Friday 2013

Our medical team made its annual visit to Pico Piedra. It was another huge clinic where we treated 175 patients. Though we ran out of infant tylenol and infant cough and cold meds, and almost ran out of kids vitamins, the rest of our pharmacy supply was sufficient for the patients we saw. Once again, our deepest thanks to all who donated.

The Med Team at Pico Piedra.

Our final day at Batey 50 was outstanding. We completed a house and passed off the keys to a family with three generations. It is an extraordinary privilege to do so. As we all crowded into this new home, John Crosson offered a blessing and dedication of the new home (en Espanol), and then the woman gave us profuse thanks (via a translator). We will post the video once we are home and have a stronger internet connection.

While at 50, we were also able to distribute double food kits to every family there. Each of the construction workers also received food. The people were so happy and excited that the energy on the batey was frenetic. More hugs were given on this one day then most of us receive in a year. New this year, we also had made packets of clothing and distributed those using the same method we use to do shoe distribution.

Our day ended with a leisurely visit to the beach where we met this guy...

(For those of you who are not baseball fans, that is Robinson Cano — a Dominican American baseball second baseman who is currently a free agent. Cano has played with the NY Yankees since 2005.)

Our beach trip was followed by packing and a peaceful time of sharing with our hosts. All in all, the perfect last day for the perfect trip.

Thanksgiving 2013 (and Happy Birthday Mr. Bracker!)

Thursday was an unbelievably busy day! It started with a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday at which point the woman who runs the kitchen at Casa Pastoral (where we stay) dumped a cup of water on his head. Apparently, that is the tradition here.

The med team returned to Batey Guaymate, a huge village where we visited on Thanksgiving 2012. They treated 180 patients -- the largest clinic we have ever done. One patient needed to be taken to the Good Samaritan Hospital, an elderly diabetic lady who had an enormous wound on her lower leg — the front and side of her shin was an open, oozing wound that had been left untreated for a long, long time.

The construction team cranked out cement at a staggering rate today. At the end of our workday we got a "Muy buen trabajo!" from the foreman, a sometimes-grumpy/sometime-smiling Dominican man named Marcos with whom we have worked for 4 years now. By the end of Thursday the entire house was painted and the entire cement floor had been poured and leveled. We were also able to give shoes and baseball hats (donated by Mr. Holdt) to all the kids on Batey 50.

After our work day, we made our annual visit to the local orphanage. Many of our repeat team members have special friends who live there and wonderful reunions were had. There was also a spirited dance challenge with the teenage girls from the orphanage in one line, our team in another line facing them and they "battled" while laughing their heads off for more than an hour.

After the orphanage, everyone cleaned up and we went to a local resort for a luxurious Thanksgiving feast. We got to enjoy time relaxing and visiting with each other and with our hosts.

More about Wednesday...

After dinner on Wednesday night, we had a presentation about the scope of the programs of the Good Samaritan Hospital. One of our interpreters, Andrea, outlined all the various ways they aim to help the batey residents, from family planning programs, literacy programs for the elderly, scholarships for students, and of course medical programs like we provide. Andrea share the story of her family: While he lived in Haiti, a friend of her father's told him that if he came to the D.R. he could go to school. When he go to the D.R., he was sent to the sugar cane fields and told to cut cane. Andrea and her 7 siblings lived on a batey until she was 12, at which point they were able to move to a one-room apartment in the city. Her parents' focus was on getting their children educated. They were able to leave the batey because her dad got a job as a gardener at a resort and her mom worked in the cigar factory. Now Andrea has a sister who is a doctor, another who is a dentist, one who is a chef and so on. It is clear: education breaks the cycle of poverty. Last year, our team sponsored one year of education for a young teacher who lives on Batey Higuera. Her name is Belkis and she is extremely sweet. Her passion is in the area of psychologie and she teaches the kids on the batey who have experienced trauma at a young age (death of a parent, or something like that). She has one year to go and we got to tell her face-to-face that we will support her until she finishes her education. It was a tearful and beautiful moment for all.

Wednesday: so good, so good, so good.

The medical team went to a batey that La Fuerza Azul had never been to before, named Guayacane. It had been a long time since a medical team had visited this batey and as a result both the kids and adults were very shy at first. While the medical clinic went smoothly, there was one patient who stole our hearts. There was a nine-year-old boy who had broken his leg more than seven months ago and it had never been set. The protruding bone had been exposed for so long that the nerves were deadened. There were complicated family dynamics; his mother had several other children and for some reason was uninterested in this child, yet his father was very present and doting. Our team, and your donations, paid to transport the boy and his dad to the Good Samaritan Hospital where he will be treated and our funds will help to cover that expense. We, and most especially our team doctors—Demytrya, Farheen and Hamid (shown below with one of our translators, Hilda), were deeply moved by the experience.

The construction team accomplished a great deal on Wednesday at Batey 50. The house we aim to complete by Friday now has a subfloor (brutal, back-breaking work) and most of the exterior walls are painted. We are also assisting in the construction of a second house, for which we poured the foundation on Monday, and by the end of yesterday the exterior walls were half way up on house number 2.

(above: moving rocks for the subfloor)

We also now have constructed 10 raised bed planters behind the church at Batey 50. This is especially exciting as, if properly tended, they will provide a sustainable food source for the residents. We hope to connect with the teacher who visits this Batey and see if watering the beds can become a project of the students. The kids had a blast working with Sandy planting the seeds.

After our work day, those traveling home from Batey 50 had a impromptu dance party on the bus. We even got our translators up and dancing, though we confess it took very little encouragement! One short reflection from Jenni: Today at Batey 50, the kids continued to amaze me. I had a pocket full of little barrettes that I was putting into the little girls' hair. Each and every time I did so, the little girls would ask, "Do you have another one for my friend?" or "Do you have another one for my sister?". Not once did they say, "Do you have another one for me?" This is evidence of one of the big reasons why Batey 50 steals your heart. It is a wonderful, caring community where the poorest of the poor truly take care of one another...even the littlest among them.

Tuesday: Guazabal, Cement and Toros

Tuesday was fabulous. Most of the repeat travelers went to the medical clinic at Batey Guazabal where we reconnected with several dear friends. The Bracker family found Jacson within minutes of being off the bus. Jacson has just turned 14, has gained a little weight (45 lbs) and was even a bit more verbal than last year (shown below with new hat and shoes). Bretton did in take at the clinic, greeting patients in Spanish and charting weights and ages. Hannah cracked out prescriptions in the pharmacy, working alongside Rachel C and Emma B. Beloved former faculty member David Holdt sent us to La Romana with hundreds of his old baseball hats. Many were given away today and the kids loved it!

The work crew at Batey 50 rocked today! It was definitely a case of girl power and they exceeded all expectations. Liz B. '07 was in charge of the crew and the Haitian construction workers we work alongside quickly dubbed her "la hefa." Their work was hauling cinderblocks and buckets of cement so the walls can start to go up.

After work it was off to the Toros game. It was a great game and though we left at the bottom of the seventh, the Toros were up 1-0. Perhaps the highlight was the visit from the Toro mascot where we had a massive photo session!

Musings on Monday from Marjorie

On Monday we all headed out for our first trip to the Bateys. We split into two teams, one going to Batey La Gina to run a medical clinic; and the other team went to Batey 50 to do construction work, which included mixing cement and painting corrugated sheet metal (for the roofs of the houses). I was on the team that headed to La Gina and it was an amazing experience. After a 40-minute drive, we arrived at the Batey around 9:30am. When our school bus pulled up, we immediately saw lots of little children with smiles on their faces. They were so excited to see us! We set up our clinic in a small church, much like a one-room schoolhouse. We quickly organized our clinic stations which comprised of blood pressure diagnosis, general medical screening with our doctors from UCONN, dental station, and pharmacy. I was responsible for intake and weigh-in as patients arrived. After they went through the medical clinic, they were given shoes and food bags to take home. At the end of the day, we served 155 men, women and children. It was so wonderful to do this work and feel like we made a big difference in their lives. I look forward to Tuesday when I will be headed to Batey 50 to continue work on the construction site. Stay tuned…more to come!

Highlights from Sunday 2013

The team effort in the morning was beyond words. Each year we do our final preparations for our first work day on Sunday morning. This year, because of the extraordinary abundance of shoes and meds that had been donated by the Watkinson and UHSSE communities, our morning was super-charged. Everyone was busy, busy, busy straight up until noon. Rachel Countryman, our pharmacy diva, estimates that we will be able to give each patient we see a three-months supply of vitamins. As our Dominican hosts would say, "Hallelujah!"

After lunch, we got a surprise visit to the beach. In that it is 90 degrees here, that was a welcome surprise! Many of us felt like it was a privilege we hadn't yet earned but we were grateful for it nonetheless.

In the evening, we made our annual visit to the church at Kilometer 6, a staggeringly poor barrio of La Romana. The church is pastored by the wife of the founder of the Good Samaritan Hospital, our hosts for the week. Many team members united with friends we have made over the years. The highlight was Marjorie Davis bringing greetings from our team to the congregation in Creole with Samantha P. '13 bringing our final thanks also in Creole that Marjorie had taught her.

Monday is our first work day and everyone is beyond excited to get to work.

Packing, Packing, Packing...

Our team packing night's have been amazing. While the final counts are not yet in, early numbers indicate that the Watkinson community has donated double the amount of shoes and more than double the amount of adult multivitamins! GO RAMS! GO FUERZA AZUL!

4th Annual Mike Kadis Car Wash

Prior to our first trip to La Romana, in the fall of 2010, Mike Kadis (father of Bryce '10), suggested we do a car wash on the days Watkinson has Parent/Teacher Conferences to raise funds for our service work in the Dominican Republic. The trick is that the temperature in the last weekend of October can be in the high 60s or the high 40s. This year it was the latter. Though we froze, we had a blast and raised enough money to fully fund a whole medical clinic (we do five over the course of the week we are there).