The construction team made significant progress in painting the interior rooms and exterior walls on the outside of the building on the third floor of the school. The team uses long poles with a roller attached to the end for the exterior. The highlight for the youth on the construction team is spending time with the kids in the road between the school and church. Yes, we play in the road here. The road is a dirt and rock street with an occasional passing scooter or motorcycle. I even played the "slap hands" game with one of the young kids and I think he was surprised at the quickness of an older man. He gave me a great hug afterwards.
The people of La Romana, La Lechoosa, and in the Batays are kind and appreciative. They do not have an attitude of entitlement. This people wants to laugh and love. In La Romana, they enjoy music and are often singing. In the Batays, there is often less to sing about, but they are a resilient people.
In La Romana, the air carries an odor that varies between molasses and blackened marshmallow. The locals say that it is the smell of money from the Sugar Cane factory. In the Batays, the fields are beautiful, sometimes rimmed by mountains.
The youth and college kids have unified as a team. They work and play well together, with the kids during the day, and amongst themselves in the evening. As the week has progressed, the sleepy-heads are getting harder to get out of bed in the morning, but give them food and drink and they blossom into a force that "the gates of hell will not prevail against".
- Joel
Today was a busy day for the medical team. Today, we were in Batey Nuevo, along with the VBS team and later in the afternoon, the water team. We saw 117 patients today, with about 10 of them for the dentist. I have been working pharmacy all week. With that many patients and an average of 3 prescriptions per patient, we stay very busy. We saw 122 patients on Monday, about 100 each on Tuesday and Wednesday. We were very fortunate to buy additional Amoxicillin and Cipro yesterday.
Most patients get a prescription for vitamins and a pain reliever, so we go through many Ibuprofen, Acetaminophen, and Naproxen. Also, the doctor's prescribe a lot of children's acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and Zyrtec. Trinity's donations of children's and adult over the counter medications are making a difference in the lives of these people. The pharmacy has run out of Adult Ibuprofen and Naproxen, and are critically low on vitamins for both children and adults. We will be calling for medication donations for next year's mission trip again in the upcoming months. Please consider purchasing some additional Tylenol, Advil, naproxen, vitamins, cold, and allergy medicines when you find them on sale or happen to be in Sam's or Costco. Toothbrushes and small toothpastes are needed, too.
Thank you for your generous donations and your prayers for the people in the bateys.
-Susan
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