stops along the way: A week in the Dominican Republic...

My week always begins at Hospital Cabral y Báez (below) - I spend Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at the hospital. I attend resident lectures in the morning and afternoon, which are very similar to lectures you would hear at an American hospital (except the language, of course). On Mondays and Fridays, I spend much of my day at the HIV clinic located in the hospital. I've been screening patients for depression, which, as you can imagine, is quite prevalent in this population. On Wednesday mornings, I give a case conference to the residents and doctors in english. This is kind of difficult, as they have varying abilities in english. One thing that I've been learning is that they can all read english, it's speaking and listening to it that is hard for them.

Tuesdays and Thursdays we spend in the mountains. We've been leaving Santiago on Wednesday evening and spending the night at the clinic - they have a bed and kitchen right there (and fun bugs to battle). One reason we go up Wednesday night is to catch the local pick-up basketball game. Unfortunately, it has rained the past two weeks...

Here are some pictures of a game at the home-made cancha (court). The games at the main cancha in Pedro Garcia are full-court, really competitive, and very fun.

I’m usually hungry by the time we come back from the mountains, and the sweet smells of fried street food are just too much to resist…

We find enough time to play (more than) a few hands of cribbage each week. With all this playing, we’ve gotten some pretty amazing hands (see below-6-7-7-8-8)! The World Cribbage Championship stands at Rebe: 11, Micah: 8.

We’ve also added Dominoes to our game repertoire; it was a great anniversary gift!

We’re well fed from the plantains that our neighbor gave us (thankfully we’ve mastered the fine art of tostone making—fried green salty plantains-wow they're good). The avocado man sold us the world’s largest avocado, too.

The preschool kids keep me (Rebekah) entertained and busy! At the end of the class, I am a bucket of sweat. This little guy is my jokester. He told me that he’s got rats living in his house (that part is likely true), and then he took off his shoe and showed me his holey sock. “The rats ate it,” he claimed (which I hope isn't true).