Day 4 - Work day at Batey 50 & Med Clinic

Hello from the DR! (Ja Seng Ra N. and William H.)

Ja Seng Ra: Today, the team woke and got ready for a 7:30am breakfast with oatmeal, bacon & sausages, fruit, and bread. Once breakfast was over, we hung out and got ready for our second work day until the buses, for our respective medical and construction teams, came. 

For the day, I was a part of the construction team, working at Batey 50. Getting there, we had to drive through a harsh dirt road along the sugarcane fields, going through somewhat of a maze, until we got to our designated area. Our assignment for the day was to continue painting and hauling cement to the houses. I began with the painting area, specifically working on the windows, and others painted the walls of the houses. The other group walked over to the pile of cement and shoveled cement onto the back of the loading truck. 

After a couple of hours of working, we took a break for lunch, which was empanadas, rice & beans, and meat. Once we finished eating our delicious meal, we had a special surprise for Elizabeth, a kid from Batey 50, as it was her 12th birthday. We sang "Happy Birthday" to her, and her reaction was priceless!

In the second half of the day, I joined in with the shoveling crew, where we continued loading cement onto the truck, and finished the day off with painting. 

Towards the end of the work day, Caroline, Caleb and Darren headed over to the school to meet the kids and handed out some toys!

After a challenging and rewarding day, we headed home to shower and rest up!

Will: The med clinic team departed La Romana at around 8:30 AM and spent an hour or so driving through sugarcane fields and enormous hills covered in grasses and trees.

Once we arrived at the batey (at around 9:30), we carried the meds, shoes, food, and water (what was sorted yesterday) from the bus into the church and organized the space so that patients could flow through efficiently.

My assignment was shoes, so I unpacked the majority of our mens, women's and kids shoes, and slightly organized them by size.

There were plenty of women's and kids shoes, but not many men's. Within a few minutes of the clinic beginning, patients had filled the church. I did my best to ask what shoes the patients wanted with my limited Spanish, and there was a mix of US and European sizing responses. Most of the shoes did not have a displayed size, so I had to guess, and the patients frequently rejected my offers because of the wrong size or style. The most fun was finding tiny pairs of colorful sneakers (and correctly estimating the size) and offering it to young kids who smiled and looked at their parents with joy, appreciating their new shoes as a gift. Unfortunately, we ran out of men's shoes very quickly, and later on we ran out of larger sizes of women's shoes, which the majority of the women were hoping for (instead, the translators offered shoes for their kids who weren't there with them). There were limited unisex flip flops, which were primarily given to men and women who otherwise wouldn't be able to get anything. Nearing lunch, we mostly had shoes for kids and teenagers or smaller sizes of women's shoes. At around 12:15 we began our lunch break and ate until 12:45. Delicious! We also met a cat who climbed under a bench, into a drum set, and then scrambled backwards out of it.

The action started up again at 1:00 PM. With the shoes depleted, I helped hand out food and hygiene kits with Caroline K. while occasionally handing out a pair of shoes if they fitted anyone. Everything eventually ran out, but we found a massive bag of toothbrushes to give to everyone until the end of the clinic at around 2:30ish. We drove back to La Romana, showered, and then relaxed until dinner. We had another cake for dessert.

Cake of the day:

To finish the night we went on another group trip to Jumbo and packed food packs for tomorrow. We are all proud of our work today and are super excited for the next 3 work days!