cross-country road trip version 2014

The day after graduation, we completed cleaning out my little house and fully packing the car.  Although my parents didn't believe it was possible, I packed all my things except my bike (we had shipped that a few days earlier) into the car and rooftop box, leaving not only the two fronts seats open, but a comfortable back seat as well.

i even left space to see out the rearview mirror

my fully packed car outside the little house - last look

We took off right on schedule around noon, returned my parents' rental car, and began the westward drive.  On the Saturday night before graduation, I had begun to suspect my dad's affliction was more than mere allergies - I took his temperature and found he had a fever.  He felt okay on graduation day, but still wasn't feeling well.  On the drive, he went back and forth between feeling a little bit better and a little bit worse.  We went through Alabama and Mississippi and made it to Memphis, Tennessee by dinner time.  We met up with my friend Josh for dinner - I'd met him the previous semester at Emory in Graduate Christian Fellowship, but he didn't return to Emory after Christmas break, so it was nice to have a chance to see him again.  We went to Corky's Ribs & BBQ which is well-known, especially for their ribs and Memphis pulled pork.  Apparently they ship ribs worldwide!

dinner with josh at corky's

After dinner, we continued on into Arkansas.  The rain that had started before dinner turned into a torrential downpour, and I drove through a couple hours of it passing many large semi-trucks in order to get out of the spray kicked up behind them.  Finally, we made it to Little Rock and ended up getting a hotel in North Little Rock for the night.

The next morning we headed to Sand Springs, Oklahoma to see Aunt Kathy, David, Jeff, Rocky, and Charlie.  We arrived in time for a late lunch.  As I was driving, I began to get a slight headache, so I took a nap after lunch.  Jeff and the boys arrived after school and work, and we had a good time with them, watching and joining the boys riding their bikes up and down the street.  We had a delicious ham dinner and spent a nice time catching up - although my dad and I had both seen them, my mom hadn't seen Aunt Kathy since the 80s, and Jeff since 1995.

bike races

jeff, rocky, my mother, david, me, aunt kathy, charlie, and my father

We spent the night at Aunt Kathy's, and headed off the next morning to Marilyn's.  A good friend of my mother's from college, my brother and I had always called her Aunt Marilyn.  We had a very nice brunch there, although my dad was still under the weather, and I not only had a headache but had started to get a cough and congestion.

in front of aunt marilyn's house

We spent the rest of that day driving, arriving in Amarillo well before sunset.  We used my phone to find an AAA office, which was closed.  There were still a couple of employees there, despite being half an hour past closing, so one of them opened the door for us and was kind enough to give us a couple of maps and a guidebook.  Using the guidebook, I found us a hotel on the west edge of Amarillo.  By this time, we were all sick.  We walked next door to the hotel to "Famous Dave's Bar-B-Que" where the three of us again shared ribs, this time with "Burnt Ends" - little bits of beef.  It was our fourth barbecue meal and third time eating ribs in the space of a week!  The next morning, our first brief stop was Cadillac Ranch, just a few minutes down the road from the hotel, so my parents could see the oddity.

my parents at cadillac ranch

We continued on to Los Lunas, New Mexico to visit another one of my mom's college friends, Debbie, and her husband Michel.  We had lunch there, and although we had originally planned to spend a night there, a phone conversation the night before revised the visit to include lunch and a brief afternoon visit.  We drove till we reached Gallup, New Mexico where I felt sick and tired enough to make the executive decision to stop there for the night.  We all felt ill enough to order chicken noodle soup at Denny's for dinner.

michel, my father, debbie, my mother, paco (the dog), and me

The next morning we made our first stop in Flagstaff, Arizona where we found a drugstore and refilled our over-the-counter cold and fever remedies - between the three of us we had exhausted the supply I had in Atlanta!  We crossed the rest of the state of Arizona and into California, initially aiming for perhaps Bakersfield as our last overnight stop.  Sometime before crossing the border into California, I noted that if we continued with the same types of stops we had done so far, we could make it home before midnight.  My thinking was that it might be helpful to have my father (and the other two of us for that matter) sleep in our own beds instead of more nights on the road.  Thanks to fairly dense cloud cover, even driving directly into the sunset wasn't a problem, so we pushed on and arrived at my parents' place before midnight.  I had driven all 2600+ miles myself!

southeastern california landscape

random stop along a highway to get photos with a joshua tree

wind farms visible from the freeway

sunset in the central valley

Unfortunately, arriving in Cupertino did not result in a miracle cure for any of us.  We spent another week and a half before even beginning to feel better, including doctor's visits, prescription medications, and lots of rest.  I gave up on my plans of seeing local friends, taking a trip to Tahoe to drop off a carload of stuff at my house, and taking a day trip to San Francisco to visit with a friend from Atlanta who happened to be there visiting with his family.  Eventually, my only goal was to be well enough to fly to England on May 27 to visit family.  Monday, May 26 I felt nearly well enough to travel, and fortunately I was even a bit better on Tuesday, so I'm currently in England!  More on that trip to come...

9 days till graduation

Despite not feeling 100%, I still managed to get out and hang out with as many friends as I could fit into my schedule before leaving Atlanta.  I started out May 2, the morning after I finished school, by picking up my friend Lois from the Emory climbing wall.  I hadn't seen her since December for various reasons, but we managed to get together and take a walk up Stone Mountain.  It was clearer than I've ever seen it up there, with just enough breeze to make the temperature pretty perfect.

clear view from the top of stone mountain, and me with lois

After dropping Lois off I visited Ashley, an Emory PT second year who also attends Passion City Church, at her new place.  Her current clinical runs Sunday through Thursday, so I hadn't seen her at church in weeks (she did make it to Good Friday Atlanta).  That evening was Graduate Christian Fellowship's First Friday Dinner.  Due to CSM in Las Vegas in February, the Dominican Republic trip in March, and the Vestibular course in April, I hadn't made it to one since last semester.  It was fun to hang out and catch up with people, and make a couple of new friends.

steffi, amara, lydi, lily, me, jonathan, then the whole group shot from first friday dinner

Saturday morning I got up early and headed out to Dunwoody to meet up with James and Jonathan for another hike.  We headed north to a piece of the Appalachian trail, hiking up Blood Mountain, the highest peak on the Georgia portion of the trail with an elevation of 4458 feet.  Following directions I found online, we made it a "lollipop loop" where only the beginning and end of the trail were the same.  It was nice, with the route we took up the mountain being longer, less steep, and much less traveled.  We saw only a couple of people before we rejoined the Appalachian trail but found a crowd of probably 30 people having lunch at the summit.  As promised in what I read online, there were sweeping views from the top and also on the way down.

james, me, and jonathan atop blood mountain

Sunday was my second-to-last time at Passion City Church, then in the afternoon I headed over to my classmate Dan's place.  He had a 5 month old baby boy I had yet to meet, and I hadn't seen his wife since before she gave birth.  I had a pleasant time hanging out with them before meeting up with Debbie and Laura from Veritas Church for dinner at La Parrilla.

Monday started off with Caleb from Graduate Christian Fellowship coming over to hang out at my place and sing songs together - we'd done it once before during Snowpocalypse round 1 and agreed we wanted to sing together again.  Then, I met Gina, my climbing wall co-worker, for a leisurely celebratory lunch after her last undergrad final followed by Frappuccinos at Starbucks since there was a half-off special for a few days.

A bonus I garnered from Saturday's hike is that both James and Jonathan are pilots, and they offered to take me up with them sometime in the coming week.  I managed to rearrange my schedule to meet James, who is also a flight instructor, at PDK (Peachtree-DeKalb Airport) on Monday afternoon.  I had the incredible experience of sitting in the pilot's seat of a single-prop Cessna and actually flying it for some of the time we were in the air.  We headed southwest over Passion City Church and near downtown, then headed east toward Stone Mountain, passing south of the Emory campus.  We looped around Stone Mountain and then I got to fly us north out past Lake Lanier.  James flew us lower down over the lake before having me take us back near the airport.

1980 cessna 172p, inside the cockpit, and a statue near the passenger terminal

view of cdc and emory from the air

Later that evening, I got together with Kelly, one of my good friends from Passion City Church, and walked a bit of the BeltLine that is near her place.  On Tuesday, I went around 10:30 am to get an oil change since my car was about to be driven across the country.  I had been assured on the phone that it would take 45 minutes, so I figured I could still meet Karen at Stone Summit to climb by noon.  Over 2 hours later, my car was finally done, and I still had to get back home.  We ended up meeting at Starbucks for half-off Frappuccinos instead.  My friend Brian from Intown Community Church came over for dinner - I hadn't seen him since fall since neither he nor I were attending Intown any more - I wanted to congratulate him on his engagement as well as catch up and then say goodbye.  I headed out again after dinner to hang out with another Passion City Church friend, Nick.  We were planning to take a walk, but I ended up bringing leftover dinner for him and we just sat and chatted while he ate.

hanging out with (clockwise from top left) karen, kelly, gina, and nick

Wednesday morning I did some more last-minute errand running before meeting up with Elizabeth from Graduate Christian Fellowship for lunch on campus.  Steffi also stopped by briefly to say hi, so we got a photo of the three of us:

elizabeth, steffi, and me

My parents arrived that afternoon, so I picked them up from the airport.  We went back to my place, then walked around campus before getting half-off Frappuccinos from Starbucks (yes, I was doing my best to make the most of the deal while it lasted!).  I took them to pick up their rental car, then we went to my father's grad school friend's (David and Lucy's) house where they would stay for a couple of nights.  We went out to dinner with David and Lucy at Downwind Restaurant, coincidentally at the Peachtree-DeKalb Airport.  The next day my parents and I had a lazy morning before heading up to Acworth to visit cousin Linda for a night.  I hadn't seen her for a year and a half, since Thanksgiving 2012.  My parents hadn't seen her since my cousin Annie's wedding in 2009.  Before she got off work, we had half-off Frappuccinos again, then met her for dinner at Chili's - my parents and I shared a full rack of ribs.

with my parents and cousin linda (and apollo)

The next morning I got up super early and drove to Woodstock to meet my clinical instructor from my short-term outpatient clinical in July 2012.  We had a good 45 minute chat before his first patient, then I headed back for breakfast with my family at Linda's house.  We got back into Atlanta in time for me to meet the professors and other preceptors from the General Medical Conditions course for a late lunch.  My parents met up with David and Lucy again, and had dinner with them at Saba, around the corner from my place.  I joined them briefly before going to pick up a couple of friends to climb at Wall Crawlers.

with david and lucy

last time climbing at wall crawlers:
marius, tiffany, david, me, katherine, and brent

Saturday morning was a "Legacy Breakfast" at Glenn Memorial Church.  Since my mother got her Master's degree at Emory, I am therefore a legacy.  After a continental breakfast, my mother placed a Legacy Medallion around my neck during a ceremony in the church building.  In the afternoon, we met up with Laura, a family friend from our days in Seaside, CA, her husband Ernesto and mother America for a late lunch at Atlanta Fish Market.  The food was delicious and company delightful.

legacy medallion

ernesto, laura, my mother, me, america, my father

Sunday my parents joined me for my last Sunday at Passion City Church, we had lunch at a Vietnamese/ Thai place, and then we just lounged around my house as I attempted to sell all my furniture on Craigslist.  My bed was the first to go on Saturday night, so I had to sleep on my air mattress for the next three nights.  Lounging around was not unwelcome, as my father had started feeling poorly on the day after my parents arrived - we put it down to allergies as he had bad hay fever with Atlanta pollen in the past.

Monday morning I got up super early and headed over to campus for the Emory Commencement ceremony.  It was scheduled to begin at 8, we were supposed to line up at 7, and I was trying to meet friends in other departments for photos by 6:50.  I only managed to meet Caleb for a photo because the others were late, but it was good to say goodbye before he heads off to do his PhD at Indiana University and I return to the west coast.

pre-commencement photos with friends

After the commencement ceremony in the quad, we proceeded to WHSCAB (Woodruff Health Sciences Center Administration Building) - the site of our interviews, orientation, many lectures, and now graduation ceremony.  Along with my parents, Anika, David, and Lucy attended graduation, and Marius showed up to say hi before we left.  We had lunch at Mary Mac's Tea Room, a historic Atlanta restaurant offering a Southern experience.  Anika joined us and my cousin Rachel met us there.  My father, Anika, and I shared a full rack of ribs with fried green tomatoes and collard greens as sides - DELICIOUS!

with my parents at graduation

my parents and me with rachel at mary mac's

My parents and I went back to my place where I started packing up my car and waiting for more Craigslist customers to buy furniture.  I ended up selling most of it and making a deal with the new tenant in my place for a bunch of the rest of it.  The next day was our scheduled departure date - beginning of Cross-Country Road Trip Version 2014!

easter to early may

My last post ended on Palm Sunday (April 13).  Although I was at the review course for the PT board exam, I was able to attend the 5 o'clock gathering at Passion City Church.  That week was another busy one - we had a huge group project due for our Health Promotion class, and my group was only about half done.  In addition, we had deadlines approaching for research, with our paper and poster due and oral exam coming up.  Friday, I took a carload (Anika, Ashley, Dan, and Kevin) to Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Alpharetta for Passion City Church's Good Friday Atlanta service.  It was great, despite the pouring rain.  We managed to be just barely under the covered seating, and only got a little bit sprinkled on when the wind changed a bit, but there were people out on the lawn sitting and standing under umbrellas and tarps.

kevin and dan, lauren, ashley, anika, and me at good friday service - it was COLD!

I spent most of Saturday reading and editing our Health Promotion group project, putting together my slides for the group's presentation of the project, and writing my portion of our research paper.  Sunday morning I got up before dawn and took a different carload (Anika, her friend Alvince, Marius, and Dan) to Stone Mountain for their annual Easter sunrise service.  I recruited another 4 people to join us up there as well.  None of us had ever heard of the service, so we were surprised to learn that this was the 70th year in a row it had happened.  The sunrise was beautiful, although we were very cold.

anika, alvince, marius, me, and dan waiting for sunrise

easter sunrise service

I got home and decided I really wanted to go to Passion City Church's Easter service - but it was out in Alpharetta at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater again and I really didn't want to drive.  At the last minute, I found a carpool with a spot for me.  I decided to bring my tarp with me just in case we ended up on the lawn.  Sure enough, we were too late for seats, but the tarp meant we could sit down and stay dry.  It was a great service, and I'm glad I made it out there and also glad I didn't have to drive.  It was amazing that it was free - there was an all-star lineup of well-known Christian worship leaders up on stage.

easter service at verizon wireless amphitheater.

I spent the rest of Sunday and most of Monday back on the huge paper - I finished it around 2 am Tuesday morning.  It was 43 pages of text plus references and appendices.  We also had a PowerPoint presentation to give as a group in class that day.  Somehow we survived, and "all" I had left was research.  That meant finishing our poster Thursday, finishing our final paper Friday,  preparing for our oral examination the following Wednesday morning, and presenting our poster the following Thursday.  I definitely kept focused on that Thursday, May 1, as it marked the day I would be FINISHED with school.

We managed to pull our poster together and submit it, did our final paper edits from our (at least) 12th draft, and then had a gathering at Dr. Greenfield's, our primary research advisor.  It was nice to relax a bit and just hang out with the group - all five student researchers and three advisors attended, as well as two spouses and Dr. Greenfield's oldest daughter.

Saturday I took off from schoolwork and went for a hike.  I did my usual number and gathered a pretty random group of friends to hike - Anika and Marius from the Emory climbing wall, Katherine from Graduate Christian Fellowship, and James and Jonathan from Passion City Church.  We went out to Tallulah Gorge expecting to hike into the gorge and swim in the swimming hole at the far end - but as we drove in, the woman collecting the parking fee asked if we were planning to go the the gorge floor, because it wasn't open due to aesthetic water releases through the month of April and May.  We hiked around the top of the gorge and down near the bottom for a total of over 550 stairs down and back up.  Then we headed across the road to go swim in Tallulah Falls lake, and found out it was ALSO closed for swimming.  Sigh.  We ate lunch by the lake before heading back to Atlanta.

falls in the bottom of the gorge

katherine, anika, jonathan, james, marius, and i were so surprised that this overlook
gave us a view of MORE WATERFALLS!

The next morning I got up super early again and went with Gina, my climbing wall co-worker, to Stone Mountain for sunrise - she wanted to go to the Easter service but set her alarm an hour too late!  The sunrise was even more beautiful than the previous week, and we were able to sit wherever we wanted for the best view.

sunrise over stone mountain lake

gina and me at the top

After church, I got together with my research group to brainstorm on possible questions for our oral exam, then went home and started delving more deeply into the information to prepare.  The next morning, I was planning to get up and spend six hours with the first year class, helping out in open lab for the General Medical Conditions class and for their mock practicals all afternoon.  Instead, I woke up at 4:30 am with horrible stomach pain.  I missed all day as a preceptor, but felt better in the evening so I went to the Grove at Passion City Church.  Stomach pain hit me again during the last song, so I dropped off my passengers and hurried home to go to bed.

music, lauren doing watercolor, winsome wall, group shot of me, lydi, natalie, and laura

I woke up the next morning feeling pretty useless again and had to miss class that afternoon.  While staying home feeling poorly, I still managed to do some studying for my oral exam.  I emailed my professors Tuesday night asking what to do if I couldn't get out of bed Wednesday morning either, but ended up dragging myself in for my exam.  Fortunately, it went well.  I was excused from helping out with the first year practical exams as there were enough other preceptors available to cover.  I joined the rest of my research group briefly to discuss how we planned to present our poster the next afternoon before heading home before my stomach pain got too miserable.

Thursday, May 1, finally came.  My group had to spend the first two hours listening to other groups present their posters, but our turn finally came.  I got to go first, so by 4:15 pm, I was DONE with school.  It felt so good to be finished!  After the poster presentations, there was an awards ceremony.  I came away completely surprised to have won three awards!

lindsay, elizabeth, travis, me, and alycia - research dream team

awards

That evening, the class gathered at Ormsby's for a celebration.  I went for a little while and then headed home to bed.  Although I gradually felt better, I ended up not getting completely well until May 7 - a week and a half later!

march and early april

I got back from the Dominican Republic on Saturday, and Monday started my extended job duties filling in for Monica, my supervisor, while she was out of the country.  I answered emails a couple of times while in the Dominican Republic, but the responsibilities were now greatly increased.  In addition to answering email questions, I was responsible for receiving tuition deposit checks, recording them three different ways, updating incoming student profiles, scheduling visits for prospective students, depositing the checks with the Bursar's office, sending out reminders, and updating lists and counts for the incoming class.

Of course, I still managed to find time to have fun.  The first year class had spring break and the one regular class I had wasn't meeting that week, so I essentially had spring break as well.  Tuesday I spent 6 hours at Stone Summit, one of the nation's largest climbing gyms.  I carpooled over with Jeff and we met Anika there.  It was really great - the other times I've been there it has been very crowded, where you have to wait for the rope to become available to get on whichever route you want to climb next.  On a weekday in the middle of the day, the huge place was practically empty.  We were able to climb whatever we wanted whenever we wanted, taking breaks and not worrying about missing a chance to be where we wanted.

jeff, anika, and me climbing at stone summit

That evening was community group for Passion City Church.  The last one got cancelled due to the snow days in early February, and I was very happy this one wasn't cancelled.  That week I volunteered with the kids and horses at Stride Ahead, gathered my usual group of friends to climb at Wall Crawlers, and had dinner with Stephanie, a friend of my cousin Queenie in LA from school at UCLA.  It was fun meeting her and hanging out - too bad I was in the last couple months of my last semester when I met her!  The next week started with getting together with Mina, a friend from Veritas Church, which I attended my first year at Emory.  She's now in med school in her home state of Oklahoma.  Then I collected friends together at the Grove women's ministry at Passion City Church - a group of six of us sat in the third row.  I love sitting up front, the room is so big that it makes a big difference.

mina and me after froyo

the grove with anika, natalie, and jessica

I went to Wall Crawlers again Friday, then the weekend included "puppy-sitting" (really just joining others taking her for walks) and volunteering with fellow Emory PT students and faculty to run a water station for the Publix Atlanta Marathon.  We were also able to cheer on a first year and one of my third year classmates as they passed us.

puppy-sitting aspen with caleb and katherine

emory dpt water station volunteers (photo courtesy of dr. rossi)

The next week was crazy-hectic with the General Medical preceptorship - I spent about 13 hours in labs or meetings, in addition to my weekly research meeting and one class.  The next week, starting on Monday, March 31, was vestibular week.  One of my three electives this semester was the preceptorship, the second was "Service Learning" - my trip to the Dominican Republic, and the third was Vestibular Rehabilitation (inner ear disorders - balance and dizziness).  This is an annual course designed for practicing Physical Therapists.  Since it was created by an Emory professor and is still hosted by Emory, twelve Emory students are permitted to take the course each year.  Competition is stiff - not all those who put the Vestibular Course as their top choice elective were able to take it.  It is very intensive.  We had over 60 hours in class Monday through Friday plus half of Saturday - mostly in lecture, but some in lab settings where we were able to practice techniques and then get tested on them.  Saturday we had two written exams, one based on videos of eye movements we were required to analyze and identify, and one purely written.  I managed to make it to my community group at Passion City Church on Wednesday, but I was exhausted!  A couple weeks after the course, we students received a congratulatory email.  One student asked for clarification, and we discovered that we had all passed the exams and had received highly respected vestibular certification.  We are all looking forward to applying these skills in our future practices.

enormous binder for vestibular course

"winsome wall" at passion city church - rare to see it lit up without tons of people

The following week I was a patient for multiple first year students who had to remediate their midterm practicals.  I visited Woodruff Library, the undergraduate library, purely to go up to the 10th floor balcony and check out the great view of the city skyline from there.  Thursday Anika and I went to the High Museum of Art - she had a couple of assignments from art classes to complete, and I went along just to visit the museum.  I also made it to the 8th floor balcony of the Grace Crum Rollins building for sunset.  It is one of the public health buildings near the highest point on campus, meaning the view was better than the 10th floor library balcony.

view from woodruff library balcony

cool sound and light reflector at high museum

sunset from grace crum rollins balcony

That weekend our class had a review course for the PT board exams, which are coming up in July for most of us.  It was much better than I had expected, so I'm really glad I took it, though it was really hard to sit inside all day Saturday and most of Sunday with the best weather we'd had in a while.

dominican republic!

I'm DONE!  More on that later, but that's why I've finally got a blog post up for the first time in nearly two months.

On March 2, I woke up at some ungodly hour in order to be at Lindsay's by 4:15.  Holly and Meg showed up and we piled all our stuff into my car - it was very full with four people, two boxes of crutches, four walkers, one bag of medical supplies, and THEN our individual luggage.  We got to our prepaid parking, dropped off my car, and took the shuttle to the airport.  We waited around for at least one more classmate to show up - we had four people and nine bags.  One bag per person was included in the ticket, a second bag was $40, a third bag was $150.  As soon as Michael showed up, we checked in for our flight, Caroline showing up before we had even all gotten in line.

We flew off to Miami where we met up with Lilly, then continued on to Santo Domingo.  As we got in the line to pay our entrance fee to the country, I found out my wallet was missing.  The last I'd used it was to pay for the bag of medical supplies back in Atlanta.  Hypotheses include leaving it on the counter in Atlanta, dropping it somewhere, or possibly having it stolen in Miami since my backpack was found open at one point while still on my back.  Thankfully I do my best to minimize my losses before I start - I only lost one credit card, my driver's license, and some cash (all my cash for the trip).  Thanks to Lindsay, I was able to keep my small expenses covered while I was there and just pay her back when we returned.

on the flight and in the santo domingo airport.
bottom right photo (l-r) lilly, caroline, holly, lindsay, meg, michael

Once we got through customs and immigration, we headed to the arrivals area and waited for the direct Delta flight to arrive, carrying Dr. Pullen - our professor, Lucia - the other licensed PT, and Angela - our remaining classmate from our team of eight.  We piled into a minibus with all our luggage - the back row of seats was completely full to the roof, plus the space behind the seat and a lot of the floor space.  It was about two hours - most of us slept for at least part of the drive since we were so tired from getting up early.  We made a stop in the middle where snacks could be purchased - those plantain chips are amazing!  We arrived at our destination, San Francisco de Macoris, and moved into Rosa Burgos' house for the week.  The seven female students shared three bedrooms upstairs, while Michael, Lucia, and Dr. Pullen all had bedrooms downstairs.  We enjoyed a delicious dinner before collapsing into our beds for the night.

The next morning we went right to work, heading out to a clinic for the morning.  Shortly after we got there, Dr. Pullen was summoned to go visit a family in the area.  She took Lilly with her since it was related to public health and Lilly is getting the dual DPT/MPH degree.  We watched them head out, then through the window, we suddenly realized they were getting into a car!  They looked a little unsure before they got in as well - clearly they were not expecting a car ride.  We realized then that it might be seven students and just one PT for the rest of the morning.  We were given two spaces in which to work, so Lucia took four people upstairs with her while three of us muddled along as a team downstairs.  Michael, Lindsay, and I together managed to evaluate seven patients that morning, as best I can tell from the notes I have.  One patient was referred to see a doctor, while we sent the others home with exercise programs.  Their complaints ranged from wrist, shoulder, knee, and ankle pain to neck problems and hand tremors.  Dominican Spanish is very hard to understand - they drop a lot of consonants, slur a bit, and speak VERY fast, so the three of us pooled our bits of understanding to piece together each patient's story.

clockwise from top: street view from the clinic; babies are common motorcycle passengers;
when school let out, the street was no longer for cars; the sign on the clinic

We returned to Rosa's for lunch, then went to the hospital for a tour in the afternoon.  We were introduced to a few important-looking people and shown all the different wards in the hospital.  Unfortunately, I understood a lot more from the signs on the doors than I did from the spoken descriptions!  That evening we took a trip to La Sirena.  It's a huge department store, sort of a Dominican version of Super Target with a greater emphasis on groceries.

clockwise from top: sunset from rosa's roof; hospital main entrance;
walking through la sirena; lilly with the public health vehicle - an ambulance

The next morning we went to a different clinic.  This time we split into two groups of four students - one group went out in the community with Dr. Pullen while the rest of us stayed in the clinic with Lucia to treat patients.  We saw a total of 9 patients that morning, treating seven of them for various conditions including leg pain, old fractures, and  chronic stroke.  After lunch back at Rosa's we went out into the community again where we delivered a few of the donated canes we brought with us to patients we had seen in the morning.  After those deliveries were done, we had a tour of the facility next to the hospital, a private clinic with an extensive therapy setup including pediatrics, occupational therapy, and speech therapy as well as a huge selection of modalities including electrical stimulation, ultrasound, and whirlpool treatments.

tuesday morning's clinic including lindsay and meg working with a patient,
a random photo of lilly, and the middle picture is rosa's house with the minibus

tuesday afternoon - delivering canes in the community
and another young motorcycle passenger

Wednesday saw us off to another clinic.  We split into the same two groups and the four of us who worked in the clinic Tuesday went out into the community.  We were able to visit four homes, walking up and down steep rocky dirt roads to get there - highlighting the helplessness of these patients who were almost completely homebound due to their location.  Conditions we saw included severe birth defects, old motorcycle injuries, a stroke, and the results of a head injury at 6 months.

visiting the community of las hermanas mirabal (formerly alto manhattan)

In the afternoon, we had been asked to perform screenings at the private clinic we had visited the day before for children to determine whether they needed physical, occupational, or speech therapy.  Since the screening day had been planned before they ever knew we would be there, and we as students would be able to do nothing but watch, our professor vetoed that idea and instead directed us to el Museo de las Hermanas Mirabal.  I'm not going to go into the history, but here is a link to the Wikipedia page on the Mirabal sisters.  Suffice to say it was very interesting, and inspired to me to buy and read the book In the Time of the Butterflies as soon as I got home.  We also visited the "Peace Park" near the museum.  It was filled with lots of signs with messages and artwork promoting peace.

wednesday afternoon.  group shot - front row: rosana, angela, lucia, me
back: lilly, lindsay, caroline, michael, holly, meg, our guide, carmen, dr. pullen, rosa

Thursday morning we were expecting to go to the hospital to watch Dr. Pullen give a lecture to nursing students.  We were confused because we were leaving at 8 and the lecture wasn't till 11.  When we were dropped off at the hospital's outpatient clinic, we learned we were treating a bunch of patients first!  Had we known that, we would have brought along our supplies.  As it was, we made do with what we had and saw 20 patients between us, and made it to the lecture late.

caroline, lindsay, and i tend to get carsick - we took the front row seat daily in the minibus
rosa's parrot lulu made funny noises sometimes, and could get out of her cage! 

That afternoon we had some downtime so there were some workouts including yoga and Pilates.  Rosa's granddaughter Keylin was adorable as she joined it, mimicking as best she could.  That night, Manuel, one of our bus drivers, took most of the crew (everyone under 30 chose to go) out dancing.  I heard it was a lot of fun, but painfully loud so I'm glad I chose not to go.

keylin doing pilates with lilly; meg and michael yoga posing; and girls ready to dance

Friday we were taken to Playa Grande, an incredibly beautiful beach on the northern coast of the island.  We spent a wonderfully relaxing day lying in the sun, playing in the water, and eating delicious food.

there was a rare halo around the sun that day

Saturday morning we headed back to Santo Domingo for our flights home.  We had a fulfilling four days serving needy people in San Francisco de Macoris, followed by a day to recover on the beach.  I think it's fair to say most of us were still processing the experience for weeks afterward.

this was crazy - we were stuck in traffic and there were vendors between lanes,
they just sort of leaned sideways to allow motorcycles to pass them