Umberto is in a better place

It is a sad day in Restauracion. It appears whilst moving the location of my floor fan in the middle of the night I crushed Umbertos tiny reptilian frame. I am deeply and unnaturally saddened by this tragic event. Some of you may be wandering, "but i thought he ran away", others of you are thinking, "i don't know what you are talking about, idiot". Well i found him.....unfortunately. I placed him outside in the sun for the ants to feast on. If we have learned anything from the Lion King, its that there is a circle of life, and we must respect it.

So, my first group of volunteers has come and gone!

Two awesome dudes from the University of Michigan came down for 8 days and we were able to accomplish a lot.

We observed in rural clinics and they had the opportunity to diagnose patients and prescribe medication.
We were able to census 33 homes and over 200 people for our municipal diagnostic.
We traveled to Haiti and played some soccer with a few kids.
We hiked to a waterfall
We created a nutritional survey for malnourished children
We drank a lot of coffee and juice


That was pretty much our week in a nutshell. I don't want to bore you with the details, but it seemed like they really enjoyed themselves. It was nice having them around as it allowed us to progress a little more quickly to our end goal with the census. I still have so much ground to cover.

Oh yea, we passed the new year in Cabarete on the beach! That was the kickoff to the week and it was pretty awesome. Earlier that same day we went zip lining through the jungle and took a vertical fan descender into a cave. We managed to cram a lot into the last day of 2012.

My job from here on out is to finish this massive census and get ready for the 40+ volunteers that are coming in March! AHHHHH!!!

The group measuring kids for the census. Good times!