December to Remember

Booya!

Remember in January when i wrote a blog post about an area affected by cholera, and how we wanted to build latrines to help prevent future outbreaks? Well, i guess it is better late than never. It took almost an entire 12 months to petition, receive funds, organize logistics, buy materials, take them out to the sites on trucks, donkeys and brute strength (not mine, obviously), and begin building. Here is the finished product:

Glorious!

Granted, we still need to install the actual "toilet", which will be poured into a mold and hand delivered to each house thus christening the final product. Now you don't have to hear me talk about poop (as much) anymore! yay!

Seriously, I am really happy that we were able to make first-time latrine owners out of these families in rural nowhere. Many thanks to Notre Dame University for making it happen. 

Here is a funny photo of how our builder decided to put the roof on one of the latrines:

Just balance on a nearby post while the assistant provides upward force via that stick over there. I just want to note that our assistant is wearing a Steelers shirt and Clemson Tiger pants (you know who i;m talking to).

So that is that.

Last week we executed what had been planned for the past few months...our first community health fair!

What a success it was! We planned on receiving 500 people, and we received closer to 600! Many children came from villages at least 5km outside of town on foot to be part of the event. The picture above illustrates everyone that made the event possible. We recruited kids from the local high-school that had participated in one of our AIDS presentations and had shown an interest in getting involved. Peace Corps volunteers Ryan and Allison helped tremendously and our local hires Dr. Ricardo and Tania both contributed by manning their own stations and greeting guests. We cannot forget the masterminds behind the whole shebang; Maghan, Hannah (not pictured) and Jamie. I knew having interns would pay off :)

The idea of the fair was to inform kids and adults of simple ways to prevent major illnesses. We had various booths that dealt with themes like proper hand-washing techniques, dental hygiene, the importance of physical activity, sexual health, well balanced meals and the dangers of sugar consumption. Another reason we wanted to do a large scale health fair was to get our name out there. Organizations like World Vision are established and have over a decade working in the area. Peace Corps is another organization that is well known. Believe it or not it is incredibly difficult to brand FIMRC. First of all, its almost impossible for Dominicans to pronounce FIMRC. But its not like we can say Cuerpo de Paz ( Peace Corps) or Vision Mundial (World Vision), no, we have to say Fundacion Internacional de Alivio Medico para la Ninez. Try saying that ten times fast. How did we solve that? We had one booth set up solely for the purpose of having kids try to pronounce FIMRC. If they got it right we gave them a prize. Bottom line. We gotta change our name :) 

So, the kids walk in and receive a card that requires six stamps. They have to pass by all six health booths in order to fill up their card and receive their prize bag, which was an assortment of toothbrushes, tooth paste, hand soap, floss, crayons, etc. We had a raffle with items donated from local businesses, and all proceeds went into our local regular programming. People helping people. Here are a few of the featured booths:

Nutrition booth manned by Mary Luz

 Wheel of STD's. Spin the wheel and whatever you land on you are infected with. Then you get a talkin to by one of our volunteers. We handed out condoms as well.

 A fair would not be a fair without awesome games. So, among many other interactive activities, we contracted a local German carpenter to fabricate these:

Corn-hole baby!!! FIMRC style

It was an amazing activity that the community not only participated in, but helped sponsor! Kids are still talking about it and keep asking when the next one is going to be. 

December has been a crazy month and we are not even halfway done. We receive a 3rd year medical student-volunteer on Sunday, and two more after Christmas. I get a few days in between to celebrate the holidays, roasted pig style :)

Well that's all for now. Here is one final picture of the health fair....5-minutes after the doors opened:

Woo!

A Hole for Your Poop

I rode a donkey today. My feet almost touched the ground. I felt like i was riding a pony or other similar tiny horse. My grin was grand.

Lets just cut to the chase...where does THAT expression come from.? Is it like if a police pursuit of a criminal is televised and everyone just wants to see the chase, and the reporter goes, "Ok, Brad, lets cut to the chase"? The intention is to skip all the crap and get to the good stuff. The expression is clearly having an unintended effect right now as i am still rambling. Maybe give us a little history behind this seemingly arbitrary statements, popular media. 

Anyways, a little update from the past month or so. My padre came down to visit and our latrine project is finally at full speed. 

My dad came down for a few days to hang out in town and his trip happened to coincide with the beginning of our latrine building scheme. As you can see below we make a pretty good team:

Clearly doing the lions share of the work....

Laying down foundation.....or analyzing rock samples.....

Seriously, the homes we are building latrines for a really far off the beaten path and it takes half a day just to deliver the materials to them. We have to take the equivalent of 3 wheel-barrels (its a lot tougher when you don't have the wheel-barrel) of sand, 1 wheel-barrel (that's how we measure things out here) of small rocks to mix cement, 2 bags of cement, 3 re barb, 20 cement blocks, nails, wire, etc. out to these homes by hand. Today we used a donkey.

I always used to wander why other NGO's like World Vision or UNICEF never built latrines here.....i now know. BUT, it is a very worthwhile project, and every time I even think of complaining about how much work it is I take a look at all the kids that are giving everything they got to help us:

 Homeboy wanted to carry a whole block so bad, but i negotiated with him and he carried this piece of broken block on his head with the proudest smile in the world. HE helped build his family's latrine. It is powerful stuff. Very humbling. What is not pictured is the distance he carried this block...barefoot, or the time when he helped me shovel sand into a bucket....a few grains at a time, or the all day he spent following me in case i needed his help.  It is hard to find that work ethic in a grown man much less a small boy. He is one of 13 brothers and sisters and this is his home:

That is why we do what we do here. These people out here are all but forgotten. They receive no aid. They are good. They are good people who are hidden from the rest of the world. For me it is like uncovering buried treasure. I'm sure they do not see it that way, but I feel blessed just to have met them. 

You can talk about improving hygiene and eliminating diarrhea all day, but unless you give them the resources to put it into practice it is worthless. As you can clearly see it is not a one-sided effort. 

A really cool component to the latrines are these hands-free hand washing stations:

 

If you look closely at the photo you can see her right foot pressing down on a lever which tilts the bucket downward. The soap is on a rope (soap on a rope!). A genius idea that was brought to our attention by one of our interns, Hannah. That is what my dad was helping create with Becky's (my machetes) help:

A full blown effort to reduce the incidents of intestinal bacterial infection in the area. Yhatzee.

We recently celebrated International Toilet Day. Being involved in this project really makes me appreciate that holiday a lot more. Why doesn't hallmark make cards for it? A few suggestions:

Happy Flushing!

Poop (that's it)

It's midnight. Do you know where your poop is? (Probably more appropriate in a TV ad)

I just want you to know that i'm thinking about you...r toilet.

Got TP? (Could be used as a t-shirt design)

The possibilities are clearly endless.

Everything else is good too; Diabetes club, Chicas Maravillas, Nutrition class, Health Fair, etc.

Adios!

My Soapbox

Last month the Constitutional (clown) Court of the Dominican Republic ruled that every child born to an undocumented Haitian immigrant on DR soil since 1929 would be stripped of their citizenship. This ludicrous legislation would reportedly affect around 200,000 people who are now subject to deportation at any given moment. What essentially is happening here is that the DR is deporting Dominicans to Haiti. There are many Haitian children i know in town who were born on this side of the border and do not speak Haitian Kreyol. I can only imagine someone born around.....1950 has spent the last 50-odd years being....Dominican. The people living here after this arbitrary break off point may not speak Kreyol and definitely do not have Haitian citizenship. So what happens? Haitian-Dominicans are being shipped to a foreign land where they might not know the language and/or have citizenship, basically making them state-less. No access to schools here or there. No access to healthcare here or there. No access to any social services here or there. Its like that Tom Hanks movie, (ok, i obviously know its nothing like that) The Terminal where homeboy is stuck in an airport terminal for a hot minute.

Haitians are not going to stop coming here. Come up with a better plan....Ok, off my Soapbox.
P.s. Why is it called, "getting on and/or off ones soapbox?" Why soap specifically?

Anyways, this legislation doesn't apply to us. Empowering Haitian immigrants to adopt healthy practices (many of which have had little to no formal education in our area), leads to a more peaceful existence between both sides. Instead of excluding them from social services (like healthcare and sanitation), include them so they are not the ones out of the loop and unwittingly spreading infectious disease! Dominicans claim Haitians are "dirty" or "ignorant to basic sanitation", well have you ever sat down and asked them why they don't wash their hands or where they poop? We have. It ultimately boils down to behavioral change, which is difficult in a any culture, but Haitians are very open to it.

It appears that i have mounted my soapbox once again.

Speaking of all this, our Latrine project is almost underway! We had our sanitation presentation (which was attended by all families receiving latrines) and our construction materials arrive tomorrow. Many of the families have already dug their 8-10ft. hole, which out here is like walking out into your driveway with a shovel and going to town (the ground is hard).

We also recently started two amazing initiatives: Diabetes support group and Pregnancy club (attended almost exclusively by Haitians).

I'm in my element amidst a sea of pregnant women. I was just really interested in what Jewel had to say. The Pregnancy club is so inspiring. Each class the women will receive a weeks worth of pre-natal vitamins (keeps em coming back for more!) and a special gift for their baby like socks or beanies, etc. For some women it is their first child.....for others its their 9th or 10th! Jewel, the NP we contracted from Santiago, leads the class and is doing a fantastic job. It seems Haitian women are the only one taking advantage of this opportunity....don't get back on it, Joe.

Amongst all of our new clubs and groups are our existing youth empowerment initiatives, which saw the conclusion of another awesome Superman club:

Easily my favorite group so far. We plan on meeting monthly to keep the momentum going. Best baseball play of the group? Fito, who only has one hand. Its quite incredible.

Our recent local hire, Tania, is about to completely take over her Wonder Woman class. Chalk one up to sustainability!

Our Nutrition Club is going great for the women of Jimenez. Maghan and Hannah are rockin it.

Lots of good stuff happening. I am really excited about the direction this project is taking and can't wait to see how much better it continues to become.

I leave for Peru on Wednesday! Super excited to see Machu Pichu and take a little vacay with my ol' PC pal Heather. Ill be gone for a good two weeks, and the project will be left in the hands of the interns....... :). They will do fine without me. I'm sure they are looking forward to kicking me out of the house for a few days so they can....use all the toilet paper and play with each others hair? Still not sure what it is girls do.

Anyways, that's all for now.

Final thought: Take a second a think about how lucky you are to be a citizen of America! A lot of people here can't even say they belong to either 3rd-world country at this point, much less a developed one like the US. We will never really (lord willing) endure the same struggles these Haitian immigrants are facing right now. If you want, you can go trade in your old i-phone for a new i-phone, no questions asked. Here its a relentless battle to get your child enrolled in school. Take a healthy dose of perspective.

 
Does she deserve that?

Old Lady Peanuts

I was on the bus from my house to Santiago to pick up our third and final intern (Jamie is awesome!) and sat beside a sweet old lady (pushing 95) chewing on a cigar. Her skin was akin to a baseball glove and she barely had any teeth in her skull. I notice she is chewing on something and we do that awkward "I'm looking at what your doing but don't want you to notice so i turn away at the last second as to not make eye contact". We do that a few times before she puts her hand out to me. I turn, finally making eye contact with Oldie McOldison and she asks me if I want the rest of her peanuts. I said sure as to not turn down a free snack (shameless) and before i know it she is spitting up all the peanuts in her mouth onto her shirt and eventually my lap. She shrugs her shoulders and justifies her actions by saying, "I can't chew anything, because i have no teeth." Well, peanuts was a bad choice there lady. It was all i could do to not laugh out loud.

So, our latrine budget finally went through and the money is on the way!! You may have remembered me mentioning this project in February, well its finally happening. We did our preliminary walk around to evaluate homes in need and have about 10-15 in mind for our initial project. As you may recall, this project is in response to a cholera outbreak in the grey area between the DR and Haiti, and the sites for these latrines were strategically selected based upon family size, # of children, current sanitation situation and proximity to major water source. Out of the 15 possible homes, 15 are Haitian immigrants with an average family count of 12 living in a house the size of your bedroom. We would walk into the "yard" of a house like this......

.....and find a gaggle of children.......

.....unattended. The parents were usually not around so we asked if we could see their bathroom, and on more than one occasion we would come across something like this.....

-or this-

Raise your hand if you would prefer to poop in that or in an open field. In between houses we would often blaze our own trails, braving the tall grass in a "children of the corn-esque" scenario......

....only to arrive and have to see hungry, lonely children like these beautiful girls.....

....and not immediately be able to help them and turn that frown upside down. A humbling morning that resulted in crazy "razor grass-burn" and an even stronger burning to help the situation in this vulnerable area. Luckily, we will be able to contribute something to improve their style of living. 

This project aims to educate the families about proper sanitation and the need to poop in a covered hole, not anywhere you want. The families have to attend sanitation training, dig their own 10ft. deep hole and provide manual labor. It is not a handout, but a collaboration. Their improved sanitation will impact the lives of everyone around them, so they need to take responsibility.

On a separate note we installed our first "Boutequin Escolar" or School First-Aid kit. Many of the schools have no such thing, and approximately 0% of schools have a nurse. We sat down with Catalino, the professor at Los Indios basic school, and led him through a simple first-aid training and showed him how to use the material in the kit. The idea with this project is to empower the teachers to be able to treat very basic situations such as cuts, stomach aches and head aches, which end up being some of the reasons kids don't attend school. We can treat a headache so the kids can stay in class and visit the clinic afterwards. We have a lot of things going on! Not to mention......

Our newest group of Supermen!

I am super excited about this group (i know i say that about every group). This group is a little older. We even have a 15 year old. But how cool is this: Our boys empowerment course is held in a dugout! It seems so fitting. Our class coincides with recess at the local school so we get some visitors.

We have a full house with 3 full-time interns who look like this:

Miguel in the back is a medium-term volunteer and Hannah is not pictured because she does not like to be photographed. On the same note all photo credits go to her. 

Anyways, that's our life for now. Adios!

The Giant Moth Effect

Fluttering. Fluttering was all I could here. The electricity is gone and I am under the protection of my mosquito net, but all I can do is listen, while the mystery animal flutters around the room. Is it a bat? Giant moth? Pterodactyl? Should I get out of the net and brave the unknown? Can it penetrate the net? What do I do if it does?

Third world problems, am I right?

A lot has happened in the past month but here are the highlights:

•   2 groups of volunteers that assisted in EKG training at the hospital, improved nutrition courses   with mothers groups, personal hygiene presentations at local schools and one beautifully          painted school cafeteria.
•      Superman Graduation and Wonder Woman class.
•      The arrival of our new wonderful intern, Maghan (yup that's the correct spelling) !
•      Hired 2 local town residents to act as our new Community Operations Assistant and Community Health Advisor.

We are kicking butt and taking names! I DO want to highlight our EKG training and implementation program, though.

An EKG machine was recently donated to FIMRC. A volunteer nurse came down and led a small training for all the Doctors and nurses in the area. Up until this point the latest technology the Hospital possessed was a tongue depressor (exaggeration, but eh Hospital is a dud), so an EKG machine is a big step up.

The training was great and I sacrificed my ample chest hair (it took 3 nurses to shave it off) in order for the Doctors to practice. The machine paid dividends almost immediately. The next day a Haitian woman was brought to the hospital. She could barely move and looked so weak. They ran an EKG on her and it resulted in a Myocardial Ischemia, which is a blockage that could lead to a heart attack. She was immediately rushed to the nearest adequate hospital. Now that we have this machine here it is amazing the Hospital was able to function effectively without it. Working in preventative health/education can be frustrating sometimes as we hardly see the fruits of any labor, so it’s nice to be able to facilitate something that has an immediate impact and can help improve a local health system.

Its like a forest up there!

Proud of their new equipment! My heart is clean :)

In other news, our house has flooded twice with 3” of water. I was in a meeting when Hannah called to tell me that, “there is water everywhere”. We swept it out with brooms. It was laughable. I think the problem is solved. Time will tell.

Anyways, that’s about it. There is really not a whole lot of cool things going on, and I know you guys don’t like to hear about work, bleh.

Here is the winner of this weeks most adorable photo of Eddy:

vroom vroom!

Adios

P.S. There is nothing worse than having full blown diarrhea with no running water/electricity and a full house of volunteers sleeping in the room attached to the bathroom. Just saying.

Superman 2.0

It is as hot as a biscuit out here. Mmmmm......golden, flaky biscuits......

I woke up around 2 A.M literally drenched in sweat. I was sleeping in a pool off my own runoff. It is so hot, but i also need my mosquito net on or else they will eat me alive AND give me malaria and dengue. I have the fan blowing full blast but it is like having the heater turned on in the house, then the mosquito net retards the air flow so i'm virtually laying in an oven. It was a rough night.

Things are going splendidly here in Restauracion. We just completed our work plan for the coming year and a calender to accompany it. Things to look forward to are: School first-aid kits + training, health promoter training in existing clinics, diabetes support groups, improved nutrition courses, abused women support groups and plenty of Superman and WonderWoman classes sprinkled throughout. Here is a photo of our most recent Superman class in Valle Nuevo after talking about proper dental hygiene:

I have also started Superman 2.0 for the existing members of the club here in town. It is an intensive 2-week(every day) course focused on leadership, community service and sexual reproductive health. The idea is to have the kids involved in a small community clean-up and a larger fundraising effort in which we raise support for a particular family in the community. Empowering the youth!

Hannah is crushing the WonderWoman course which is best represented by the 26 girls that showed up to class. We have our local volunteer Mary Luz collaborating with Hannah to help empower the female youth in the community. Children's rights, healthy habits and leadership are a few of the topics they will touch on. Super excited about the early success of this program.

We have 3 interviews scheduled for next week to hopefully expand our local team. We also have a few small groups of volunteers arriving in August. Keeping busy.

We have also made a few mods to the house. Previously the walls were monotone (my taste) with not much life. Then Hannah came and started talking about these "accent walls", which i'm pretty sure she just made up. Anyways here are the before and after photos:

Not bad huh? Looks like an actual home now.

Sorry for the boring-ness of this blog, but its more for posterity than anyone else :)

Dropping a Deuce

I always find it remarkable the "sanitation" dynamic between humans and animals, livestock primarily. We humans go to great lengths and pains to confidentially release unwanted waste from our bodies. There are even laws and fines enforced by governments to further condition and shame us into dealing with these matters privately.
Now think about a cow. A cow will look you right in the face and completely evacuate its bowels without blinking. Chewing its cud it will wistfully drop 3 pounds of waste. It seems almost passive aggressive. Imagine if humans were like that....or don't....

We spent this past weekend in a remote village, La Jagua. We had a good little crew:

From left; Hannah, Joe, Horsey McButt, Dr. Ricardo, Allison, Ryan (PC volunteers). We gathered this dynamic team to carry out a small mobile clinic in rural La Jagua, which took an hour by car and another hour by foot to reach. We had a small team of donkeys and horses meet us in the nearest town to carry our equipment up to the village. We followed them and their trail of excreta (there it is again). 

La Jagua is a small village of only 75 people, which has been virtually abandoned by public service and local government. We bought $25 dollars worth of medication and not only did it last, but we left with a little less than half of what we brought! The dollar really does go farther here. Lets not get carried away. This was a general clinic where we treated headaches, colds, foot fungus and the like. We are not in the habit of doing clinics like this as it promotes dependence on outside organizations, but it was a great way to get a sense of the major health issues in the town without having to do a full blown census. Instead of going door-to-door the people came to us. Much easier :) Not to mention, any excuse to go back to this view......

....is totally worth it. We held the clinic in the school at the bottom right hand of the photo and also camped in front of it. It was colder than expected and everyone only brought a top sheet and no pilllow, no one slept and a drunk guy ran around all night screaming at the top of his lungs.....but it was a great experience. Not to mention, I got to shower outside....

......which was glorious! People pay millions of dollars to have private islands with views like I saw here and outdoor shower that overlook pure beauty...suckers. These are some salt of the earth, humble people. Talk about your sacrificial giving. They offered to make us lunch before we left, so the ladies went to their field and literally picked the beans they were to shuck and cook, found and killed the chicken and plucked the plantain from the tree. It is a zero sum game out there. If we eat their harvest, then they don't eat that harvest. Its like the widow and her few coins. Such wonderful people.

Beans

Anyways, the clinic went great and the most positive outcome was that we were able to diagnose a few previously unaware hypertensives and diabetics. Now they know whats causing those severe headaches and can start receiving treatment, even if they have to walk 2 hours to get it. We also were able to see half a dozen pregnant women whom were not taking vitamins or receiving monthly checkups. We were able to provide them with a great prenatal vitamin and refer them to the nearest clinic. 

It was a wonderful weekend with great friends both foreign and domestic. I could not ask for a better job. Outside of this weekends adventure we have a full slate or programming. We have Superman, Wonder Woman (female empowerment), and Sexual Reproductive Health classes going on as well as preparing for 2 groups of volunteers in a few weeks. Things are looking good. Busier than ever :) 

Ill leave you guys with a few more photos of this weekend to soothe your jealousy....

 It's noon...have you had your anti-parasite today?

 Donkeys loaded up heading in...

 Simple living

 Check that blood pressure!

 Dr. Ricardo treating the masses.

 Koman Nou Ye? Ki malad ou geneyen?

 Team Awesome

 ( All photo credit goes to Hannah Hennessy.....happy now :) )

The world through Miguel's eyes.

Miguel, Victor and I have recently returned from a whirlwind trip across the country. 

Allow me to elaborate. Miguel and Victor are two 12 year old boys that participate in Club Superman and were chosen (by me based on a complete body of work including class attendance, final exam grads, overall behavior, etc.......no favoritism) to attend a 5-day all-inclusive youth leadership and development camp in San Cristobal with 46 kids from around the country. Where is San Cristobal? Well, it is a grueling 2-day journey from the Northwest to the Southwest. As the crow flies its maybe 2 hours, like literally if a crow were to fly there from here it would take 2 hours. Unfortunately, public transport doesn't use the crow route and it ends up taking closer to 9 hours. Anyways, we are going to focus on our little Miguel for the remainder of this story and hopefully you will start to see the word through his eyes:

Miguel is a 12 year old boy that used to live here.......

......with his mother, father and 9 brothers and sisters. Not too long ago he was unofficially adopted by a nice older woman named Rosa who gives him his own bed, 3 meals a day and a safe environment (yay!). He is a well mannered kid with excellent grades who hopes on becoming a Doctor one day. He is Haitian-Dominican and speaks both languages fluently. He helps me translate whenever we do work out in the Haitian wilderness.

Miguel has never been as far as 5 kilometers outside of town, so telling him he was invited to spend a week not only away from town but on the complete opposite end of the country was quite a thrill. He was ecstatic.  Bright and early Tuesday morning we got on the bus to head to Santiago. Miguel has his bagged pack and his FIMRC hat, sunglasses and water bottle all ready to go. The moment we step on the bus Miguel's face is glued to the window. He watches as we drive further away from town.....5km....10km....we pass towns....Loma de Cabrera.....Monte Grande his eyes soaking in this new world that he has only heard about. The bus stops in Dajabon so we can make our transfer. This is where Miguel encounters his first dilemma.....crossing the street. Yes, we have streets in Restauracion, but the streets in Dajabon might as well be Manhattan to Miguel. Hundreds of cars, motorcycles and trucks are whizzing by. Victor and I cross the street and turn around to realize Miguel hasn't  left the curb. Victor goes back for him and they cross together. Mission accomplished. We board our next bus to Santiago.

We arrive in Santiago and to the HUB. The HUB is a guest house in a very nice part of town. We head to our room and Miguel chooses his bed. First question, "Jose, does the toilet flush here?" to which I reply, "of course it does. Here the water never goes out and neither does the electricity". This is shocking news as he rushes into the bathroom to experience it. We head to lunch at the world famous Wendys. I wanted to show them what we fat Americans eat on a daily basis. I order 2 burger combos for the boys and place it before them on the table. Victors eyes burst wide open as he hurriedly gets to work. Miguel just sits there and asks, " How do you eat this?". As I showed him how to eat a cheeseburger and explain how dipping your fries in ketchup makes them taste better, I tried to remember how old I was when I first learned. After Miguel got into a rhythm he could not be stopped. He and Victor demolished their meals. They had biggie size cokes, and they could not finish the whole thing. Miguel asks what we do with the leftovers, and Victor recommends we give them to the kids that were begging outside. It was one of those humbling moments where you realize that a kid living in poverty is still conscious of people who may be less fortunate in the moment. I notice Miguel start to sink down into the seat next to me. I ask him what is up, and he just shakes his head. He sinks even further, so I pester further. He only told me after we had left that he felt uncomfortable because a group of people were staring at him and laughing. Miguel is a very dark boy, and where we were in Santiago is filled with mostly affluent, light-skinned people. He felt uncomfortable. It was heartbreaking. 

On our way back to the hub I had to explain a few things to Miguel:

Are all those cars for sale? (referring to a parking lot)

Do they still use pesos here?

How do the cars know when to turn and when to stop?

Whats behind that wall?

Who lives in that house and how many brother ans sisters do they have?

We get back to the HUB and prepare to take showers. I explain that their is hot water available.....and that was their evening....taking turns showering in hot water. I have never seen anyone as giddy as these 2 boys were. I have never used the word giddy to describe something, but they couldn't even speak. They giggled with excitement. I have to admit I understand the feeling :) Obviously, not as hard as these kids. We climbed to the top of the iconic monument in Santiago and i managed to snap a gem:

Best friends! We had a great time in Santiago. The next morning we headed to Santo Domingo to catch our connecting bus to San Cristobal. Victor and I caught some zzz's, but Miguel claimed he never winked. We get to San Cristobal, set up our tent and it begins to downpour. All day it rains, everything gets soaked, no bueno. They still had the time of their lives. The camp was awesome and we did lots of cool stuff and activities and blah blah blah. We zip lined, rock climbed, river dove among many other things. We returned the same route we came through Santo Domingo to Santiago to Dajabon to Restuaracion. 4 buses, 9 hours. 

By the end of the trip i wanted to die. Miguel had asked a bajillion and one questions and i had to haul all of their bags in each transfer because they could not lift them. I had been surrounded by 46 kids for 5 days, soaking wet. But it is hard to really dwell on any of that (except to write it in a  blog :) ) when I dwell on the experience Miguel had. I wander how many things he didn't ask. How many things did he assume, and what were they? What were his thoughts on this and that, and how will he describe these things to his family? 

Si dios quiere, Miguel will be a Doctor one day. I hope he experiences the world and I hope you guys reading this will take a look around and try to see things through Miguel's eyes.

Paz