The Health Fair: Pros and Cons

Hi Everyone! Sorry it has been so long... but I have been super busy my last couple of weeks in CBT. We had a big health fair in Las Tablas, and it was super stressful. It started out as our "practicum experience" for training, but it turned into somewhat of a nightmare. We split up into four groups, and each group was going to have a booth on a different topic. We had nutrition, reproductive health, chronic diseases (my booth), and hygiene. Ok... so we envisioned a small little fun health fair with the people of the campo. We made little Health Passports with questions from each booth and a place for a sticker from each booth. Once you got all the stickers you could enter into a raffle, and we had fun healthy baskets to raffle off.... WELLL it didnt exactly go that way. We had a doctor from the ministry of health in Bani that wanted to help out with the fair (supply some doctors and some free stuff etc) so we said sure. Especially because at my booth (chronic diseases) we were weighing everyone, taking BP, measuring everyone, and calculating BMI so we definitely could use some help. Ok... so the dude shows up, gives out some trees, takes pictures planting a few, takes pictures with the kids, takes pictures in front of our booths, sets up a video projector, plays a cartoon for five minutes, takes it down, and leaves. He was in and out. This would have been fine except for the fact that all hell broke loose after because everyone wanted to be given free stuff.... because they saw that he had given out free things to other people. Well we got swarmed... a lot more people showed up than expected... there was a riot... spitting... fighting... etc. We shut down the health fair and that was that. The good news is that before all of this happened we definitely talked to a lot of people and I think everyone left with a little bit more health knowledge than they came with...

Our pretty wall at the health fair.

On my Doña and me:
Ok so my Doña in Las Tablas loves loves loves me. She keeps telling me I am not allowed to leave because she loves me too much and it will make her sad. She has also given me 3 skirts, a pair of shorts, and a cute pair of red pumps. Unfortunately, the shoes and shorts did not fit... but I did get three new skirts. I was also recently asked by my cousin (22) if I would be the godmother of his baby with his 13 year old wife. Here there is something called "campo married" it is when a girl just doesnt come home one night... and she is not allowed to live in her house anymore... I think they were campo married. Anyways they just had a baby boy, and while I was holding the cutest little 4 day old baby ever they asked me to be the godmother. I wanted to say yes... but there is no way I could have done it. In the DR, godparents are a serious part of the baby's life FOREVER. Luckily, my little host-niece marla stepped in and said "She can't be the godmother. She is going to live far away. DUH"

My Don, Doña, and I.

Marla, Waren, and I.

On Cacatas:
Ok so I had another cacata experience. This time it was in the bathroom when I went in for a wee wiz in the middle of the night. I don't like to do this because it becomes a big process when you have to untuck you mosquito net, find your shoes, find your flashlight, find the bathroom etc. Anyways, I obviously really had to piddle this particular night so I went for it. I found my cacata friend chilling in there... dilemma... pee first and then get my Doña and risk getting cacata-tacked or get my Doña and then pee in private. Now I decided to go with the first because lets face it... I had to pee. It was almost as awkward as the time I popped a squat in the middle of the soccer field. We just stared at each other... and I did not move my flashlight from it.... EVER. I then got my Doña who yelled for my cousin and woke up the whole house. Everyone came in to see the cacata... and then they all laughed because the cacata was "chiquitita" (extremely small). They figured since I (when in reality it was my Doña who woke everyone up) woke the whole house up it must have been at least the size of my head or bigger... but since this one was only the size of my hand... the joke was on the stupid americana.

My pee-pal.

On to bigger and better things:
I am on my way back to Santo Domingo where I will have a few more days of training. Then it is off to Barrancón, Puerto Plata to visit my site for a week with my project partner. Then I come back to Santo Domingo for Swearing in. Then a lot of the current volunteers are having "homecoming" for us... basically it is just a big party in the capital. Then I head back to Barrancón and stay there!

On my site:
Sorry I realized I was just talking about Barrancón and I never told y'all about my site placement. I was originally placed right outside of Santiago which is the second largest city after Santo Domingo. I wasn't too stoked about being in an urban area, but my APCD really wanted to put me there because he thought I could do a lot on more of an administrative level because of all of my experience. Well I talked to him and told him that I thought I would be much happier in a campo (rural area). He then placed me in Barrancón, Puerto Plata. It is just inland of La Isabela, Puerto Plata if you look it up on google maps. I don't really know much about it yet, but I am excited to go visit :)

Until next time....