Hi everyone!
We are into the middle of the third week and everyone is fighting sickness/tiredness. Luckily mine is only the fatigue part and not the sickness. However, clinic has been extremely rough as no one seems to have any energy.
Despite this minor mishap, we are making it through. The nice part is that we are now seeing some patients on a regular basis at our morning clinical site so we are able to see some of the progress patients are making. It is nice to see how happy these people are just to see you there. This is almost a downfall because they want to come see you everyday and have treatment every time from us. As much as we enjoy helping, we've definitely had to explain the importance of giving your body a rest...and the importance of sharing our time with other people.
I have to say the one big accomplishment I've felt over the past couple of days is that I've felt like my brain is starting to work with the spanish language rather than fight it. I am starting to feel like I can separate the words and actually hear what they are saying rather than just trying to fill in the blanks because I can only recognize every third or fourth word. It is really fun to feel like I can communicate! Unfortunately, right when I start to get comfortable I have a patient that had suffered a stroke, speaks softly, and mumbles. I tried and tried to communicate with him but I couldn't understand what he was saying...not a word. I was wondering if I was mumbling too because he didn't seem to understand a word of what I was saying either. When I finally got our translator to help me the poor guy was saying he had to urinate. I felt so bad because I had just kept asking him to repeat what he was saying which meant he was just repeating "I have to urnate" over and over again in a variety of ways. Needless to say, this experience always finds a way to humble you!
Tuesday afternoon was our culture awarenss time. This week we went to the original home of the Mirabel Sisters who are well known in Dominican history for helping lead the movement against the dictator Trujillo. Trujillo was similar to Hitler in that he was trying to make the population as white as possible and was killing all the African and Hatian people in the Dominican Republic. There is a very intricate story behind these sisters and in fact there were four of them. The sister that lead the movement was know as the butterfly, which ended up being the symbol for the sisters. One sister actually is actually still alive today, and she lives here in the Dominican Republic. However, the other three were kidnapped and killed by being beat over the head with large sticks, strangled, and then thrown off a cliff for their involvement in the revolution. Apparently their death was what broke the camel's back, and the dictator was assassinated 6 months later. Their house was beautiful and it was interesting to see all of their belonging and hear their life story. I am currently reading the book "In the time of the butterflies" which is a fictional novel based on the story of these famous sisters.
The other afternoons have been spent holding free PT clinics back at the ILAC center. This is for anyone who feels they need to be seen by a PT. I was one of the first groups to see a patient and when I walked out of the room when we were finished, there was a line of about 6 people waiting to be seen. This was not including the patients already being seen by the 5 groups of PT students and more people came later throughout our open clinic time. It was just amazing to see how many people were in need of assistance!
One side note from the week is that yesterday it downpoured here. I mean it rained so much there was a foot and a half of water sitting in the middle of the ILAC center. Of course, being as restless as we are, we all jumped in. Ryan had his water proof camera, people were building human pyramids, people were having water fights in the rain, and then we played a little water basketball. It was all fun and games until we realized the classroom we had converted into an equipment room was flooding. Next thing you know we are moving boxes up off the floor and trying to squeegie(sp?) water out of the room with brooms and cardboard boxes. Luckily, here in the Dominican, one day it is flooding and the next day it is crazy hot and feel like you're in a drought.
We are now working diligently to complete a charla (inservice) for our clinical site. Completing the inservice wouldn't be so bad of we didn't have to translate it all to spanish. It takes forever! Anyways, we are off to the beach on Friday, and I think everyone is looking forward to some relaxing beach time. We are only hoping the rain stays away for a few days so we can soak up some sun. Well I have to run for now. I am going to try to beat those crazy roosters that wake up at 4 in morning by attempting to go to bed early.
Hasta luego!
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