i just realized it'd been a few days. maybe i've become used to this place.....it seems more commonplace...less things that appear blogworthy. i've spent the past half a week or so doing some work.

i spent thursday going into santo domingo (the capital) with milagros to take her brother to see a specialist. we started out early in the morning....spent some time at the doctor's office waiting etc. we got done at 10:30ish and were told that we had to come back at 4. we had about five hours to kill. we went to the digecitss office. digecitss is the governmental organization in charge of AIDS stuff for the country. the office was much smaller than i'd imagined, but it reminded me of any nonprofit office that i've been in in the states. the same vibe. we met with a doctor there to try and get milagros enrolled in a course to become a certified AIDS doc which we learned would be more difficult than milagros expected. the doctor thought he knew me....milagros told him "i don't think so. she's from cincinnati." we then spent the rest of the afternoon shopping, eating pizza hut, and wandering the city. you know what's weird is that santo domingo reminded me so much of any large american city. i think it's that i've been here so long everything seems familiar. for example, san pedro reminds me of cincinnati, and i remember when i first got here being blown away by how different it was from anything i knew.

yesterday we got water. and we cleaned....cloths, the apartment, dishes. we then went to the movie theater. ended up getting there two hours early (i told milagros it didn't start until 7, but she wouldn't believe me). the movie was in english.....similar to the states. today i cooked for milagros. did some spanish and work work....and i've got spanish class in a couple of hours. we head to boca chica tonight. i think that's the excitement around these parts.....

next week's a samana week. i'm excited. we leave early wednesday and stay through saturday. we're going to be doing some education with the youth for. after that i've got four days and then i fly home. ahhhh....home!

the next day's supposed to get less frustrating.....

woke up this morning to find that the 40 gallons of water we bought yesterday are completely gone. how 40 gallons of water disappears i don't know. hopefully someone's coming to fix it today. man, i could use a shower.

i never thought i would get so excited about a toilet. milagros sorta laughed at me when she told me that not today but soon my toilet will flush. ah the things that excite me these days.

today was one of those days that frustrated me. like made me pray (okay...more like yell under my breath) "why God?"

came home this morning from the walking track and all i wanted was a shower. unfortunately i found out we were dry again. money has been tighter around here. the note now is parents don't worry i'm fine on money, but when money's tight around you it leads to more frustrations. and then my shower stopped working again. so i resorted to a bucket shower with water that had some dead bugs floating in it. all i wanted was the comfort of home at which point i felt somewhat guilty for wanting this. anyways, an update is the guy just came and fixed my shower and will fix my toilet.

anyways, after that we went downtown to pick up a package my mom had sent a couple of weeks ago. we walked a little ways until we found the post office. they then told us we needed to go somewhere else. as we walked we passed a big open room with people rolling cigars (interesting). anyways, we got to a gated area. told a guard with a big gun what we wanted. we went to a building, and were handed visitor badges, found a woman who took us into a little room with a bunch of packages in it, a bunch of paperwork was filled out and i was handed my package, we were then taken into another room where they opened my package and wrote down everything that was in it. this part was entertaining.....the people trying to figure out what the purrell, etc was was really entertaining. anyways, we finally had the package. we then headed into romana were i'd been put in contact with a clinic run by docs from columbia university by the missionaries form cincinnati. we got into romana and had lunch and then headed out to find the clinic. we took a car/bus thing and got out and then started walking up a hill. we get up a hill and are tired and find that we are at the wrong branch of the foundattion. so we walk back down the hill....as we're walking we pass a huge house that has something like five cars inside it's gates....we joked about how we should go knock on their door and tell them they didn't need five cars....all we needed was one, could we have it. at that milagros told me that sometimes she asks God why some have so much and others so little. anyways, we got down the hill and started stopping car/bus things to see if they went to where we needed. we finally found one and got there. to meet a little old nun who told us that no one was there and we shouldn't wait because she wasn't sure when she was coming. as we were about to leave the woman we needed came in. the clinic was interesting. there were lots of people. from what i could understand in the afternoons they work with prostitutes, so there were a lot of women there. also, i think that we got free tests and maybe some help for medications set up for some of our patients, so that was really exciting news. anyways, we got in a guagua to head home. the bus started to smoke and everyone very quickly got out....the driver fixed it and we finally got home and now it's starting to rain.

good news is i've discovered during my time at home i'll be in canton, cincinnati, philadelphia, washington dc, and chicago. i'm going to washington for the presidents emergency aids relief fund workshop for new initiative partners. it will be really intersting to learn about how to get money, etc. in philly i'm going to visit my boss and the dominican community there, a health center and also go to a conference at eastern university for the christian community health fellowship (www.cchf.org). in chicago i'm attending a course on community development by john perkins and wayne gordon at lawndale community church. all of these things are exciting. that and i'll be seeing all of you. well, that's the excitement around these parts.

so....

yesterday was a momentus day. i was left alone in the house for the whole day. a first since i've been here.....i felt like an adult again. it was great. when milagros left she was like "are you SURE you'll be okay? what about lunch? what will you eat?" i convinced her that we had food and i would be fine. i then spent the day watching a movie, reading, and listening to music.

the highlight of my day was the fact that i answered the phone and successfully had a conversation with the pastor of the church with the dancers, and i ended up going to his church last night. it was different. it was a pentacostal church. things seemed similar at first. some of the songs were the same just in spanish, but then i saw a woman get up from praying and put some olive oil stuff in her hands and walk around praying for a while. everyone prayed at the same time and prayed loudly. i once again had to get up in front of the church and talk, but this time i could tell that the translator understood more what i said. church lasted a long time. i was picked up at 6:30, and i got home at 10:30. it was decided that i will go back wednesday night to work with the dancers. people didn't speak english to me except to say "God bless you" in english. overall, i liked it. different. it's going to feel so quiet when i get home.

today i did a lot of work. i spent time getting our database online, so that my boss in philly can view it. i also spent time doing research on different contacts and emailing different people. i then got a confirmation email that i am approved to go to a conference in washington when i'm back in may from the president's emergency plan for aids relief. that should be interesting. i think it's about how to get funding from the government. i then had my first spanish class. we reviewed stuff i already knew, but my spanish teacher seems nice.....funny thing is she's getting on me about the same pronuncian stuff hector gets on me about. by the end of this time i will have my "d"s turned into "th"s.

overall, a long day. i'm tired and tired of work like stuff....which unfortunately this feels like (i've spent too much time with the computer today)....wow, i just realized...no power cut today (unless it was short and during my spanish class). anyways, i'm ready to relax a little. later.

so a somewhat uneventful saturday. we went this morning downtown to pay a phone bill and then to do a little shopping. people get their cloths here at the grocery store. it's crazy too because they help you in a major way. i started looking at pants, and the three girls working started picking out pants for me....

they picked out pants with design type stuff on them for me, and at first i said no...but after they insisted i decided to try them along with a couple of others, and i ended up with the ones i'd said no to in the first place. they just look at you and guess your size for you. they were right on for me. although you wear your pants differently here....

anyways, i ended up with a new outfit. i also ended up winning 100 pesos and some tshirts for milagros and i in this weird promotional thing going on in the store. we then went to the salon. i now have a dominican outfit and dominican hair....you can see pictures under my "dominican republic photos part II" and then go to the album "yo soy una dominicana" you can see a dominicanized me.....

this afternoon i went to the dance school from my first week. the problem here is that people know where you live and they come to your house looking for you. so the dance teacher would come here looking for me. although i told him today was my only day. i enjoyed myself. i tought one six year old. it was kinda weird....but it was good to teach again. i found teaching in spanish is hard because i like to talk a lot which is difficult in spanish. so i wasn't telling any little girls to squeeze their candy....my problem is i don't super trust the dance school....and i'm not sure what kind of money they might be getting from me teaching. so no more there for me. i'm still waiting to hear again from the dance people with the church. i'm very much looking forward to that. oh well. not too much else exciting.
i had a two hour "meeting" with milagros and my boss last night over internet phone. that's how my friday nights here are spent. it's left me with work to do. i did a little today, but i'm trying to sav the rest for the week, so i actually have a weekend. my boss is taking a week of prayer and fasting because we're coming up to some decisions. things should start picking up here very quickly

i think the highlight of my day was rain. it rained and rained and rained this afternoon. milagros and i went "downtown" to take care of some stuff. a guy on the bus slipped and i yelled "AY!" and the guy in front of me sort of laughed. when we got back to our street it was pouring. here the water drainage systems suck, so the streets just fill with water. milagros and i had a fun time running back and getting wet. when we arrived at home i started to do work on the computer, but there wasn't much to do seeing as we didn't have power and so no internet (i've found taht internet's cool....but annoying when there's no power and i've got work to do). milagros was like lets go banarse (used for swimming and bathing). we went outside and i washed my hair from water pouring from the roof. we then cleaned some of our walkway with the water. collected some for use in the house (don't worry....not drinking) and had a good time throwing buckets of it on each other. a lot of fun.

i've found internet is really helpful for my work. i've started making progress in stuff i've been stalled on until now. the other good news is i just got an email saying that i've got a full student scholarship for the conference i'm going to philadelphia for in may. yay! alright, waiting on dinner....

all photos have been posted with some captioning from my trip to date. if you start with the first albums there are more captions as far as who people are (samana album) as i added pictures i got sick of captioning. i ran out of room so there are now two photo links.

finally.......

internet.....

i've got a new site linked on the side with pictures of my trip here. depending on when you look at it it might be a work in progress. it's a combination of my pictures and the pictures of a physician's assistant that was here for a while.

no mas! finally internet at the house. so i've downloaded (well, i'm in the process of downloading my pics)....they're in the picture link on the right side of the page....the below entry is from earlier today.....

With real hope that today is the final manana I am writing this entry on my laptop with the plan to copy it to my blog when I have internet later this evening. I’m currently waiting for the internet, and I’m scared. If he shows up, I’m alone and worried he won’t be able to understand me or I won’t be able to understand him. Milagros had to run to verizon to pick up her cell phone. I’ve got the plan that if we have communication problems I can call neftali the guy at verizon for help.

I’ve been excited recently because I’ve found myself having “real” conversations with milagros. My spanish is improving and also milagros and I have found ways to communicate despite my horrible spanish. We’ve had conversations about life here, about how we like to be busy, about the differences between the dominican and the states, about poverty….it’s crazy and cool to be able to talk about real things. I think she understands me and I think I understand her, but I’m not sure.

Funny thing. I had a dream a week or so that I got a job somehow working as a walmart greeter in a spanish speaking country. I remember being really worried I wouldn’t know the right things to say. I practiced saying “buenos dias” y “bienvenidos” a lot.

We just had a visit with a patient and it was great. It lasted about an hour. The patient is on medicine and she appears to be doing better. We had an education about VIH talk and about nutrition. Also we talked about some of what’s going on in her life, etc. I don’t know. I felt energized by the visit.

The kids at the gomera have taken to screaming everytime I show up. They keep changing what they call me. At first it was the gringa, but the name have slowly morphed into nicer things until now they all start screaming and running after me when I leave my apartment yelling “bonita”. The second littlest one likes playing peekaboo with me, and I gave them some oreos to share today.

When I first got here it wasn’t that hot (okay….so it was hot, but I wasn’t spending my days being uncomfortable). It’s really morphed into being incredibly hot. I’ve found that when it’s hot I really don’t enjoy the power cuts. No power means no fan. I don’t sleep incredibly well when I’m hot, so definitely could tell the three hours from 1-4 last night when there was no power, and the four hours it cut out this afternoon were hot; however, it’s back and I am fully enjoying the fan blowing on me at full blast. Women walk around here with umbrellas to block the sun. well, I’m going to go back to waiting for this internet guy to show.

Oh also as far as plans go. We get to go back to samana next week. We’re going to organize some sort of community meeting there. I’m excited to see what happens. Watching milagros in samana there is great because she seems so at home there. She spent a year working there and really mobilized the community for their health. She later wants to go back for something like five days to organize the youth to do a play which educates the community on VIH and how it’s spread. Samana is an exciting place.

With real hope that today is the final manana I am writing this entry on my laptop with the plan to copy it to my blog when I have internet later this evening. I’m currently waiting for the internet, and I’m scared. If he shows up, I’m alone and worried he won’t be able to understand me or I won’t be able to understand him. Milagros had to run to verizon to pick up her cell phone. I’ve got the plan that if we have communication problems I can call neftali the guy at verizon for help.

I’ve been excited recently because I’ve found myself having “real” conversations with milagros. My spanish is improving and also milagros and I have found ways to communicate despite my horrible spanish. We’ve had conversations about life here, about how we like to be busy, about the differences between the dominican and the states, about poverty….it’s crazy and cool to be able to talk about real things. I think she understands me and I think I understand her, but I’m not sure.

Funny thing. I had a dream a week or so that I got a job somehow working as a walmart greeter in a spanish speaking country. I remember being really worried I wouldn’t know the right things to say. I practiced saying “buenos dias” y “bienvenidos” a lot.

We just had a visit with a patient and it was great. It lasted about an hour. The patient is on medicine and she appears to be doing better. We had an education about VIH talk and about nutrition. Also we talked about some of what’s going on in her life, etc. I don’t know. I felt energized by the visit.

The kids at the gomera have taken to screaming everytime I show up. They keep changing what they call me. At first it was the gringa, but the name have slowly morphed into nicer things until now they all start screaming and running after me when I leave my apartment yelling “bonita”. The second littlest one likes playing peekaboo with me, and I gave them some oreos to share today.

When I first got here it wasn’t that hot (okay….so it was hot, but I wasn’t spending my days being uncomfortable). It’s really morphed into being incredibly hot. I’ve found that when it’s hot I really don’t enjoy the power cuts. No power means no fan. I don’t sleep incredibly well when I’m hot, so definitely could tell the three hours from 1-4 last night when there was no power, and the four hours it cut out this afternoon were hot; however, it’s back and I am fully enjoying the fan blowing on me at full blast. Women walk around here with umbrellas to block the sun. well, I’m going to go back to waiting for this internet guy to show.

Oh also as far as plans go. We get to go back to samana next week. We’re going to organize some sort of community meeting there. I’m excited to see what happens. Watching milagros in samana there is great because she seems so at home there. She spent a year working there and really mobilized the community for their health. She later wants to go back for something like five days to organize the youth to do a play which educates the community on VIH and how it’s spread. Samana is an exciting place.

this morning i went walking with milagros. i discovered what appeared to be a little bit of ohioan suburbia right here in the middle of san pedro. a couple of minutes from my house there{s a track. there were lots of people walking laps. as we walked more and more people showed up. a lot of athletic looking people started jumping hurdles, doing stadiums and other weird running things. it felt sorta like home. then a random guy decided he was going to walk with us for a while. he picked up on my americanism and seemed really eager to practice his english. so he walked with us for a while and then when we left said he{d see us tomorrow same time same place. so.....a new friend. i{ve found lots of people want to practice their english here. if you know english you can get a decent hotel job i think.

then we went back to verizon and the wonderful news of the day is i have a spanish prof!!! she seemed really nice and knowledgeable. i start on monday. i also have plans to go see a dance class (not at the church at another place) and maybe teach i don{t know on saturday. something about their teacher went to cuba. other than that i{ve been hanging around the house waiting for the internet guys to come and working on some stuff for work. goal setting stuff. nothing else too exciting. we{ve got a patient coming at three and taht{s about it. well i hope all is well with everyone.
rach

this morning when i walked out my front gate i was greeted by the little boys (there are three of them) who{s parents run the gomera (tire repair shack) on my corner yelling "la gringa!" and one of the little boys running from behind the counter. it was an excited yell.....i felt touched that they were excited to see me even if it was because i{m a weird thing here. these are some of the first kids i interacted with when i got here. waving and playing peekaboo my first day here.

yesterday was a good day because i felt very productive. i spent a lot of time at home leaving once for dinner and once to get internet, but i got stuff done. i spent a good amount of time putting together stuff from a manual that my boss had given me about goal setting. we{re in the midst of putting together what exactly access will look like, so i{ve been reading about what{s required for putting an organization together and sending some ideas away. i also spent some time practicing spanish with hector and burning reggaeton to my computer. got some exercising done too which feels good. that and milagros wants to start walking in the mornings which i{m excited about. that and supposedly thursday is the big day for internet at our apartment. hopefully it will be the last manana. we{ll see. not too much else. today we go to verizon to track down a spanish professor and maybe to boca chica to see something like ten patients. we{ll see what happens.

the other night i watched a dvd in english on my computer in my room. for a minute i forgot that i was in the dominican republic. i heard sounds from outside and thought they were my roommates voices yelling from their rooms. i then remembered where i was. i{m enjoying myself but it was kind of a nice feeling a little bit of home for a couple hours.

50 people died here on friday in semana santa (easter) festivities. from around the country either from drowning in the rivers and beaches or from car accidents. crazy......

this morning has been productive so far. i´m working on pulling together information on goal setting for an organization to work on establishing ACCESS infrastructure. also, spent time ripping some reggaeton to my computer.

rachel

let´s see....where to start....
it´s been a while. i´m still alive. no worries. i spent the first three or so days of last week being somewhat lazy. we spent time doing stuff around the house. i practiced my spanish some. nothing too exciting. then on friday we went to bayaguana to visit milagros´family for the holidays. it was an interesting place. it was very different, but in a way sorta reminded me of canton. there were a lot of people that had come home from the various places that they were living to visit their families for the holidays. milagros´parents own a little store attached to their house. i did a lot of being lazy. then on saturday we went to the river. i guess around here everyone goes to the river or the beach for easter. it turned out that the part of the river we played on was oscar de la renta´s property. we know the people that work for him.....we saw his two houses on this citrus farm that he has....his helicopter landing pad....and his portion of the river looked as though God had designed it for a picture. there was a small waterfall. we swam there for a while. it was gorgeous. that night i went out with milagros and her older brother. we went to find a disco. the first we went to i felt very awkward in. it was a bunch of people sitting around and two people dancing. i was definately the only nondominican and it felt very obvious. we didn´t stay there but went to another disco with more people dancing. lots of merengue and bachata and a tiny bit of salsa. the next morning we left to come back home i thought but ended up coming to boca chica. as we were waiting for the bus to leave from santo domingo a large group of people got on the bus carrying a cooler and bottles of liquor yelling ¨"boca chica ahhhhhhhhhh!" they were headed to the beach. then as we drove i saw one large and lots of small red cross camps. with tents and ambulances set up they looked like they were preparing for war. also, there were large groups of people holding signs and dancing for various political canidates.....ahh, the dominican republic. in boca chica i went to the beach. i had been struggling at first to figure out what easter looked like here, and then i found out it just looks very different. the beach was a locals beach....i was again the only nondominican as far as i could tell. it was like a large neighborhood party at the beach. there were lots of kids swimming. there were basketball and volleyball tournaments going on and lots of games of dominoes. i swam a little and then watched volleyball for a while. and then watched dominoes. there was lots of loud music. so, that´s how easter looks here. that night i went with milagros to her church. it was different than UCC. lots of merengue. at one point there was a merengue-jump up and down train that went throughout the church. it also lasted two hours. they made me get up in front and say something. i talked some in english and someone translated roughly i could tell.....well, that´s been what´s going on here. i guess more later.
rachel

i´ve reached a somewhat quiet point here in the DR. the most traveling I´ve done has been to Boca Chica about half an hour away. Milagros has friends who we visit there. I´ve spent a lot of time watching tv in spanish and working on translating stuff. In Boca Chica I don´t go out and do stuff so much.

In good news....I now have a working shower (cold, but working). And we have an extra phone line installed (no dsl yet, but hopefully soon...i know i´ve been saying that for a couple of weeks). Also, in exciting news my friend Hector told me the other day that if I had darker skin I´d be a dominican (I¨m pretty sure thats what he said....but I could have misunderstood bc-of my spanish). I took that as a compliment....

i ate dinner with a missionary family from cincinnnati last night. they´re doing aids work here. it was really nice to have someone from home to talk to about what i´m seeing here.

i´ve come to a point where i miss home and all of you to some extent. but at the same time i can see how it will be difficult to leave here. i feel sort of stuck in the middle. i know what it´s like to live like people live here.....i´ve got friends here. then i know what´s it´s like to have the conveniences at home. sort of a weird middle place. i´m worried that i´ll just forget everything i´ve seen and experienced here....forget my friends.

nothing too exciting here. getting used to being back in san pedro.

i met with a missionary from cincinnati doing aids work here yesterday. he showed me his clinic and talked some about what is going on in the area. i also spent a lot of yesterday learning about what is necessary to go into planning a health clinic. lots of reading. also, playing with a patient database. we saw a patient in the afternoon.

today we´re supposed to go to boca chica (a half hour trip) visit milagros´friends...go to the beach...do some work and stay the night there. this is vacation week for a lot of people here. so all the kids are off school, and i think people do a lot of visiting and beaching.

then wednesday i´ve got dinner at the missionaries´ house.

noise

not too much exciting has happened since yesterday. we got our electricity back then went to show the physician´s assistant altos de chabon and la romana very pretty wealthy areas. also somewhat upper class touristy areas....not the typical family on the beach stuff. when we got home we found no electricity (frustrating and typical but not a norm for an evening....normally they cut it out during the day or in the middle of the night when it´s not as necessary) unfortunately it´s still not back on at our house.

this week is easter week so there will be lots of festivals going on i guess. also, i´ve been meaning to say there´s an election happening here in may. things here are so political. much more political even then the states during the last election. everyone has banners and paints houses and cars and motorcycles for their canidates. also, there are posters with pictures of the canidates everywhere. canidates campaign by putting a ton of speakers on the back of a truck and driving through the cities blasting music. i´´ve seen a couple of march type things. a bunch of cars, people, and motorcycles for a line and ride through the streets making as much noise as possible. i guess similar things will be happening this week. appearently there will be parades past my apartment. i´m interested ot see what happens. i also found that many people don´t work this week and no one works thursday through sunday.

well, that´s all the news i´ve got at the moment.

so it´s been a crazy and busy week. the night that we returned from puerto plata we spent time with the verizon guy looking for a spanish teacher for me. then he said that he wanted to introduce us to a pastor before we ate dinner at his house. it turns out that the pastor has a church interested in social justice, has a center for children and works with compassion international and world vision. on hearing this i wondered about ballet there. i asked if they would be interested in ballet and the pastor repolied äctually there´s a christian dance practice going on right now¨. i went in to watch the girls dance and then we prayed and they surrounded me with smiling faces and questions. they said they knew little about dance, but they really wanted to learn. they were so excited taht i had showed up. it was such a cool random thing to experience. made me think of how good God is. the church wants me to come and dance (the tv appearence never happened. i dodged my way out of that one by telling them i was busy and wasn´t interested in being on tv). anyways, that was exciting. we got home late that night and slept for about two hours before leaving to take gadea to the airport and head to samana. unfortunatelly when we woke up the power was gone, so we had to get ready in the dark. after dropping gadea off milagros, hector, the physician´s assistant and i headed off to samana. after seven or so hours of driving we arrived. we went to the beach and climbed over a cave and onto other parts of beach taht were hidden from the public. we spent the evening seeing some patients in random houses. the next day we took a patient to the hospital to get some tests done and then went to waterfalls while we waited for his results. we hiked a path that tourists either hike or take horses on. i in my normal confused state iddn´t know what were were doing so i was wearing flip flops and a skirt. also, there´was lots of mud, and if you know me me and mud or anything dirty is bad. i once again was the dirtiest one of the group. i ended up giving up on my flip flops and doing the hike barefoot. when we finally arrived to a tall waterfall we ate a picnic and then went swimming for a while in the waterfall and in some smaller waterfalls. we then returned to the hospital to get the results and then went back to the village where we were staying ate dinner and saw a few more patients. i´ve been trying to figure out healthcare milagros style. we visit friends, but then she gives them a shot at the end of the night. that seems to be how things work from what i can figure out in my confused state. housing was slightly different this trip. the first night we stayed in the house of epople i knew, but i hadn´t stayed there before. when i asked for a toilet that night iw as handed a plastic pot. i later found out there was also an outhouse out back. the next night the girls that i had stayed with previously begged me to stay with them. during this trip i also brought my laptop to show the kids pictures of them. they loved the pictures and were very excited. we left this morning to return cramming eight people in a jeep. one girl sat in the back we crammed three adults and one child in the back seat and two adults and a child in the front. i was so glad when the long journey hoem was over except that i´m very dirty and when we returned our apartment was dry with not a drop of useable water to be found. i am now here writing this in hopes that when i return the water truck will have brought water. i miss you all and hope everything is well with everyone.

patient care

patient care looks so different here.....

i've seen patients in various locations. our apartment, their house, friends' houses, friends of the doctor's house. i don't know. the scenery at times is prettier with palm trees and mountains in the background, and at times it's sadder with trash, and dilapidated buildings in the background. it feels like we're just sitting down to chat when in actuality we're discussing a patient's health and a plan of action for their care.

yesterday plans for work were made while swimming in the ocean and eating pizza. completely different. in july a group is coming to finish an office next to our apartment for us....i wonder how things will change.

today i'm in puerto plata. we left at 5am to drive here. went through santo domingo and then stopped in santiago.....another flat tire. taht makes four in less than a week. santiago's a cool looking city. i'm amazed at how different the cities are here. then we went to puerto plata, milagros' hometown. we did touristy stuff. went up a mountain....amazing stuff. wait until you see pictures. then we came over to sosoua. got a hotel and played on the beach. the hotel is amazing. not in normal terms but just in the fact that i haven't had running water for real in what seems like forever. milagros and i went into the shower turned on the hot water and started to scream in delight. it's amazing how exciting these things that used to be so commonplace become. that and tv in english......ahhhhh

that's been my day. again. weird contrasts, but i guess i'm finding life is full of those.

rain

yesterday i saw a slightly different side of my neighborhood. played in the rain for a while with some of the guys from the neighborhood. weird seeing the neighborhood from their eyes. getting soaking wet....playing a game with a ball. i don´t know.....a different look that i wouldn´t get as a tourist. hector´s my tour guide (this was added later bc-he´´s in the cafe reading over my shoulder and reading out loud....no english, but he knows when he´s beng talked about....internet cafes equal no privacy between little girls and hector...ay mamasita)

today we spent nine hours in the verizon office trying to get a dsl line set up. a couple of those hours were spent eating lunch with the family of the guy at verizon that was helping us set up the dsl line. everything takes a while to do. i spent a lot of time listening to people speak spanish much of which taht i didn´t understand and staring at white walls. but success....because by six o´clock we´d been fed, had permission to set up a dsl line (not installed yet) and i´ve got a couple options for a spanish prof. there we go. nine hours later, but our goals for the day were accomplished. tomorrow we head out to puerto plato. we have a physican´s assistant visiting with us, and tomorrow will be his tourist day. after that we´ve got lots of patients to see, and í´m going to start helping to set up a patient database and figuring out how to do community health assesments where we´re working. i´m ready to get going.

for a somewhat overdramatic look at my life here......
http://www.aguabuena.org/ingles/articules/dominicana20050720.html


yesterday i went to the salon with milagros....so cool....the first time someone at a salon hasn´t tried to puff up my hair. today just hanging out with dr. gadea, milagros, and hector....figuring out what i need to do.....

ay mamasita

ay mamasita! sums up the past week. that has also been one of our most commonly used phrases.

we had a group of americans come to visit this past week. it was an interesting contrast. i´m an american so i was part of their group, but i was also a host so i was part of the dominican group. milagros has finally let me help her, so we spent a lot of time preparing food, etc for them. i saw patients for the first time this week. things have been different. we go to people´s houses, people come to our house, we go to a friends house. we sit down with the patient and just talk to them. in the country we saw patients sitting at a table outside with a wonderful view of palm trees and mountains in the background with chicken around our feet.

this has also been a week of contrasts. we went to santo domingo, the capital, to do siteseeing. it almost reminded me of a combination of antigua and new york city as weird of a combination as that is. the contrast to san pedro where i´m living was interesting. it seemed much more modern, and much less dirty. also, there were a lot of beautiful historicla buildings (we´re hopefully getting internet in my apartment this week so i can post pictures). we also went to la romana where there are many tourists. we visited a tourist hang out that´s a remake of an italian village. it was absolutely gorgeous. eating in a restaurant there the only dominicans in the place where the workers and the dominicans with our group. it was so weird. hard to look at how much money ahd been spent on that after seeing the rest of life in the dominican. to imagine that tourists only see beauty. we also visited the sugar cane plantations. a friend of our group´s father in law is an old boss in one of the plantations. seeing his house next to that of the hatian workers in the bateyes. the clinic there was surprisingly beuatiful. funded by the sugar companies so that their workers don´t miss to much work. we ate fresh sugar cane and coconut. yesterday we went to see the house and out to dinner with a brother of the family here.....another startling contrast.

my favorite part of the week was returning to samana that part of the country on the northern coast that i visited last week. the kids welcomed me back with hugs. our trip was horrendous. we got flat tires in both of the vehicles that we travelled in and then when we got there a flat tire in the another truck. three flat tires in one day. milagros renamed us the pinchagomas....tire flattners is the rough translation. on the way there we sat on the front of the boat and got absolutely soaked through and through by waves, but it was so much fun. the americans stayed with one family and milagros and i with another. i love the family i stay iwht. the one thing i hate is that my bed moves at night, but i´m the only person in it.....i try and convince myself that is´just their pet dog.....i hope. also, the shower-toilet are in a sectioned off portion of their kitchen area. we went to a river and played in slash climbed a waterfall....so cool, like a hot tub that´s cold. we also had a picnic on the beach with many of the members of the community. one of my favorite parts. there were lots of people. the kids kept running up and introducing friends and family to me. i had the kids playing hand clap games, doing sparkles, and running races. one of the girls pushed me into the water.....so much for not wanting to get wet. they had a small church service on the beach. i don´t know it was a crazy experience to become part of a community in something that´s so foreign to you. at least the kids never change.

ít´s been good. i´ve enjoyed having the americans around. i functioned as a translator....imagine that. a very rough translator. although i´m very ready to start getting to work and starting my spanish classes. i now feel as though i´ve got some feel for this area. this week i hope to really start working....you all know me and how i liek to stay busy.

i´ve made friends with people here. with some of the americans. i now have a place to stay when i visit philly and also with the dominicans. i ride around in the back of a car blasting reggaeton music (for those that went to guatemala think gasolina) and an 18 year old kid singing at the top of his lungs and screaming randomly for no reason. the culture is different here. watching the baseball community is intersting. every kid here dreams of playing baseball. i´m reminded of ballet. that has been the excitement of the week. hopefully, i´ll get pictures up soon. i miss you all.

rachel