Tuesday, November 26, 2024

Day 5 - Work Day at Batay 50 & the Med Clinic

 

Hey everyone, it's Abi! I woke up at 6:40 in the morning and had a breakfast of french toast with bacon and fruit. We got to Batay 50 around 9:45am and immediately got to work. I went to paint the rest of the houses while the other group started laying cement. It was fun painting and practicing my spanish with the guys who came to help us. I was also the one who got up on the tall ladder to paint the top of the window/door frames. After a little while I switched over to cement and practiced my wheelbarrow skills while transporting the wet cement. I might have stumbled on a hose and spilled some...





Julia also got the privilege of being the one to work the concrete mixer and pour it into our wheelbarrows. This was quite a feat because many of the older men at the Batay didn't like the girls doing too much physical labour around them. Several even tried to take the wheelbarrows out of my and Autumn's hands. By the end of the day, several of them acknowledged us as "chicas fuertes" which means "strong girls". 




After lunch we visited the Batay's school and handed out some notebooks and comic books for the children. They were all very sweet and followed us down back to the worksite since their school session had just ended.





We continued to cement and then cleaned everything up a little after 1:00. We took a rainbow parachute that we'd brought and played a fun game with the kids who followed us down. They laughed and danced as we dropped the big rainbow bubble down around them, it was so cute! 







After construction and med got back from work we all went to the beach for some well deserved relaxation! I spent the whole day in the ocean with my friends, the water was so warm and the sun felt amazing! A lot of people also shopped around and got some super cute things.


Hello from med team, it's Olivia! Today was a short day since we took our first trip to the beach!! During our work day, I was on bug juice with my new friend witgi who helped me translate. We passed out doses of albendazole, an anti parasite medication. While doing bug juice, I was able to play and pass out stickers to the kids who came in,  which was a huge highlight.

We wrapped up at around 12(with a total of 123 patients!) and had lunch that consisted of rice with pork and sandwiches. With our burst of energy from lunch, we packed up the clinic and headed back to casa pastorale to get ready for our much deserved beach day.


The beach was the perfect refresher that the whole team needed; this beach truly had healing powers. We all played in the water together, attempted to body board, and shopped at the beach shops. We headed back to dinner (thankfully) already waiting for us. We had pasta, chicken, plantains, and vegetables. Of course we had our delicious cake of the day which was cut very questionably. We ended our night with med counting and food packing. We are all so grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this trip and can’t wait to have another productive day tomorrow.








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