pollota - big chicken

i'm putting this up a couple days late - i ended up falling asleep in the middle of writing this and ofcourse never finished posting it...
yikes, its been another little while eh? but hero holiday is a great excuse, although they leave tomorrow morning at 7 so i figured i should get on this whole blog business before i forget.
so anyways, i never ended up going back to the emergency room yet but then i bumped into the two guys that work in the ER just the other day and they both were asking why i never showed up and they were asking what i know how to do and what i want to learn.
besides trying to get myself a job in 'emerge', i was in charge of bringing a different group of about 20 high school students to the hospital for the last two weeks. as i mentioned last time, we are working with a group that is focused on improving the children's ward. they have done a lot of work on improving care for premature babies by getting them a proper room with air conditioning, real heat lamps (rather than the old reading lamps they used) and new incubators.
every day i brought a different group of teenagers to help with different cleaning and painting projects, and they also would bring along bubbles, or colouring books for the kids. despite all the chaos of trying to organize teenagers, leaders, staff and patients, we managed to clean and repaint the entire children’s ward, made up of 4 large pavilions, a nurse’s station, a future ‘playcare’ area as well as a small courtyard just behind the ward.
after hero holiday leaves i will be moving in with my friend gabi who i have known for a couple years now and the cutest baby in the world.
i'll write again soon-ish.
rana comes in sunday the 2nd. wooohoooo.

OMEGA me tocó

since the last medical team left we have been even busier, so for all you people that are angry i havent written (mom and rana), callese por favor.

so one fun thing we have done is go to a concert for this dominican guy called OMEGA (el fuerte) haha. i had seen signs on the road for weeks about him coming (of course they dont say when or how much so i had to do some investigating) but amy, natalie, erin and kara all decided they wanted to come and it was one of the greatest days. we just ran around for a couple hours playing on the slides and in the pool with some of the friends i knew that we bumped into and finally Omega showed up (2 hours late - so dominican). he played for an hour maybe and we got right up to the stage and he even touched my hand - everyone was staring at me like i was a ridiculous white girl singing along too close to the stage - they just dont know what's what... and kyle (a roomate from last year) also arrived on the same day.

we also had a couple days re-organizing the clinic after the team was here and resorting a ton of pills they left.

on canada day a couple people at the williams' house were sick so we stayed away and had lardwin, sadrak and franklin over for dinner and a game of president (well, franklin cooked) but it was a fun canada day celebration - they even let me put canada flag stickers on their motorcycles.

thursday july 2nd we had another successful garbage day in nazaret. we filled all the bags again without even straying far off the road - we need to buy bigger ones again for the next time. and we had the kids talking about why garbage is bad for our health and such.

that weekend i went with amy and natalia on an adventure to santo domingo, the capital of the dominican republic. it worked out so well because as we were crossing the road we bumped into amy's long lost friend so we stayed at her house with her and her husband for the weekend. we got to tour around a bit for free because last summer amy ran tours for university students all over the island so she showed us around. right off the bat we got kicked out of church (i know, i know but we were wearing shorts and "we should know better") - we were just looking around amazed by the 'first cathedral of the new world' when this man came out of nowhere and dragged us to the door where we also saw him not let another lady in for having a 'scandalous' shirt. (i know, i know but we were wearing shorts and "we should know better")

on sunday the 5th we got back around 4 and hero holiday had arrived. woohooo. so i moved into the hotel for the month and am the 'project manager' at the public hospital in puerto plata (that i wrote about in may when we helped with eye surgeries). we are working with an organization that is trying to fix up the childrens ward so we are helping to paint and clean and then also get to interact with the staff and patients. it is a fantastic place for me to be. today i had to take a participant to the emergency room (he had a cut that was pussing and noone else could help) so after we went across the street to buy gauze (thats right, you have to buy the supplies they need) another friend told the nurse/volunteers that i want to work there one day and they invited me back tomorrow to help. i said maybe next week but i think i will go back tomorrow so they dont forget ... SO EXCITED!

ok i better go find sadrak before he gets surrounded by too many hero holiday girls.

love you guys.