Last weekend, I didn't have time to write about it, but we went to a campo (rural community). It was called Vaca Gorda (which means fat cow!), and it actually was fairly large with 2,200 people who live there. It is 2.5-3 hours to drive from the ILAC center and closer to the Haitian border. They grow a lot of crops including beans and peanuts, and they have a ton of animals rooming around! We stayed with host families who each took about 2-3 of us into their homes for the weekend. Suzi (another CI here) and I stayed in a house with a family of 8 people. We met our families when we got there and it was semi-awkward sitting on their porch trying to make conversation when my Spanish speaking abilities are very limited. Luckily Suzi can speak quite a bit so she was able to translate for me a lot, but I wish I could have been more involved in talking with them. At night we played cards which helped break the ice a little bit and I learned a couple games they play here in the DR.



The living conditions were definitely different from what I am used to. I think most of the homes are made of cement with tin roofs and doors/windows that are somewhat open to the outside. Our house had 1 main room, a kitchen, and bedrooms that were partitioned off by curtains. I had to share a double bed with Suzi and I know that someone was giving up their room and sharing with other family members for us. We slept under mosquito netting, though I still left with some more bites. Their bathroom consisted of a hut in the backyard with a hole in the ground. I took one shower all weekend and it was a bucket shower in the backyard with wood plank and tin walls. There was a large barrel that you filled up with water from a faucet and used a bucket to dip water out of it. It would sure wake you up in the morning as it was ice cold! It was very difficult to sleep at night because you hear animal sounds all night. Apparently roosters start crowing around midnight and continue till dawn. Not to mention the cows, pigs, dogs, horses, and chickens. What was amazing to me though was the hospitality and generosity of our family. Our 16 year old sister, Manuella, was our special friend who was always wanting to hang out with us. It is definitely incredible what disparity there is between these parts of town and the resort areas of this country.

On Saturday morning, the students all gave inservices presentations to the cooperadores in the campo, who are basically on-the-job trained health care workers. Then we had a free clinic to provide PT consultations to people in the campo. We saw a lot of back pain, shoulder, and knee injuries because most of the people there are farmers and manual laborers.

On Sunday, I took 2 of our students on a home visit in the campo to see a patient who because of her level of disability, had no way to get to the clinic. She had a stroke and has a lot of weakness and contractures of her joints. We did a lot of education and taught the family exercises and how to help her transfer. What was interesting is that is was very difficult to tell if the patient had aphasia or my Spanish language skills are just that bad! When we were done seeing her, they asked if we could also see the father of their house. He had apparently been struck by lightning and has episodes of dizziness. So I'm wondering if that is just a result of nerve damage that I can't fix, but I really have no idea since I can't say I've ever had a patient who was struck by lightning! And maybe he could use some type of anti-nausea medication, but I obviously have no access and limited knowledge about that. We did make him a quasi-eye patch out of bandana since he had double vision. He also had a leg length discrepency causing scoliosis and back pain, so I made a shoe lift out of a random sandal I found in their backyard....just cut off the sandal straps and tied it to the bottom of his shoe. Not likely to stay on the best, but here you have to get creative and work with what you have.

Sunday afternoon, we hiked to the campo's river and jumped off the rocks into the deep area. It was thrilling, but I assure you it was also very safe :) I also jumped in with all my clothes since I did not pack my swimsuit. I'm pretty sure that when we got back to ILAC, I had the best shower of my life!