4/4/2008 – Friday
Leaving for the “Campo” today. The word “Campo” refers to the country side of the Dominican republic. Imagine the worst gravel road in Iowa, add approximately 200 right/left turns, add large pot holes, and add a large bus without air-condition and you can paint of picture of what the ride to the “Campo” was like. The ride into the mountain took 3 hours there.
We arrived at the campo at 7:00 to a cooked meal of spaghetti and fried salami. Ahhh what a nice change from beans and rice. They also had a mass for us and the women’s choir was so pretty singing all the songs in Spanish.
The campo that we are staying at is called Las Lagunas. It is a small community that contains only a small store, church, and school. Before we left there were many pictures painted of what “campo” can be like including:
No electricity
No running water
Chickens in the house
Bucket showers
Well the lord must have blessed us this weekend because I guess we were in one of the richer campos. 2 other CU girls and I stayed with a woman named Mercedes. She is married and has 2 children. Both children live in Santiago, and her husband was away for the weekend. We each had our own bed in a simple home with running water and a toilet!! When we arrived to her house she offered us Café’ (coffee). Mercedes and her family make their income harvesting coffee. As we sit and sip on the best cup of coffee I have had in my life we are surrounded by bags of coffee beans. It doesn’t get much fresher than that. We say up and talked to her for about an hour. We struggled through with our Spanish but we were able to carry on a half way decent conversation. We went to bed and crawled under or mosquito nets for a good nights rest. In the mountains it’s much colder and it felt so goooooood to be cold when we slept.
4/5/2008 –Saturday
Good morning, nothing like waking up to turkeys outside your window!! We got to sleep in today til about 7:30 – we are all starting to feel fatigue being this our 8th day going in a row.
Breakfast consisted of fresh brewed coffee, fresh fruit, and oatmeal. The oatmeal tasted so good because it is made with pure cream.
From 9-noon we presented “Charlas” or inservice to the Cuapradoras. Cuapradoras are individuals that serve as the ILAC representatives in 125 campos throughout the Dominican Republic. We presented all in Spanish on various topics including:
Low back pain
Sprains/strains
Body Mechanics
Developmental stages
You can imagine the need for the community to have an educated individuals to provide medical advise being it that the nearest medical help is a 3 hour drive away.
Also, these individuals (including men and woman) perform hard physical labor all day – with many complaints of back/neck pain from long days in the fields.
In front of our house later that afternoon was coffee beans spread out on a large metal slab to dry before they are roasted.
From 2-5 PM we conducted a PT clinic in the elementary school treating over 30 patients. Needless to say, it was a long day.
The community had a small get together for us Saturday night. This included a dancing the Marenga and Muchacha. All ages from the 4 year old boy to the 80 year old man was dancing. The American girls could barely get off the floor before getting asked to dance by another Dominican boy. It was quite funny because they didn’t talk at anytime during the dance – but we all had a good time.
Leaving for the “Campo” today. The word “Campo” refers to the country side of the Dominican republic. Imagine the worst gravel road in Iowa, add approximately 200 right/left turns, add large pot holes, and add a large bus without air-condition and you can paint of picture of what the ride to the “Campo” was like. The ride into the mountain took 3 hours there.
We arrived at the campo at 7:00 to a cooked meal of spaghetti and fried salami. Ahhh what a nice change from beans and rice. They also had a mass for us and the women’s choir was so pretty singing all the songs in Spanish.
The campo that we are staying at is called Las Lagunas. It is a small community that contains only a small store, church, and school. Before we left there were many pictures painted of what “campo” can be like including:
No electricity
No running water
Chickens in the house
Bucket showers
Well the lord must have blessed us this weekend because I guess we were in one of the richer campos. 2 other CU girls and I stayed with a woman named Mercedes. She is married and has 2 children. Both children live in Santiago, and her husband was away for the weekend. We each had our own bed in a simple home with running water and a toilet!! When we arrived to her house she offered us Café’ (coffee). Mercedes and her family make their income harvesting coffee. As we sit and sip on the best cup of coffee I have had in my life we are surrounded by bags of coffee beans. It doesn’t get much fresher than that. We say up and talked to her for about an hour. We struggled through with our Spanish but we were able to carry on a half way decent conversation. We went to bed and crawled under or mosquito nets for a good nights rest. In the mountains it’s much colder and it felt so goooooood to be cold when we slept.
4/5/2008 –Saturday
Good morning, nothing like waking up to turkeys outside your window!! We got to sleep in today til about 7:30 – we are all starting to feel fatigue being this our 8th day going in a row.
Breakfast consisted of fresh brewed coffee, fresh fruit, and oatmeal. The oatmeal tasted so good because it is made with pure cream.
From 9-noon we presented “Charlas” or inservice to the Cuapradoras. Cuapradoras are individuals that serve as the ILAC representatives in 125 campos throughout the Dominican Republic. We presented all in Spanish on various topics including:
Low back pain
Sprains/strains
Body Mechanics
Developmental stages
You can imagine the need for the community to have an educated individuals to provide medical advise being it that the nearest medical help is a 3 hour drive away.
Also, these individuals (including men and woman) perform hard physical labor all day – with many complaints of back/neck pain from long days in the fields.
In front of our house later that afternoon was coffee beans spread out on a large metal slab to dry before they are roasted.
From 2-5 PM we conducted a PT clinic in the elementary school treating over 30 patients. Needless to say, it was a long day.
The community had a small get together for us Saturday night. This included a dancing the Marenga and Muchacha. All ages from the 4 year old boy to the 80 year old man was dancing. The American girls could barely get off the floor before getting asked to dance by another Dominican boy. It was quite funny because they didn’t talk at anytime during the dance – but we all had a good time.
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