Company! J & D, graduate-level pharmacy students from a college in Virginia, arrived Wednesday afternoon. They’ll be volunteering here for a month, and two of their classmates will arrive when they leave. It’s great to have company in the house, and I’ve enjoyed being able to show them around the clinic and town and explaining …
An ongoing list of Dominicanisms I encounter this summer. Lots are Anglicisms, some are of Arawak/Taino origin. Not included (but equally interesting) are the boatloads of calques–expressions like “llamar para atras” or “estar hasta el cuello”–that show the strong influence of English in Dominican Spanish. una banca – a place to buy lotto tickets/place bets …
Hello again, world! I’ve been neglecting my blogging duties this week. Things have finally picked up on the work end. One morning, I went door-to-door with a couple of the high school volunteers (who were assigned to the clinic for community service hours), and got to see a bit more of the town. In the …
On Saturday, I took advantage of the chance to sleep in and didn’t even bother setting an alarm. When I finally got up, showered and dressed, I put my clothes in the washer and went to make some food. After dicing the tomato and pepper, I saw a spider. My shoes were all in my …
Thursday was mostly uneventful. I didn’t feel well utilized at all, though there were a fair number of patients. In the afternoon, I joined K & B with the pediatrician. I couldn’t help much, but it was good to see how the visits go. A key difference between here and clinics in the US is …
I’m starting to really regret not following through on my initial plan to wear my rain boots on the plane. It would’ve been a less comfortable flight, but after five straight rainy afternoons I miss them dearly. And all of you, of course. But the boots would be especially helpful. Today was was almost painfully …
I didn’t sleep nearly enough last night, which might explain why today feels so disjointed. In the morning, after the morning prayer was conducted in the waiting area, I was given a tour of the clinic/introduced to everyone by Berkys, whom I had met briefly when we arrived yesterday evening. The clinic set-up is nearly …
Today was a long day, but not strenuous. We got up at 7, spent awhile at breakfast, and brought our luggage down to the lobby, where Teresa met us. Teresa is the Country Director for Project HOPE in the DR, and my main supervisor for the summer. After checking out of the hotel, Teresa took …
Yesterday we didn’t see any of the city, so today we had Freddy drive us around from 11:30-4 and hit all the major sightseeing spots. We didn’t go into any of the museums/historical houses, but we took pictures of them so we can still say we went. Also, it rained heavily for awhile so some …
Hola desde la Republica Dominicana! It’s hard to believe that I woke up in Manhattan this morning. My flight left JFK at 9am, and touched down in SDQ (Las Americas International airport) at 12:30pm. I was picked up by the Project HOPE driver, Freddy, and driven to the Dominican Fiesta hotel to join the other …
