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.
martes, 22 de septiembre de 2009
lunes, 21 de septiembre de 2009
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.
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.
miércoles, 16 de septiembre de 2009
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!
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!
lunes, 14 de septiembre de 2009
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!
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!
lunes, 7 de septiembre de 2009
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!
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!
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