioning and basic care skills for caregivers to follow to help the kids be more functional.
Last night during our "house meeting" we had a special treat. Bon ice cream. Bon is wonderful and I've had it several times here. (All the flavor is due to fattening stuff, I'm sure.) Afterwards, we had our last reflection period and it was really tearful. Gotta run to work so more later!
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