If the cold showers, lack of fans, nothing-to-do-after-8pm,and flies covering my burnt rice were not enough to make my trip horrible, then the doctor with which we were forced to stay with iced the cake. She was a miserable, insufferable woman in her early 30s who doted on me, her Kahtay, and forced Moira into servitude. She would not permit us to go anywhere without her and she never wanted to go anywhere, except for to the beach.
That day she made us ride with a man who was too drunk to speak and almost drove us off a mountain. 3 TIMES! Moira and I finally had enough, got out of the truck, and screamed at her. Unfortunately, even my hottest temper cannot rival that of a dominican woman and the fault for the bad situation was placed upon us. Then she threatened to leave us alone on the mountain if we didnt get in the car with drunky mcgee. We flagged down a taxi. Happy times.
This is Moira's and my room. Notice the lovely mosquito nets. While they are extremely practical, they manage to keep any air out. When you sleep inside one (especially when there is a lack of fan) you feel like you are slowly dying of heat and suffocation. Fortunately for me, I was so miserable my body felt there was nothing better to do than sleep, so I didn't have much trouble . In fact, one day I woke up at 7 for work, realized they weren't seeing patients and went back to bed at 8:30, woke up at 11:30 for lunch and then took another nap from 1 to 3:30. I woke up every time covered in sweat. It was fabulous. And I smelled great.
This was the exterior of our clinic when we arrived. Chipping white paint, bars on the windows and doors, barbed wire fencing surrounding it on all sides. Not much of a sight. The inside of the clinic was not much better. Although there were four consulting rooms, only two of them were actually used. One room was or "admitting" of sorts. Both doctors spoke with patients in that room. In front of God and everybody (meaning all the other patients that were cramming into the room to see the doctor) the doctors took blood pressure, checked lymph nodes, looked down their throats, listened to their hearts, asked them questions about their health and wrote prescriptions. Only a few patients were taken into the other room - people getting vaccines, having private parts examined, or getting wounds cleaned.There was one woman who came into the clinic that had had a growth removed at the hospital 4 days before. The doctors at the hospital had failed to give her antibiotics and without proper cleaning (she was only cleaning it with baby shampoo because she didn't buy the stuff she was supposed to clean it with) the once dime-sized wound had grown to the diameter of an orange. It was leaking yellow puss and was exposed nearly to her shin bone. Our doctors cleaned it with saline every day she came in and gave her some antibiotics but I did not see any improvement. One of the doctors told me that with their limited medications the wound may not heal. Even the clinic didn't have proper things to clean it with or strong enough antibiotics. Unfortunately, the socialized health care system does not allow anyone to go to the hospital until they need surgical procedures or other mechanic procedures (mammograms, MRI, etc) done. Essentially, until her leg was gangrenous, she was stuck hoping it got better off bare minimum care.
This is part of our group that went to the beach the second day we were there. From left, Maria, Moira, me, and Natalie. There were 4 other students, 4 doctors, and two creepy men that came with us as well. One of the men, Luis, is the one aforementioned who nearly drank us over the side of a mountain later in the day. (He stopped every 30 minutes of the 4 hour drive back from the beach to take a few swigs from the bottle of rum). Like I said, our doctor was mad at us for getting out of the truck and refusing to get back in, but later she admitted to us that she was frightened for her life as well.I think her violent reaction to us on the mountain was a product of the "machista" society here. Basically, whatever a man says, goes. And women don't have the right or the place to stand up against them. Our doctor was succumbing to the societal pressure put on her to not insult or go against the man driving the truck. It's sad that she was willing to risk her own life (and ours) to keep with the norms of her society.
Never have I felt so oppressed as a woman. Not only were the men in the truck trying to force us into an unwelcome situation, but so was a woman! She was willingly putting her personal rights aside and pushing ours away with hers. The whole situation was frightening, embarrassing, and deprecating. Someone pointed out to me later that the Dominican Republic has never had any form of social rights movement like in the US. For this reason, many social groups are still oppressed. What was most surprising to me was that Dominicans closely follow and sometimes idolize life in the US - why hasn't someone then questioned their country's ideals and tried to change them?
As I said before, we weren't in the best area. Outside of the two major cities and the tourist areas, the country is very poor. This is a typical example of the homes in the DR. They are crude cement blocks, sometimes painted sometimes not. Trash covers the sides of the roads and surrounds the homes. Kitchens are generally a separate building in the back. They may or may not have traditional ovens or stoves - some just have "fogones" or wood burning stoves. Despite their poverty, the people here are very generous. The man who owned the fruit stand next door gave us plantains, bananas, mangoes, oranges, and coconut water everyday. Some other people in the neighborhood would bring us rice and beans or tostones. Everyone we saw invited us in for a snack and some cola. I coulnd't believe their hopsitality! They barely had anything but they were still willing to share it!
Those big red things coming out of the trunk of the tree are cacao plants! CHOCOLATE! Pretty cool! There was a big cacao plantation right across the street from our clinic. One of the workers took one of the cacao and broke it open for us to look at the seeds. They're white!! They're too hard to eat, but when you suck on them, they taste like powdered sugar! Apparently to make chocolate you have to roast and mash the seeds. But I can't bring seeds home (sorry Karen) so I'll never know.
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