week 1: philadelphia

so i'm jumping around the next month. i had a very sad goodbye at the airport with milagros and hector. i found my head spinning as the plane flew back to the states. the man sitting next to me on the plane asked if i was going home, and i sort of had to pause for a moment before responding "yes". for me home is such a weird concept. i know my parents hate the thought of home being any place but canton ohio (it's still it's own sort of home), but because i've been on the move for so long i've found that home easily becomes the place where i come back to the most often for any set period of time longer than a few weeks. i found myself this past week talking with someone and saying "when i go home...." in reference to the DR. i found myself laying in bed the second night i was home wishing that i was back in the DR. don't get me wrong, i'm LOVING seeing everyone. it makes me really happy...but it's sort of a weird i miss the DR but man do i love seeing my friends and family here. especially this next month with me jumping around so much i think the DR will keep home status until august. i've actually talked with milagros/hector a decent amount since being back. i've been in some form of contact with them almost every day. i got a phone call from milagros the other night to say that all of the water had again disappeared in one day.

my time in the states has been interesting. my first day back i had a series of meeting at school which all went very well. i then had a retreat with UCC which was such a blessing. a lot of the topics being discussed were topics that i've been sorting through myself recently, so it was great to be able to come back and discuss the topics with friends and people i felt comfortable with. also, the coolest thing of all was that on sunday i spoke with the church about a woman that i know in the DR who has cancer and has been struggling financially to complete chemo. by the end of the day i had about $2700 for the woman and her treatment. such a cool thing to see.

i spent the beginning part of this week staying with my boss' pastor in philadelphia. i visited esperanza health clinic here in philly. it was crazy to find such a large spanish speaking patient population. i was excited to find that i can understand other spanish speakers better than i can understand dominicans....so in the morning when i was less tired i had a pretty good idea of what was going on most of the time. my second day at esperanza i went out with an outreach person to see the neighborhoods they go looking for patients in. i felt like iw as back in the dr with reggaeton pumping and spanish signs everywhere. the neighborhoods were different than any i'd seen before....stolen cars which had been set on fire, these garage things that people sell stuff out of. the weird thing was that i found that in philly they go looking for patients to treat....in the DR we've got the patients...we just don't have any way of treating them. weird how that works.

i arrived at eastern university this morning, and i'm here through the weekend for the christian community health fellowship conference. well, that's all i've got right now. hope all is well with everyone.