Final Reflection

Hi guys. Sorry, I know its been a long time since my last entry, but I was really busy with my independent study, and lost keeping up with the blog. But I feel like I should sum up my experience for all you guys of my fall semester in the Dominican Republic. It has been the best experience of my life. I have learned so much, not just language, but also public health issues, political problems, Dominican culture and medicine. David, Stacy, Mollie, Jenn, Jenny, Kelly, and Christina have been my family. I’m sad to see everyone go, but we all will go onto better things and do great things. I can tell. Every one of us has the strive and thirst to change medicine and health in Latin America since being here. I personally know the health situation here needs to change. Services are decent, but need to be improved. Seeing and working in a public clinic (NGO) like Pequeños Pasitos really struck me as something that needs to be more prominent in the Dominican Republic. As in the more impoverished parts, such as in the south. David and I were throwing around some ideas of how to improve this one night, and hopefully in the future, we can work together in hope of achieving this goal of improving health all over Latin America. I think David and I really have the drive to do this, so hopefully we can get together later in life and complete our goals. I’m proud as well to have many contacts in DR, so that when I go back, I’ll be welcomed back in open arms. I’m really glad I chose this program. It has just been a perfect experience; it exceeded my expectations completely. My host family was incredible, our program director (Lilly) was stupendous, and my friends (David, Stacy, Mollie, Jenn, Jenny, Kelly and Christina) are the greatest. You all are my family, and are always welcome in Michigan. It has been my great pleasure and honor to have known all of you, and I hope we can all stay in touch. As for all my friends in Michigan, I’ll be home tonight. If you would like to get together and discuss this in person, I can tell you all the little details, and tell you how amazing this experience was. As for all my new friends all around the US, I love you guys, and thanks for everything, you guys helped make this experience the absolute best it could be. Para mis amigos en la Republica Dominicana, les quiero mucho, y cuídense. Les prometo que voy a volver un día, y podremos juntarnos. Thanks to all of you who read this blog, it means a lot that you guys wanted to keep tabs on me. Maybe I’ll write one for France summer 2010, maybe. But thanks again to all of you. Send me a message whenever and I’ll be more than happy to keep in touch with all of you. Merry Christmas.

Paris Summer 2010?????

Oct. 29

So its official. I have applied to the History of Science in Europe: Language, Art and Science in Paris Summer 2010 program. I've been talking to a lot of people about it, I asked my friends back home, my parents, my host parents here and my program director. They all told me Paris would be the best one. See, I was considering two other programs; Community Service and Engagement in Peru, or Globalization and Politics in Argentina. The Peru program was the only one I was seriously considered however, I wouldn't get any credit for it for my degree program. This way, I can get credit for graduation and also learn french! I also talked to one of my good friends, Christine and found out she also is going! You don't understand, we had a class together and always had a blast, just imagining us in France...oh man, soooooooo awesomeeeeeee. Anyways, we're both happy we know other people in the program. Also we've been discussing traveling around Europe as well. Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany, any others...but in all reality it'll be fewer countries but we'll see! So attention all my friends back at MSU, you'll have to teach me french, so I can hopefully study at Sorbonne (elementary french, I just wanna test into that class). I'm really excited, hopefully I get accepted and can study in Paris next summer! Yay! That's all. Hope all is well!

Samaná

Oct. 23-Friday

Hey guys, just wanted to tell you about an amazing weekend I’m having.

Friday we embarked on our trip to Samaná. Samaná is a peninsula in the north-eastern part of DR. It took a 4.5 hour drive, not so bad, compared to the south. So what we decided to do was to rent a house for all us. Its been really cool, just living all together, cooking for each other, living like a family. Only our program could have done it, knowing the other two groups there would be a lot more conflicts. I digress, before we arrived at the house here in Las Terrenas (a city an hour away from Samaná-the city, it’s a province) we went to a cascade named the Salto de Limón. First to get there, the fast way was on horseback. Now normally I don’t like horses, but after this experience I felt more comfortable controlling and riding the horse. Mom and Dad will be proud! :) Anyways, once we arrived at the Salto, it was breathe-taking. The biggest waterfall in DR. Really, but what was cooler is that you could swim in the water. So we did, or most of us, it was really cool experience. The water was so cold though, you wouldn’t believe it. It was still enjoyable exploring the area, and taking pictures. I highly recommend it if you are down here in DR. Anyways, afterwards we rode back, had lunch and was off to the house.

The house here is incredible. I can’t even begin to describe how awesome it is. We are a 2 minute walk away from the beach, a basically private beach that is just incredible. The house here has a gazebo which is just nice to wake up and walk out and enjoy the view of the ocean. Anyways once we arrived we decided to unpack and then go the beach before we made dinner. So we went to the beach 2 minutes from the house and swam, just enjoying the water and relaxing after the adventure at the waterfall. We get to the do the same on Sunday. After an hour swimming, clouds started to form, and we thought it was gonna rain, so we decided to head back and play some board games. So we did for awhile, then people decided they were hungry and we started to cook. However when we started to get all the things together we discovered at the supermarket we forgot to buy items that we already organized! Oh no! It was suppose to be fajitas night, but we didn’t have nothing, no peppers, no tortillas, nothing. So I went with our guagua driver Miguel Angel to look for a place to buy tortillas, peppers or even nachos chips. Nothing, I had only one choice; bread. So that’s what we did. I made chicken, chorizo, onion, and some peppers (hot) for spice. It was ok, but people told me it was too hot. Oh well. Guess I just like me my spice food! :) Hehehe. Worked out ok I suppose. Afterwards, Jenny and I played dominoes against Laura (professor from Spain) and Ana (our professor from DR). We lost, but it was still fun. And that ended out night. Good day.

Oct. 24-Saturday

Today was a blast. Today we went to one of the coolest places I have ever been to; Los Haitises. It is just one of the coolest things guys. This is a must, if you have the opportunity. It’s across from Samaná. Meaning we had to take a boat from Samaná to see the islands. It’s just incredible, no technology or truly developed society has inhabited it. The Taíno only came to the Haitises for rituals, they didn’t live there, because they knew this land was precious and should be respected. The word Haitises has a derivation from a work that means beautiful land that the Taínos used back in the day. Let me tell you, its just pure nature. Really beautiful. It really made me love this country even more, just seeing that DR as this kind of beauty close by. I have a lot of pics, and I’ll put them up when I have time. Been a busy busy boy. Anyways also, we stopped a beach and had lunch and was able to swim. The swimming was great, really calm and just enjoyable again. Sun was strong though, definitely got burnt. Ah, no me gusta. Pero eh, whatever.

Afterwords we went to a house of an Afro-woman who had ancestors from the US. She liked to speak English with us, cause she likes to be proud of her ancestors and speak English, but it was kinda still hard to understand her. But no worries. It was interesting to hear that ex-slaves were invited to live in DR after they were freed. Some stayed, others left. I wanna research more about that, but intriguing. The food she made for us though was worth talking about sooooooo good. Coco bread and drink I can’t really describe. Just awesome though.

Later that night, we had to cook dinner again. So what we did was two pastas; one penne with tomato sauce, and a pesto spaghetti with chicken, gilled with tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers and lemon with garlic bread. I made the pesto spaghetti and one portion of the chicken. It was really good. I was proud! :) However we did have one adventure that was pretty scary. All the ovens are gas ovens down here, and when we tried to incite it well….BOOM! Oh man, I was right next to oven too, I was on the stove cooking the chicken, I don’t know how nobody got hurt, but it was just crazy. Oh man, just insane. Everyone survived and we made the garlic bread in the panni-machine instead and it came out just as good. It was a good night, besides that. David and I bought some cigars before we left, got a beer, and went to our “private” beach, and just enjoyed the stars and had a “profound” conversation as we usual do when smoking a cigar. At least with me I like to have intelligent deep conversations with cigars. But we enjoyed the beach and just had a relaxed night. Or so I thought. What happened was we tried to go out to Las Terrenas to dance, but what happened was, they wouldn’t let some two of the girls in our group cause they looked too young. So we tried 2 places and still had problems. Whatever, we back to the house and went back to the beach and just enjoyed the stars. It was just incredible.

Oct. 25-Sunday

Sunday was just a relaxed day. We got up in the morning and Jenny, Stacy and Mollie cooked breakfast for all of us. It was great, omelets with whatever you wanted. Really great way to start the morning. Afterwords I decided to go the beach and walk around for a while and really see the area. It was great, I got a lot of cool pics, I’ll try and put them up when I can. Oh also, we got free coconuts by some of the guys who work in the area of where our house was. Drank the water inside and ate the fruit. It was really sweet. Otherwise it was just a relaxed day on the beach and just enjoying our last day in Las Terrenas. Can’t really explain it that well, you just had to be there. The water was perfect, temperature-wise, color, and calm. Really enjoyable, I definitely want to come back with my family to see it. It was my favorite part so far of DR. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a nice vacation spot away from the city. Well that’s all I got. Thanks for reading and I hope to hear from you guys soon! Email me if you have a question or a comment. I’d love to hear it. Hope all is well!

Law Classes and Children Shelter

Oct. 22

Hey guys! Just have some things I wanna write down. Yesterday I spent the 3 hours at a public hospital named Hospital Cabral, and we got a tour from a medical student of all the different wards. It was really cool, I was with David, Jenn, and Kelly. We got to go to internal medicine, neurology and others. We got to read the charts and ask questions if we wanted to, to the doctor and the patient. We actually got to meet a patient with Lupus. That was really cool, I've always heard of Lupus in House, but never got to see it. That was really cool to see. The tour was just really interesting cause we got to see how health care works in DR. 4 people to a room, no air conditioning, and families are always with the patient. Just really incredible to see. Once I have my permission from my professor I'm going to start my investigations for my independent study. But next week we get to go again and see more of the hospital. I'll let you know how that goes!

Afterwords I had dance class, and then I was going to meet a dominican friend of mine to join her in her law classes. To say the least, they argue a LOT down here in the classes. Just back and forth, back and forth all the time. It was really hard to me to understand cause the professor kinda just mediated the class, and let the students talk, and the students well talk way too fast for me sometimes. But it was interesting to see the difference between their classes and our classes back home. The second class was easier to understand, just sooooooo boring. It was the Law of Work. Man, just about salaries, vacation time, and other boring topics. However, it was really interesting to hear that farm workers only get paid 175 pesos a day. FOR 10 HOURS! That's 4.86 dollars. A lot of the students in the class said thats an abuse! I was happy to hear that the future lawyers of the DR were appalled by this, but makes me wonder too if once they're in power they'll do anything to change that. The corruption here is disheartening, my program director says she's scared of the situation sometimes, and really hopes something is done to fight corruption, otherwise she said she'll move. We'll see, I have faith my friend Geraldine. She really seems set on changing the situation as much as she can down here. After the classes, she invited to me to a Cirulo, which was a event where people give testimonies of a near death experience and how God and their faith saved them. Another interesting thing, religion is very important down here to the people. Very interesting to observe.

Today we were able to visit a Children Shelter outside of Santiago today, and it was cool. Two nuns run the place and teach the kids good morals, songs, and, of course, religion. They do great work, the kids were very polite, nice and hard working. A lot of us were able to play with the kids, and get to know what their living situations are like. Hopefully sometime again, we'll have the opportunity to work there again. The situation was not as bad as I thought it would be, but they still need help. Hopefully once I figure out what I want to do with my career I can help out these shelters and make sure health services can reach everyone. Its a long shot, but aiming for high hopes keeps you motivated. Hopefully it has and still does motivate you guys in your lives. I sure hope so. Hope all is well back home. Thanks for reading. Best regards!

Thought Provoking Day

Oct. 20

Hey guys, I know its been a lot time, but just had some things I wanted to just write down. I spent all of today working at the clinic Pequeno Pasitos (run by the Mother's Wish Organization-http://www.amotherswish.org/index.htm) and just had a lot of thoughts today about health care here in DR. I worked with the nurse all day and observed what she does in the clinic. Very general things as in the US, and that made me think wouldn't her talents be put to better use in other situations? Anyway, afterwords we talked with the founders of the Mother's Wish Foundation and found out they just had a received a donation of $100,000 dollars to keep running their clinic, which just made me feel so relieved. Just knowing that people in this world are capable of such generosity keeps me motivated to want to work in the Public Health sector in Latin America. But we also discussed with Diego and Rita (the founders) how they were planning on allocating the funds to keep the place in business; because right now they want to open a pre-school as well as keep the clinic running, however the clinic itself is losing money with adult patients. See, at the clinic, children and pregnant women are seen first then at the end adults are seen last. This makes them mad, but the point of the clinic was to help the children and pregnancies. It costs a lot of money to pay for medicine for adults as well as the children especially the people with chronic diseases. So Diego and Rita asked Mollie and I what we thought would be the best method to revise the health care system here there at the clinic to save money and the doctors and nurses could work most efficiently and stop from just seeing people who have a cold and just come for the free medicine, and kinda waste the doctors and nurses times. Mollie had a good suggestion, of a Colmado (store on basically every corner of every street) motoconcho message system. People all congregate at Colmados to buy food, supplies, or socialize, and from there if someone in their family is sick and needs a consult, the doctor or nurse can come out there and provide a service, or prescribe medicine rather then just waste the doctors time at the clinic when the doctor needs to face the more important cases. This does however leave people out. This could and in all likelihood will cause problems, because people don't have much education about health, and how to really take care of themselves. People just self-medicate a lot and sometimes only go to the doctor if their condition is truly severe, yet at the same time how will these people be able to stay healthy? The education there is barely more than middle school for all of us back home. How can people educated at a middle school level take care of themselves, let alone their children!??! I go to this clinic and visit the cities and the people are happy; they don't have much money, education, or hope to leave but at the same time they're happy. It makes me just feel so lucky, in all reality I could have been more to a family like that, yet I was born into a such a better off family, and completely different society and culture. Why? Some of these people have never been to the beach, seen the ocean! They live on an island, and some of them have never seen the ocean because they don't have enough money! I remember in Santo Domingo we were at one of the museums and a family couldn't get in because they didn't know it cost money to get in, so my program director Lilly (being the most incredible person I know here in DR) paid for them to get in. There's so much inequality here its just something I can't really describe, you just need to see it for yourself down here. Anyways, I got sidetracked, being in I really would appreciate it if somebody would give me some suggestions or ideas of how to reform the health care system here, I'm coming up with some ideas too, but I'd like to hear from you, my educated readers. A lot of you I look up too, and I would love to hear from you. I hope all is well back home with you guys!

PS Its reallyyyyyy hott down here! :-D Hehehe, sorry guys, I'll be back in Dec, and just as upset as you guys! Boooooooo

Santo Domingo

Oct. 4

Hey guys, I know I haven’t updated the blog lately, but there hasn’t been too much to stay till this past weekend, since we spent it Santo Domingo, the capital of Dominican Republic. Just for a heads up if something doesn’t makes sense or doesn’t sound right grammatically, etc etc just know that I’m running on only like 7 hours of sleep in the past 2 days, meaning I only slept 3.5 hours last night and Friday night. So I’m a wee bit tired, but I have things to say. So, on Saturday we left at 7am and had like a 2 hour and 15 minute drive to Santo Domingo. It was fun, and a definite experience. Once we arrived in Santo Domingo, first we went to the botanical gardens, and that was just really cool, just seeing this nature-y part of the Santo Domingo was cool. The trees, flowers and fountains were just really nice to see and a nice change of pace in comparison to the city of Santiago. After that we tried to the Anthropological museum, but unfortunately they had no electricity and thus the exhibits were closed. It was a bummer, but we had more time to see others things. After checking out the closed museums we went to eat lunch, and afterwards went to Tres Ojos (Three Eyes). It was one of the coolest things I’ve seen. The three eyes are 3 lakes in a cave-like area beneath Santo Domingo. One of the coolest things, the water is a certain blue color similar to Window Washer fluid and there were bats, turtles and fish all in the lakes. Laura (Lilly, our program director’s daughter) told us that there use to a be a Alligator in one of the lakes we visited. We didn’t see it, so it was kinda of a let down. But no worries. Afterwards we went to our hostels, and for me, this was the first time for me staying at a hostel. But I was surprised it was pretty nice. I’ve heard bad things or just that they’re cheap and not the best places, but I liked where we stayed. Pretty nice bed, David and I had to share again, but we were cool with that. Nice shower, air conditioning and everything. We ended up showering before the concert and since the girls take more time to get ready, David and I ended up exploring the neighborhood and found a cigar shop. We talked to the guys in the shop and they ended up being really nice and helped us pick out a good cigar. We decided to smoke ones that had just been prepared that day by the guy in the back with his desk. We took them back to our hostel and smoked them on the patio and had an ice cold Presidente. It was, for David and me, a perfect way to start for the concert.

So we ended up buying tickets for a concert of merguenue, bachata, and reggaeton there in Santo Domingo at the Olympic Stadium. They only people though we all really wanted to see were Don Omar and Daddy Yankee. So this was the experience I think I’m never going to forget, ever. People here, in the Dominican Republic, at this type of concert, are crazy. Just absolutely insane. We got there at 5pm, right? The concert was suppose to start at 6pm and they first musician (there were 5 of them) didn’t start singing until 7:30pm. It was ridiculous too, how many people were there. This was the biggest concert I have ever been to in my life. A lot of cool things are happening down here for me, just have all these new experiences and such. Anyways, what ended up happening was being stuck in a huge crowd for about 3 hours standing the entire time. The people were crazy too, they broke the barrier in between the stage and ground area and basically stamped to the front of the stage. It was ridiculous. People were drunk too, so that made things just so much worse. After a while, I had to leave the group cause, I was just feeling too claustrophobic, if you didn’t know that about me now you do, I kinda have claustrophobia of large groups. But it was kinda justified, cause I kid you not, these people just acted so primitively. At one point, there was a fight with throwing water bottles back and forth through the crowds, we had to run to the center to avoid getting hit, but still we close to people who got hit. I even saw a poor woman got hit with a glass bottle, it was just really saddening. Even when things calmed down every 15 minutes or so people were running from some kind of fight making me feel even more nervous about shit that could happen. Oh, another thing that was just so different from any other concert I’ve been too, garbage was EVERYWHERE. They had no garbage cans, and people just throw they’re trash on the floor, which truth be told doesn’t help when people end up stampeding at points in the concerts. It was just so unorganized and kinda just insane. I don’t regret not going, cause it was an experience, I just wish they made it safer, cause there were little kids at the concerts, and I was worried for them, cause the people just go insane for the music. Just pure insanity. Anyways, finally at the end Don Omar and Daddy Yankee played, but the concert didn’t end until 3. And I didn’t get to sleep till 4 last night, so I’m still pretty tired.

Anyways, today was much more relaxed, we just toured around Santo Domingo’s colonial zone, which I really liked. To me it reminded me of Europe, like Spain or Italy. Makes sense though, since that was the first city of the Americas! Just for you information! Santo Domingo was founded in 1498. It was really cool to just walk around and see the ruins and old cathedrals. We went to the market too which was really cool, really similar to markets I’ve been too in Texas, Mexico and Israel. People just striving for your attention and such. In English too for the girls (and David), but lately they’ve been only speaking to me in Spanish. Maybe I’m looking more foreign lately. Ah, but I digress. After the Mercado we went to had a guide who took us all around the colonial zone and just really made me feel in Europe. You guys should check it out if you ever come down here, its really cool. If you like Europe you’d like that area of Santo Domingo. Where was I? After the tour we ate in the center of the Colonial zone at Parque Colón. (After Christopher Colombus) Had a nice sandwich and was able to tour the center of the colonial zone, specifically the art. It was really impressive to see the artists working and to see what they can do. Otherwise that’s all we did today. So that’s it, I hope all is going well back home! Oh, can somebody tell me who won the UofM v MSU game? I am totally disconnected from football down here. But feel free to send me an email or message with questions or comments, I’d love to discuss it with you, my loveable fans (haha, no just you guys, my friends and family) any topic I’ve written about. Miss you guys! Talk to you guys later!

Dengue Campaña

Tuesday Sept. 22

Hey guys! Just wanted to comment quickly on what I did today at Pequeños Pasitos. It was just amazing. Today we were able to go to the clinic and help with a Dengue Campaign. We arrived and were split up into different groups to help out educate and cover water tanks in order to avoid Dengue. Dengue is transmitted from a type of Mosquito-Aedes albopictus that lays its eggs in clean water. So what we did was made sure that they knew to cover and clean their water tanks with chlorine, and keep it covered in order to prevent Dengue. It was just really cool to think holy crap, I'm making a small difference in order for these people's better health. It was just really cool to go throughout all of the neighborhood to see how the people live and understand what their knowledge is. The afternoon was just more fun cause I got to work with David and Micah to pass out the information and cover the tanks and such. It was just really cool to see how people live there and use water tanks for portable water. Just a completely different culture. I wish you guys could just see how cool it is here. Its just hard to write about sometimes, I just wish you guys could have been here with me helping with the campaign. I felt very proud of myself knowing that Dengue here will have a less presence thanks to us. Thats all right now, hope all is well back home. Regards.

Fin de Semana en el Sur de RD

Friday-September 18

Let me just start by saying, what a weekend. I have so many thoughts I want to write down this might be a really long and rambling blog, but I need to write it down. This past weekend we had our excursion down to the south of DR. Specifically we stayed in a town Vicente Noble. Like 40 kilometers west of Azua. Friday we left at 7am. Really really eary, cause we were told we would be in the Gua-Gua (bus) for 12 hours. I kid you not; we drove and stayed in a Gua-Gua for 12 hours on Friday. Not fun, but I’ll tell you how it was. Most people slept on the Gua-Gua, but I can’t sleep in cars for some odd reason, unlike a certain somebody I know who only needs to get comfy and warm to sleep anywhere! :) Anyway, we drove to Santo Domingo where we stopped to buy some food, drinks and use the bathrooms for a half and hour, and then onwards towards Vicente Noble. But let me tell you the geography of this county is just incredible. Mountains in the background, enormous lakes, interesting villages, never-ending ocean views. We had 4 students from the south with us, two of which were from Vicente Noble and showed us the city. We first, however, dropped off two of them a bit outside of Vicente Noble in their respective city, and then made it to Vicente Noble where we dropped off the other two students with us. We then made our way to Lago Enriquillo which was incredible, seeing it from Taíno site made it even more incredible. We then went to visit the bottom of the lake, but we couldn’t see much due to the trees, so no good pics there. :( But the views from the top were just incredible, when I have time, I’ll put them up so you guys can see them. Otherwise email me if you’d like to see them. We then were told that we would be going to see the border of Haiti and DR in the south. So we ended up going there and (sorry mom and dad) were able to visit Haiti for 10 minutes. We talked to the people at immigration and they let us in and were very nice. It might had been to the fact we had a Haitian student with is from PUCMM, but no matter, I can say now that I’ve been to Haiti. The dynamic in the south is completely different from the north, so it was definitely a very interesting thing to compare. After visiting Haiti, we then drove back to Vicente Noble and stayed with a family to get a true southern experience. And let me tell you, it was an experience. We met the Doña, and she was just incredible to us (David and I-we had to share a bed together, more on that later) and her niece and her brother. They all live in the house together and were very hospitable and lived in a very humble house. They fed us and talked to us a bit to understand what exactly we were doing. At first they thought we were on vacation, but once we told them we were studying they seemed very pleased to have us there even more. The house itself was very simple, kitchen, bathroom and laundry room combined, 4 bedrooms and an area in the back for their chicken to roam around in. They rarely had running water, and electricity, so it was very interesting “showering” and getting through dinners without electricity. I still enjoyed it though. Then just before we went to bed, we met a deaf child who lived in neighborhood who knew the Doña and niece very well. He came in and ran right away. He was scared of me! :( He was scared of the beard and glasses, in the south I guess its not too common! ;) hehe. Anyway we watched the Doña and niece talk to him using hand signals, it was really cool. So that made the night really interesting. But once he left we went to bed for the next exciting day!

Saturday-September 19

Man, I though things couldn’t top going to Haiti and seeing the Lago Enriquillo, but Saturday we topped it. I have been to one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and I can say that with complete confidence now. On Saturday we went to Bahía de las Aguilas. Yes, Jav! We did go! And I have to say you were right! It was just absolutely breathtaking. Took forever to get there from Vicente Noble (5 ½ hours) but once we did, it was just incredible. Once of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen in my life. And I’ve seen a good amount of beaches; this definitely topped a lot of them. Once we arrived at the Bahía, we took a boat from a restaurant/club and they dropped us off at one of the nicest beaches ever. The water was a perfect turquoise, almost as far as the eye could see, the beach had the whitest sand I’ve ever seen, the beach was clean (barely any trash anywhere) and the best thing: not that many people were there. No tourists. Just Dominicans and a few Haitians know about this perfect beach, but it honestly was just an incredibility beautiful beach. My camera died too! So imagine how pissed I was, but I’ll be stealing pics from other friends on this trip. But take my word, it was an incredible beach. We spent 2 hours there, enjoying the beach; I took a walk with Jenny basically through the whole coast which was awesome to see the bay itself as a whole. I swam pretty far out and came back (kinda exhausted, I need to start swimming more!) but the water was just perfect for swimming. We really didn’t want to leave, hopefully one day I’ll be able to go back there, maybe bring on of you guys with me! :) Just be nice to me! Hehehe. Anyways once we were back from the beach, we ate at the restaurant, whole fishes! Heads still on and everything, with tostones, papas and aguacate. Really good! A lot of the girls were hesitant, but I can understand if you’d never had that before, it would be strange. Lucky I’ve eaten whole fishes before, heads and everything, and I thing it makes you feel cooler eating a fish that’s whole. Haha. Anyways after that we walked around the fishing community of the bay and saw where the fishermen lived, and it was just shacks underneath the cliffs, just really poorly constructed houses and unsafe, but here for them, that’s normal. Just really makes me feel so privileged and lucky to live in the US and come from a family that’s really privileged. At the same time though, it makes you feel bad about coming down to the beach on vacation and seeing the inequality of the social classes down here. I’m still always thinking about that. Anyways, once we toured the community, we left for Vicente Noble. Once we got back, we decided to see the night life of Vicente Noble. Since David and I were staying together, we decided to head out there and meet the other girls when they got there, since they take hours and hours to get ready and David and I can get ready in 15 minutes. Anyways, we ate and got ready in 15 minutes. So we decided to head our, the niece escorted us to the park (since we had no idea where it was) and once we were there we decided to buy a beer and watch people in the park. So that’s what we did and the bartender asked us where we from since we obviously didn’t look like we were from Vicente Noble. We were the only white people in the whole park. So we ended up talking to the bartender for awhile just about what we were doing in Vicente Noble and such. It was really interesting. But wait, it gets even more interesting, once we sit down and start talking for a bit, a Dominican girl approaches us and invites us to sit with her and some of her friends. And our night began with Dory, Miguelita, and Sara. Dory was flirting David, while Miguelita was flirting with me. (Sara had a boyfriend). We talked to them about what were doing in Vicente Noble, about their studies, our studies, their future careers, and ours. It was just really cool to get know some other Dominicans, these Dominicans girls were much more approachable than any I know of here in Santiago. Here in Santiago, the girls are just a bit too snooty. Ah mi no me gusta mucho. Anyways, they invited us to disco not too far, so we went with them and they told us how to dance basically. It was fun, even though I kinda suck at dancing at times…oh well. Miguelita I think was humoring me. Anyways, after a while, David was feeling a bit uncomfortable with Dory, cause she was asking him for money and drinks, so we decided to head out. We got numbers though! Whoo. Not really that big a whoo, but that’s basically how the night ended.

Sunday-September 20

Sunday was interesting cause we basically just did one thing, but it was pretty much the most important. We went to a barrio called Los Baytes. It’s a barrio outside of any really city, and is filled with Haitian immigrants. We first meet the youth group and introduced ourselves and they began to discuss life in the Bayte. Just to hear how they lived was just so intriguing. One thing that has just struck me really hard with interest was this: a girl said ‘We are not poor, we have Jesus Christ.’ Just thinking about that, this community living the way it is, I believe truly needs faith. Otherwise I believe it would be chaos and mayhem, but at the same time, I don’t think having Jesus Christ with you doesn’t make you poor, we toured the community. To me, it just seems that they’re surviving, not really living, but for them to believe in God is what they need, then I am completely in support of that. Its just curious that is so different in the United States. I would love to talk more about this, just ask me if you want to know more. I just don’t want to offend anyway, but if you have questions about the community with religion let me know! But just listening to the community and talking to them was really intriguing. Then I came to a conclusion that we were probably one of the first Americans they’ve ever seen, which makes me just want to know what they think about us and our culture. Next time we go down there it might be interesting to ask them, what they know or think about us.

Monday-September 21

But in reality, this whole experience was just incredible. I am so exhausted, but at the same time I’m so glad that I was able to have this experience. Everyone down in the south was very nice, hospitable, even though they didn’t have much to give. The Bayte was by far the most interesting part of the trip. I just wish some of you guys could have joined us for that experience. It was just so interesting and thought provoking, I’m still thinking about it and don’t really know how I feel about it still. There’s just so much inequality down here and its really shocking at times. Makes me feel like there’s so much that needs to be done, and a bit spoiled. I was talking to our Haitian friend and she was saying that these people aren’t really living but just surviving on the basis of faith. I agree with her, but they really do want to better their lives. That’s the goal I think of everyone down there, but she argued at times they don’t work or want to get an education to better their lives and kinda just wait for blessings from God. Its rough to see how they put all their faith in blessings from God and live the way they do. That just makes me feel that God can’t be ever present if they’re living they way they are. Curious how living in a completely different place can effect your faith so much. Its very intriguing. Well I think that’s all for now. I’m tired of typing, so I’ll let you guys read and comment back to me via facebook, email, skype, whatever you’d like to contact me and give me your comments. Things are going great otherwise, better get going, gotta grab lunch before Dance class. Catch you guys around! Tengan una buena semana.

Working at Pequeños Pasitos

Sept 16

Hey guys, hope you're all in good health. Just a quick entry, for those who are interested in reading. This past Tuesday (yesterday) I went to the community where we're having our Medical Community class. Well this week was very interesting. I got to go out into the community and talk to them about Dengue and take blood pressures with my Professor! How awesome does that sound! Me, actually helping out a community that needs help. Its surreal at times. I'm absolutely ecstatic about doing it, but at times I still can't believe it. Anyway, I also started my independent study. For those of you who don't know, I am writing a 30 page case study of a health issue down here in the Dominican Republic. I've decided to write on the Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice of Preventive Medicine/Primary Care specifically focusing on Dengue. I started by asking the people of the community what they knew about Dengue, such as their knowledge of symptoms, how its transmitted, and how they can prevent it. I was surprised to find a lot of people knew how to avoid Dengue. I was really happy about that, to know little kids weren't dying because people are taking care of their water supply. But another pleasant surprise. Anyways, so while we were in the community, whenever the people would address us individually they called us "Doctor". She actually is a doctor, but they called me doctor as well. HOLY CRAP! I can't even begin to tell you how odd that was to hear. People called me Doctor...Doctor. Man, just cause I know how to take blood pressures doesn't make me a doctor. I'm telling you that was an experience I'll never forget and actually next week I get to do the same, expect go with a community consultant through the community and discuss Dengue I'm assuming. (This time of year here in DR, is high season for Dengue). But that should be really exciting. Actually this weekend I will be incomunicado till Sunday from Friday. Friday were are leaving to the Southwest of DR, to really see the impoverished region of the country. For those of you don't know, the poorest regions of DR are in the South, so seeing that will probably be very eye opening. I will blog about that experience afterwords. But thats all thats been going on. Oh, I made Huevos Ranceros for my family last night and they loved it. It almost tasted like Tita's (my Grandma). Its because of her that I love Huevos Rancheros so much! Look it up and try and make is some times guys! Its really good, trust me you'll enjoy it! Anyways, I'm rambling, so I'll talk to you guys later! Have a great weekend!

Clases de Ingles, Sosuá, y más!

Sept 9

Hey guys! Hope all is going well! I just wanted to tell you guys about one of the coolest experiences I had on Tuesday. (Monday wasn’t very exciting, just had class all day and came home and passed out.) Yesterday or Tuesday was really incredible. As you guys might have remembered, as being in this program, the goal is to really understand how community medicine works. So we had to leave Santiago by 7:30 to get to the community using a Gua-Gua (bus). We got to the Gua-Gua too late and it was already filled up so we had to wait for the next one! Aye dios mios! Well we caught the next one and ended up at Pequeños Pasitos at 8:50ish. When we arrived the place was PACKED! All these people were waiting for medical attention. Most of them being children. The class assigned us to shadow an individual part of the clinic. For example, one person was assigned to shadow the doctor, nurse, pharmacist, receptionist, consulates and public health officials. I was with the receptionist, so I had a lot more administrative work to do rather than real medicine work. Although it wasn’t a terrible experience, learning how the clinic works all together is crucial to understanding how it can be improved. But I can tell you this clinic works incredibly well, I can think more doctors and more machines could really help the clinic out.

The really cool thing was helping out in the afternoon. The clinic closes at 12:30, so once that was over, Mollie, Stacy and I decided to stay longer to help out with anything else that needed to be done. (We didn’t have class the rest of the day-well I didn’t anyway). But what I ended up doing was working with one of the other doctors (actually it’s a medical student from Brown named Micah, who is a really cool guys btw) giving an English lesson to some of the kids of the community. I can’t tell you how cool that is. Those kids in that community really want to learn. Micah and I walked an half and hour to get to the kids but there was like 15 kids there waiting to learn. Micah and I, not being professional educators had some trouble at first coming up with a decent lesson plan, but decided to start out easy doing stuff like; family vocab, the verb to be, numbers (they could count up to 100 without our teachings!), conversation and a game of 2 truths and a lie. It went well, and now we have a bit more of an idea what they know and what we can teach them. It seems like they want more conversational practice and writing practice. MESSAGE FOR TEACHERS (you know who you are!) please let me know how you would begin to teach a foreign language to students! I don’t know anything about teaching English to non-English speakers! I would appreciate it; I need to come up with some lesson plans! Micah and I said we would teach them English every Tuesday! Look at me, becoming a teacher! Haha, que locura. But it was rewarding to teach those guys, I think that’ll be really rewarding in the long run too for them.

Not really much more to stay, just finally I’m feeling confident in my Spanish. It’s taken almost a month just finally its getting to the point of near-perfection. Otherwise things have been going really well. I hope everything is going well for you guys as well! Have fun with classes’ guys! Talk to you later!



Sept 13

Hey guys! Been awhile, but not too much has been going on. Wednesday and Thursday was just class and doing research in between for my independent study, nothing too exciting. Friday was pretty dull too, the only thing we did worth noting, for me at least, was making homemade pizzas. Well I didn’t help make it, but hey it was really good, having a homemade crust with fresh pineapple, red peppers and onion. Muy bueno!

Yesterday though, Saturday, we went to Sosuá. Sosuá is a beach town which is just incredible. Once of the nice beaches I have ever been too. Ever. Just incredible, really small, crowed (I wasn’t a fan of that) but just small as in you could see the beginning and ending of the beach. The water was a beautiful turquoise that I’ve only seen before in St. Maarten, St. Johns, St. Thomas and Cozumel. Just an incredible beach. I think I might have to take my family there when they get here! :) The water was so much fun to swim in, it has more salt, hence the color and is very easy to swim in. Just really incredible. Also at Sosuá we met some recently graduated college students, who were teaching at a bilingual high school. There were all from Wisconsin and are staying for a year teaching. Man, I can’t tell you how many teachers I know now. Haha. Anyway, just chilled on the beach, swam, sunbathed (got a bit of tan), tossed the Frisbee around, and played Paddle Ball for the first time in my life. I definitely want to buy one of those for the beaches in Michigan! Haha! That night we went out to a concert which was ok, kinda snooty, cause they almost didn’t let me in cause I was wearing tennis shoes. But whatever, that was ok, seeing our Dominican friend’s band was cool. But the people inside were kinda douchy, so I was glad to get out there. We went to a chilled bar afterwords and had a couple of drinks and talked. That’s what I liked better, and afterwords we did the Dominican thing; danced in the parking lot of the monument of here. So that was something, I can tell ya that.

Sunday was just a chilled day. Just did homework, napped, watch some TV, and talked to some friends online. Just a chilled day. Later that night we went to Mollie’s house and did homework together and just relaxed and tried to get on the same page for our Medical Sociology class. But just been thinking, I’m a month in already. 3 more months to go. I can’t believe it at times. But I’m ready, I’m adjusting the best I can and I’m ready for the next 3 months. Wow, one month in. At times I can’t believe it. But I should get back to paying attention, I’m writing this in a class right now...oops! I’ll write again soon! Hope all is well guys! Que todo sea bien para ustedes!

Primera Semana de Clases, etc.

September 2

Hey guys! Hope everything is going well for you guys back home, if you’re starting classes, I feel your pain; we just started this week as well. (Technically we started last Thursday but classes are in full swing now). Classes have been really interesting so far. I’ve been all to my classes and so far I’m excited for all of them. My first class on Monday was Medical Sociology, which is going to be a really thought provoking since we’ve already been given our first topics for our presentations. I will be giving a presentation on the social implications of Euthanasia and how it would be received here in DR, using examples of other countries that have legalized it. Should be an intense paper/presentation, but since my Bioethics class I feel more comfortable discussing these tough issues (in Spanish maybe not…we’ll see haha). Then I had my Independent study class. For those of you who do not know I basically have to write a 30 page undergraduate thesis of a public health study. I’ve been thinking about comparing the medical technologies of vaccinations and how they’re allocated throughout rural and urban areas throughout clinics and hospitals. Basically vaccinations and its relationship with the public health programs here in DR. It was pretty hard to explain to the professor, considering it was more of a sociological study than an epidemiological study (considering that’s her profession). Still I’ll figure that out later.

Then I had my first dance class!!! First time since doing choreographed dance since the musicals in High School! To be truthfully I kinda of enjoy it. Haha, just getting to learn the dances is a lot of fun, there’s only 3 guys in the class, so whenever we need to do pairs, we get to dance with all girls in the class. Always dancing. Jenny tells me she jealous of me, but at times I wouldn’t mind not embarrassing myself all the time. :( I totally got called out today, the prof of the dance class showed us something with one the girls in the class then told me to come and do the same thing. Its not that I wasn’t paying attention, I was just a bit embarrassed and not really knowing how to dance like he did. But whatever, I’m over it. I’ll come back an awesome dancer (hopefully we’ll see). Then I had my lit class with only 3 people. I like the class, the prof is nice, the books seem really interesting, we just have to talk a lot, since there’s only 3 of us. But from what Jenn (1 of the girls in the class) there might be only 2 of us left. Eek. How crazy would that be! We’ll see if that happens or not though.

Then we had our Medical Community class which should be really intense. We learned how to take blood pressures on the first day, since that’s what we’ll be doing once we have class in the community we’ll be working in. We get to shadow doctors, nurses and public health officials to interview people of the community in order to give them the services they need. Should be a really awesome class. I’m really excited to take it and really better understand how things work as a beaucracy. Since that’s what I want get into, that or research for a PH.D or something so. I’m excited to see how that goes next week. Otherwise things have been slow, just enjoying this week of freedom considering I’ll be busy as hell next week. But I’ll try and update as much as I can for you guys. Hope all is well and I’ll talk to you guys later! Hablamos pronto! :)


September 6

Hey guys! I suppose its time for another entry. So nothing really excited happened till this past Friday! Friday we went out of with some friends of Jenn M from her psychology class. We went bowling! Yeah, I know kinda odd, but we went bowling here in DR. I sucked up the first game but I won the second game! Thanks Alex and Steph for your teachings (not to mention making me watch bowling every now and then). Anyways after that we went to a Hookah bar. The Hookah here was a lot stronger than any I’ve had in the states, I wasn’t really sure why. But we just chilled and talked had some beers and just got to know the Dominican students we were hanging out with. That was just a really chilled night; I think the Hookah and beer helped. Haha.

Saturday we had more action. Saturday we went to Salcedo, the town where the Mirabal family lived. For those of you who don’t know the Mirabal sisters are known as martyrs down here because they fought against Trujillo, a infamous dictator who created an era of terror here in DR. There were four sisters: Patrica, Minerva, Maria Teresa, and Debé. Patrica, Minerva, Maria Teresa were murdered by Trujillo because of their roles as the leaders of revolutionary organizations. Debé was the one who survived, and said herself; she was the one who survived so she could tell the story. Once we arrived in Salcedo, we went to the museum/house of the Mirabal family. It was gorgeous; it had a bunch of flowers, fountains and butterflies. (If you remember the symbol for freedom here was the butterflies-if you’re interested read or watch “In the Time of Butterflies”, that movie is all about the Mirabal sisters). We got the tour of the house, which had not changed too much in order to keep the history alive. After the tour we meet Debé Mirabal and were able to ask questions about her story. We began to tell us her story about her sisters and what they did to fight tyranny. It was incredibly interesting to hear everything she said. She’s very outspoken and brave to talk about the things that happened to her. That was very admirable. Afterwards at the gift shop, I saw that she wrote a book, and I decided to buy it and get her to sign it. So now I own a copy of her book signed! That was really cool, and I’ve been starting to read the book and its just her telling her story of what happened. That was a definitely cool experience and I hope to read more about it and better understand what happened.

Later that night we were invited to a concert at a bar here in Santiago. The bands were pretty awesome, the first one sung like cover songs of Modest Mouse, just pretty cool music. The second band was a bit better known, but was a mix of funk, rock and alternative. Two Dominican guys also join us, and they remind of a couple of my friends back home. They’re just crazy awesome funny guys. Luis and Rafi hung out with us enjoying the music and well of course drinking. But nothing too crazy. The bar had test tube shots that literally tasted liked rubbing alcohol. Maybe it was, but the Presidente helped get that taste out of my mouth. Later we were supposed to go to an afterparty, but the bar was shut down. We were planning on going to Rafi’s house to continue the party, but that fell through as well, so what we just ended up doing was going to the McDonalds and hanging out in the parking lot! Whooooo, what a crazy experience I know! We ended the night there, but I just kinda funny how that’s how it ended but eh, whatever.

Today I helped cook lunch for my family. We made tacos de carne Molina. For those of you who don’t know, its tacos with ground beef. Simple as that. But they loved it; the grandparents of my host mom came as well so it was like a little family get together. Kinda aching for some American food. Kinda getting sick of rice and beans completely, but I’d better get use to it; I’m only in 3 weeks so far. Still can’t believe at times that I’m really here. But I’m sure everybody has the feeling when away from home. But I’m ready for the next 3 months. I’m getting use to the culture, the routine and pace of the city, which are really the most important parts of the trip itself. Actually last night, we went to go to a movie. We saw Public Enemies with some of the girls in the Grupo de Apoyo and that was really fun. Getting to know the malls I guess is important. Not really for me, but haha, it was different but similar to a mall back home. I just felt pretty confident because I’m finally getting in a groove within using the taxis and talking to Dominicans here. So things are going pretty good so far, feeling a lot better about moving around the city after these 3 weeks. I hope things are good back home or wherever you might be reading this blog. Email me if you have any questions or just wanna chat. Good luck with school everybody! Hablamos pronto!

Cualquieras

Aug 30

Hey guys! Just thought I should update whats been going on so far. Well I had my first class on Thursday! Pretty odd to start classes on a Thursday, but no worries. It sounds like it’ll be an interesting class. Its my Contemporary Hispanic Literature class. We get to read a lot of famous Latin American authors which I’m pretty excited for. The prof is really interesting, he’s half Chinese and half Dominican but speaks perfect Spanish. At one point I forgot he was half Chinese when he was talking to us. But the class should be really interesting. Anyway, later that night I was just exhausted from the heat and passed out on the couch watching the movie Sunshine. (Good movie btw, at least the parts I watched…haha)

This past Friday was a fun day too. Our entire group, with the exception of Jenny, went to a huge Wall-Mart-like store for some clothes shopping for David and the girls. I just kinda came for the adventure. I have plenty of clothes. Anyway, once we arrived and were looking at the clothes, David and I both agreed that the Dominicans and us have a HUGE difference in style. Everything they wear or sell down here is all designed with crazy random drawings on the back or all over the shirts. It’s a bit much. Even when David was looking for jeans, I checked in on his search every now and then and there was a bunch of jeans that were just ridiculous by American standards of style. Just all kinds of zippers, weird pockets, and again random designs on the ass or thigh parts of the jeans. Just kinda crazy. Anyway, later that night we had a reunion of all the families and the students at Lilly’s house (the CIC program director here at PUCMM). That was really fun, getting to meet some of the other families and familiarize ourselves with them. The food was awesome, we all had to help make a dish or two for the dinner. My host mom and I made the rice and salad, which we got many complements on. So thats always nice to hear. But even before we ate, we chatted. Lilly had some icebreakers so that we could get to understand each family and the relationship they have with their students. At the end we all could comment on how we enjoy our experience and our relationship and my family (my host dad) told everyone that I was a real pleasure to have at the house. He said I was a diplomat, very patient, well educated, and very accommodating and easy to please, and for them it was a joy to have me in their house. It was just really incredible to hear that, just too really make you feel a bit more confident. But I can say as well, they are the nicest people, just a joy to be around and talk to you. They make me feel like a son and really welcome here, and I really do appreciate that this is going so well. Anyway, after that cliché gushy reunion, we were able to go out last night to a discoteque called the Vintage Club. We went there last night, danced some merengue, salsa and some well more popular dances. But I got to dance well all the girls in the group, and I know who the best dancer is! But I’m not going to tell! :) Hehe there was an open bar too, which helped with my confidence to dance. After leaving the club though, I couldn’t really hear well until the next morning. Oyi!

Anyways yesterday, was very calm. At least I thought it would be. My host family told me that Maria José (their 5 year old daughter) needed to go to a swimming class at the Centro Español. They said they would be back around 2, but they called me at 11 and told me to come out here taking conchos. I was really nervous to take the conchos out there, cause I had always used the conchos with a Dominican who knew what he was doing, but today I can say I successfully took two conchos to El Centro Español all by myself! Since there are no public buses, these conchos are just cars similar to taxis but just follow a certain route. Similar to CATA, expect they try and fit 6 people in the car made for 4. You get very close to the people you ride with. But hey it only costs 13 pesos which I think which I said before was only like 36 cents back home. But once I arrived there my host dad Juan José was waiting for me and took me inside Centro Español. Just so you know, this was not like a plaza, its like a Country Club, and let me tell you, it was IMPRESSIVE! I met up with Rosanna (my host mom) and Maria José and they gave me two hot dogs with ketchup, mustard and cheese (I told them I don’t really enjoy my hot dogs with mayo-they love it down here on their hot dogs!). But let me tell you, going there it was just very impressive. They have parks for kids to play in, they have multiple tennis courts (you definitely could see that majority of the kids there were well off, with their brand name bags and rackets, etc). The pool was impressive, but what was really impressive, the restaurant and main building. It has the most impressive view of Santiago; it was just incredible to see! There was also a discoteque inside, two bars, billiards room and poker room. I’ll be going back most definitely! Enjoy the pool, pay billiards, and just relax away from the city. Otherwise, I’ve been just lounging around the house. Finally yesterday we went to a concert which was really cool. We got to see a bunch of mergengue and bachata singers and have a few beers (the concert was sponsored by Presidente and boy did they remind you of that everywhere you went). But we checked it out and stayed for a couple of hours enjoying the music and seeing the people, and let me tell you. It was packed! It reminded me of the Folk Festival back home like times 10. But Santiago is wayyyy bigger than EL. Gotta remind myself that every now and then. Otherwise I’m enjoying a Lazy Sunday (like the song! Hehe) and getting ready for my first full week of classes this week! Getting a bit anxious and excited. Kinda hoping too to get some homework to do. Kinda been dull around here without homework, but I’m sure my blogging will slow down after this one once classes finally get going! Well hope all is well down there guys! Miss you all and enjoy your last week of freedom all you MSU kiddies! I’ll see you guys in finals week! :) Que disfrutas y nos vemos!

Jarabacoa, Clases, Etc.

Aug 23 2009

Hey guys! Hope all is well back in Michigan if you guys are still there! Just thought I would tell you guys whats been going on so far since I last blog. Yesterday was really interesting because we went to Jarabacoa, a city in the Dominican Alps. In Jarabacoa we meet Stacy’s and Jen’s families and got to tour Jarabacoa a bit more and see where they lived and studied for the summer program. It is completely different from Santiago in so many ways. It’s a little slower paced, less people, more relaxed but also more impoverished. But seeing this is what really gets me interested in the social factors of public health and how education is taught in these regions regarding health issues. Hopefully we’ll be able to go back and see more of Jarabacoa and really get a good idea of what those cities in the “campos” are like.

Anyway, besides seeing Jarabacoa we also went to the Salto de Jimenoa which is about 20 minutes outside of Jarabacoa. The Salto de Jimenoa is basically a huge waterfall with an area to swim in the runoff area of the waterfall. I’ve got some pictures I’ll put up later when I have more time to do so. Anyway, we were told that there was a path you could take from the Salto de Jimenoa to the other waterfall about 40 minutes away. Well that’s a story in and of itself. Haha, what happened is that we got separated and sort of lost. :( It was like a movie, a bit of a disaster, but a happy ending. We climbed all the way up to a green water tank which took about 50 minutes to do so, and realized that we had no idea where to go, since Stacy, who took the path before, had been separated from us. So it was just a Dominican student, David, Kelly and I waiting for any kind of signal from the girls. Well, no signal came and it started to rain! We had no choice but to climb down the hardest path I had ever climbed up on. I slipped a bunch of times and have a bunch of scars right now, but I can say it was a definite interesting experience. A bit like Man vs. Wild except I really had no idea how to survive like Bear Grills. But I’m alive, a few scars, and a bit more confident in the Dominican wild! Haha. Anyway, today I’m just relaxing after yesterday’s adventure and just enjoying the company of my family. Tomorrow I get to choose my classes, and I think I’m going to take the Balie class! Just have to figure if any of my friends in our group are going to take it as well! Anyway, that’s all for now guys! Hope you guys are getting ready for classes, school, internships or any other thing that might be going on in your lives! Thanks for reading and I’ll catch you guys on the flip side! :)

Aug 25

Hey guys, what’s up? Hope all is well. Its been a pretty sweet couple of days. Sunday was really awesome cause David, Stacy and I just bought a couple of beers walked to El Monumento. That was really cool, we just walked around enjoying the Dominican culture as much as possible and just talking about plans for the future. Maybe a wee bit cheesy but still it was pretty fun. That night was just a calm night watching the Miss Universe competition at my house with my host family. Stacy, David and Mollie came over and we made bets on who we thought would win. Unfortunately Miss Dominican Republic came in at second place! Apparently one of our new Dominican friends is friends with Miss Dominican Republic, so maybe I could comfort her! Hahah, jk, but maybe I’ll meet her later. Probably not, but one can hope.

Anyway, yesterday we picked our classes! I’ve already decided which classes I’m going to take. I’m so far taking 13 credits, which include: Contemporary Hispanic Literature, Medical Sociology, Community Medicine, and a Dance class! I know! The dance class, I figured since other people were also interested in taking it, I should take it and maybe learn how to dance. Not all of us are in the same class, but we’re all in different sections together. So that was cool to finally get our classes picked out and ready to go. After that we got to go to a Jazz concert at the Gran Teatro de Cibao. It was just a like a really nice bar where we got to hear some really interesting experimental jazz. It was a really cool experience, apparently they do that every Monday, so I think I’ll definitely go back to listen to that sweet music. Otherwise things have been pretty slow since classes have started yet, but I’m sure next week will be a lot busier. Well thanks guys for reading and I’ll write another blog when more exciting things start happening. Nos vemos chavos! Saludos de Santiago.

Aug 26

Today has been really interesting. We had to get up early like around 7, and be at PUCMM at 8 so that we could go to a poorer region of the Santiago municipal. We got to go Pequeños Pasitos which is an clinic for the poor region of the outside rural areas of Santiago. The group that runs this clinic is called the Mother’s Wish Foundation. They have a website if you’d like to see it; www.motherwish.org They said they have pictures and describe what they do. It was really awesome to see what they’re doing for the poorer parts of the Dominican Republic. We meet the founders of the clinic and they gave us a tour and told us that this is where we’ll be having class (our Medical Community class) every Tuesday. So that was really awesome to hear, that we’ll be able to work with the community to really understand how education, prevention and medicine works in these rural areas. It was really incredible to see how this clinic works, its ins and outs. Diego (Jim actually-they can’t pronounce Jim here in DR haha) So anyway, he was telling us about the problems they face in their clinic and the towns they provide health services to. They have issues with water, which is a huge area for study, also with STIs, pregnancies, vaccinations and Dengue. Although I don’t want to be a doctor, seeing more of this clinic and what they’re doing, I feel like working as a doctor would be really beneficial, yet I feel like if I do research or become the middle man between these clinics and the goverments in which the clinics reside in, so much more could be done to help these people. Seeing this type of community, even just once, has made me more motivated to help doing what I can. I’m very excited for this class to start in order for us to really understand what needs to be done to make these types of clinics even better and more efficient. This is what I hope to do one day, but hopefully these next four months will really help me figure out what I want to do as a career. Otherwise, we’re making dinner tonight, everybody in our group has been at me for a long time to make my salsa verde, only thing is they don’t have tomatillos here, so I’m planning on making some salsa roja and una salsa de mango. Should be good, since we got some peppers from the campo of the clinic outside of Santiago. Everybody seems really excited for it. :) Anyway, just thought I’d share some thoughts about today’s experience. I’m really excited to get out there and really help out with the community. Hope all is well you guys! Enjoy your last couple of days of summer! We start classes tomorrow! Que chulo! Pues, nos vemos chavos, que tengas una buena noche. Ciao.

Los Primeros Días

19 de Agosto

I don’t really know how to start this, but I just I’ll just go ahead and start by saying I really think this trip is going to change me. I can’t even describe how awesome things are going so far. Not even 48 hours ago was I freaking out, but now I’m just so calm and loving Santiago. Man I can’t even tell you how odd being at the airport was waiting for the other people to show up. I was waiting like an idiot for any kind of sign for another student and that didn’t even happen till 12. I waited 2 hours and thought nobody was going to be on the flight! But of course people came and it was really awesome getting to know everybody; Jenn, Stacy and Mollie from Wisconsin; Kelly from OSU; Cristina from Washington of St. Louis; David from Illinois; and eventually meeting Jen from Minnesota. I can tell already we’re all going to be really good friends. We spent that night in Puerto Plata enjoying the beach and just having the best time with our only beach time! We all ended up wanting to stay even longer but we knew the next day we would be heading out to Santiago.

Santiago is just incredible. Its in the middle of the Cibao valley and makes it interesting a city as big as Santiago could be here; but here I am! We all were so nervous when we finally arrived in Santiago at PUCMM. I absolutely loved the campus, the parts that I saw anyway, but we get a more in depth look at it tomorrow! Then the moment I was honestly most worried about; meeting our host families! I was so excited and nervous at the same time but I can say confidently I am really going to enjoy living here with them. They are the nicest people. There’s Rosanna, Juan José and Maria José, their 5 year old daughter! They are just the nicest people! They were so welcoming and made me feel so much more at ease. I was just so happy when I finally meet them and realized they are the nicest, easygoing and courteous people. We went the supermercado today and that was really cool seeing actually Dominicans grocery shopping! I really excited to get know this city well and other Dominican students. But I’m just so psyched about being here right now that I forget sometimes about sleeping. But its about time I got some right now. Thanks for reading, and I’ll post something up soon! Ciao guys, miss ya all!

Viernes 21 de Agosto

Hola chavos! I hope everything is going well back home with all of you. Just thought I might wanna share some more info about the trip so far. I think the reason I’m writing so much right now is cause I don’t have any homework yet, and we don’t start classes until next weeks Thursday the 27 (how weird, start classes on a Thursday!) Anyway, yesterday was really awesome cause we got to experience the Santiago experience; we went throughout all of Santiago using conchas (taxis here) that are basically buses because they take you a route and only cost 13 pesos which is about 36 cents for a ride throughout the city! Anyways Jen Long and I were together with a Dominican student, Leó, who was originally born in the states and moved to DR to study at PUCMM. He was fun to have walking around Santiago to see the city, like the busy parts of Calle de Sol and El Mercado Moderno. I still wanna go see the Monumento de los Heróes, but I think my family said they’ll take me there soon!

Yesterday we also had the Placement Exam for Spanish! I felt pretty confident on most of the material, but the oral exam had me a bit nervous, but we’ll see how the results turn out next Monday! But what was really fun was when after we had the Santiago tour with our Dominican students from the Grupo de Apoyo, they invited all of us to go out with them to a club called Camus. We all decided we wanted to go and try and learn some Merengue and some Bachata, but in the end all we could do was some salsa! Which Jen was so eager to learn! :) The club was fun, and we meet other Dominican chicas who are also members of the Grupo de Apoyo and we were able to dance together and just have a really good time. All of them were very nice, and its good to know we’ll have good friends who are actually Dominicans! After the night was over we all were just so exhausted and ready for sleep, but nonetheless it was fun to see everybody let loose.

Anyways today is a pretty easy day. We already had the tour of campus which is just amazing and Leó was our guide (again) and showed us the whole of PUCMM. Its going to be a lot of fun to studying over there and Leó told us it’ll be a lot more interesting once classes start and we start seeing PUCMM in action. Later today we have more orientation at the house of our Director. Its really amazing our program cause we really do get individual attention from Lilly and from the Dominican students; they know us personally, they love hanging out and just are so helpful with questions or concerns. And like I said before I can tell already our group of friends, all from different colleges, we’re going to be good friends even after we leave here. We all get along great and we’re getting to know each other very well, I’m sure by the end of these 4 amazing months we’ll all stay in touch! Well guys, I should get going and learn how to cook some Dominican food with our family’s maid! Well thanks for reading and check back soon, cause tomorrow we’re leaving for Jarabacoa which is a city in the mountains where we’ll be visiting Stacy’s and Jen’s families and then doing some hiking and maybe water rafting, which Stacy said was really intense! Well check back soon guys and I’ll have more to say most likely! Thanks for reading, and I’ll talk to you guys later!