Dominicanizando

Things never seem to slow down here.

A package arrived at the beginning of the week from home with a book, Creole Made Easy. There were a couple of bateys that Dr. Garcia and I went to this week with Haitians, and many Haitians come on Tuesdays to our clinic at our office in Jaramillo, right in the middle of a large cluster of banana plantations, so I had some opportunities to practice my Creole. I have been slowly picking up words here and there over the summer (Ou fe mal tet? Do you have a headache? etc.), but before this week my grasp of Haitian grammar was non-existent. The book tersely touches on the finer points of the language's grammar, which is remarkably simple. Verbs are not inflected for person or tense, and there is no gender for nouns. The structure of sentences follows the same SVO pattern as in English. The written language is completely phonetic as well, so it has been less difficult for me to learn to say the words than it has been with French. I brought the book to the clinic on Tuesday, and spoke with the Haitians in the waiting room as I took their blood pressures. I scrambled through the book's dictionary and tried unsuccessfully to carry on a conversation with them. It was mostly my asking simple questions and getting laughter as a first response, then a rapid fire reply that was completely lost on me.

Besides my renewed interest in learning Creole, it was an uneventful first half of the week, until Thursday afternoon. We did not have enough volunteers to host a camp this week, so instead the volunteers organized activities in the mornings and afternoons for the children at the orphanage. Monday through Wednesday the volunteers taught math and English and had reading periods with the kids. But on Thursday, in honor of the Olympics ending this weekend, the volunteers decided to have a mini-Olympics for the kids. I had some good ideas for events for the kids because we hosted an Olympics camp at the English Institute earlier in the summer, and I had the afternoon off from work in the bateys because Dr. Garcia was in Santo Domingo, so I volunteered to lead the mini-Olympics. We split the kids up into four regions: the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. At the Olympics camp earlier in the summer it was easier to manage the activities because the children were all in a certain age range, but the 35 children at the orphanage are everywhere from 1 to 19 years olds. This posed a problem for team events. I'm pretty sure that 17-year-old, 6'1'' Leonel would crush the 40 pounds of 4-year-old Lisy in any event imaginable.

Lisy and Leonel

We decided to have one running event for the group of 10 girls under the age of 8, and then 2 regular events for the older kids. I had the little girls stand in front of me on one side of the field in the orphanage as Cici, a 2-week volunteer, took a bucket of balls over to the other side about 50 yards way. "OK girls!" I said in Spanish, "for this event you have to run to the other side of the field, pick up a ball and bring it back to me." Once I said the word "run", 3 of the girls sprinted past me, unfamiliar with the formality of "1,2,3, Go!" We tried to wrangle them back to my side, but they wouldn't stop until they had a ball in their hand. It was hilarious and adorable. The mini-Olympics were largely a success, except for the America's last place finish and Asia's ironic sweep of the competition. By the end of the afternoon my voice was shot. Keeping a group of 35 kids interested in a group activity will do a number on your vocal chords.

I stole these pictures from Madison. Thanks Madison! Here I'm trying to organize the relay race of the older kids while holding up a globe.

Little girls getting ready to run

False start!

Little girls really ready this time.

Friday morning the short term volunteers left for a flight out of Puerta Plata, and the remaining long term volunteers (LTVs), meaning Jeff and I, took a trip to Santiago for the night. Lisy, the twin sister of Liry, the physical therapist I worked with this summer, was starring in a 2 person play, Cazadoras de Arca Perdida, a Dominican play with no perceivable relation to Raiders of the Lost Arc. We took a bus packed full of 20 of the older kids to see the play. Needless to say it was not a relaxing bus ride. Halfway to Santiago a tire on the bus exploded, and it took us about 20 minutes to put on the spare. An hour later we were in Santiago, where Peguero, the bus driver/handy man at the orphanage, skillfully (read: aggressively) navegated the bus through metro traffic.

Pit Stop

Before the play we took a tour of Liry's university, which has a beautiful campus. On the walk we ran into a group of American exchange students, presumably preparing for the beginning of their semester abroad. It has become bizarre for me to see Americans not wearing Orphanage Outreach t-shirts, and for a moment I eyed them suspiciously, wondering what they were doing in the country. I was walking around with a large group of Dominican teenagers. Surely they were wondering the same thing about me.

We piled into the bus and headed back into the nightmarish traffic of 6 p.m. Santiago to find a place to eat. We decided to explore some of the local Santiago cuisine at a restaurant called "Kentucky Fried Chicken", enticed by the window ads of KFC Famous Bowls that are "Finger Lickin' Good" (To quote comedian Patton Oswalt: "I want a failure pile in a sadness bowl!"). I entered the building and was welcomed by a tall, attractive Dominican girl wearing a miniskirt and high heels. She distracted me from the utter shame I was feeling visiting a KFC in the DR (or anywhere, for that matter). I was later told that American fast food chains here are considered upper class, and they often have good looking 'welcomers' at the door to make you feel right at home before you shovel food into your mouth from the cholesterol juggernaut of a menu. Yuck.

A sad sight

We finished up at KFC and headed over to the theatre to see Lisy's play. When we got out of the bus in front of the theatre, we were met by a swarm of Dominican 20-somethings who used to live in the orphanage in Montecristi, and were now studying and/or working in Santiago. We watched the play, which was very good despite a few production problems, and then we loaded up on the bus to head back to Montecristi, with one small difference from the ride there: we were bringing all of the people living in Santiago back to Montecristi for the weekend. I had not been told this before, but there was a wedding scheduled for the following day in Montecristi between one of the guys who used to live at the orphanage and his Canadian fiance, and all of the people living in Santiago were to witness the nuptials. The bus went from a mildly uncomfortable 30 people to a veritable can of sardines. Tom and Jeff decided we needed to get a taxi because there were still people leftover that couldn't be packed into the bus if you tried- and I wouldn't want to try, as the congealing load of KFC in our bellies was not conducive to an uber-cramped 2 hour bus ride. They took the taxi, and I stayed by my lonely gringo self on a bus full of 40 chattery Dominicans. Certainly an interesting experience.

The next day the orphanage was bustling with activity in preparation for the ceremony. It was definitely a change of pace from a few days before, when there were about 10 American/Canadian volunteers. I walked over to the dining room for breakfast and sat down at a table full of Dominican women relating stories about life in Santiago, and commenting on how different everything looks at the orphanage now, especially the new comedor that we were inhabiting for the meal. It was really fascinating to see how these 20-somethings were interacting with each other, and it was obvious that they considered each other family. When I watch the younger girls at the orphanage play together, I now wonder what those girls will be like when they grow up, and I also try to imagine the dynamics of the orphanage 10 years ago when all these older people ran the show. It has enhanced my understanding of just how close these children are to each other, and how, despite being a somewhat dysfunctional family, they will leave here carrying friendships that will last a lifetime.

At 5:00 p.m. we arrived at the pier, where the event was to be held, and began setting up the simple decorations for the ceremony- 2 50 foot carpets leading out to the cabana at the end of the pier, a few lights here and there, some balloons, and, most Dominicanly, a pickup truck with big, loud speakers to play the wedding music as the newlyweds marched. I had a short conversation with the Dominican security guard 'supervising' the event. I told him that the event was scheduled for 5 p.m. and it looks like where we were going to be a little late. He quipped, "If a wedding is scheduled for 5 here, you can expect people to start showing up at 7." Indeed, we weren't ready to go until 7:30, when the judge leading the ceremony finally arrived. Someone had gone to his house to look for him, and he was apparently sitting in his living room watching television. The rascal.

The boys at the wedding.

The wedding was going smoothly, with Jeff standing at the side of the bride and groom translating into English for the bride's family and everyone in the wedding party all smiles. But then in the moment preceding the all-important ring exchange, one of the bride's maids noticed the strange absence of the ring from the pillow of the ringbearer. Looked like this was going to be a ringless wedding. I watched the horrified expression on the groom's face, and I really felt for him. The ringbearer was too young to know what she had done. The bride's maids frenetically searched for the ring on the planks of the pier, but it seemed that the ring had slipped through one of the cracks and dropped into the water. 3 months pay now swimming in the Carribean! But alas, the show must go on.

Pretty much impossible to be angry at this little bundle of joy for dropping the ring into the water.

The wedding finished, and everyone headed over to Hostal San Fernando, the nice local hotel, for the reception. We signed the guest book and took our seats. The menu for the dinner included fried rice, chicken, beef, and goat. Goat is quite common in Montecristi. One walk through town will make you realize that. They run freely through the city, munching on grass in parks, defecating where they please, and just generally being a nuisance. Somehow their owners keep track of them. The way goat is prepared here in the Dominican Republic leaves many small, elusive bones in the meat, and it can be irritating trying to pick your way through them. If you aren't vigilant, it turns out it can also be quite dangerous.

About 10 minutes into the dinner, right after our table had gone to fill up at the buffet, and I was negotiating my first piece of goat meat, I heard a scream from behind me around the pool area. I turned around to see several bride's maids surrounding one of their sisters coughing violently. She was stumbling around the pool area, avoiding the assistance of the bride's maids, whose shrieks of terror could not be ignored by anyone at the reception. It took me a few moments to realize what was happening, and then one of her sisters confirmed what I was thinking. "She's choking on a goat bone!" she cried. People from the reception hurried over to the pool to see what was happening. After 30 seconds of her coughing without success, one of guys in the reception began giving blows to her upper back. 30 seconds more of this, and no change in status. It was difficult to assess how serious the situation was. She was breathing, although with difficulty, and she even took the lead in stopping the banging on her back. "Eso no sirve!" (that's not working) she feebly informed us. "IS ANYONE A DOCTOR HERE?" Pastor Ramon asked in Spanish. A large knot developed in my stomach. My quick inner monologue went something like this: "No, of course there are no doctors here at the reception. Tom would have introduced me to them already. So the closest thing we have is me, a pre-med student who seems to be constantly mistaken for an MD. What did we learn in first aid freshman year about the Heimlich maneuver? Thrusts to the lower diaphragm. Isn't that a last resort? Are we are at last resort? How many do I do? These people are expecting me to do something, and I should be doing something." Indeed, people were eyeing me, and I heard someone mumble, "Isn't he the doctor?"

I shuddered. It certainly makes me feel good that people think I'm a doctor, until a situation arises when an actual doctor is needed. I have not gone to medical school yet, but I know what "First do no harm" means. No medical training + "First do no harm" = Scott should not be giving medical advice or treating patients.

Then Liry, the physical therapist, says, "She could asphyxiate if we don't do something." She did look like she was getting worse, whether it was because she was out of energy from coughing so much, or she was in need of air. I decided to do the Heimlich maneuver, and I motioned the maneuver to the Pastor, and everyone nodded in approval. "Si, él es muy fuerte! Debe hacerlo!" (He's very strong, he should do it!) someone said. I was much more comfortable with that justification than with the "Isn't he the doctor?" one. I did four or five thrusts, and each time she let out a miserable heave. "Is this working?" I worried. In first aid we never learned what to do when the Heimlich does not work. Such is your typical first aid class. Basic interventions and nothing about what happens when those don't help the situation. There was no A Ha! moment where the bone flies out of the subject's mouth and everything is hunky dory, like in a children's cartoon. After several thrusts she tells me to wait a second. "I think it worked!" someone shouted prematurely. No, it did not work. At least not completely. She was still coughing on the bone, although she said she was "un poco mejor". Meanwhile her sisters were standing around her crying hysterically, never having seen their sister in such a fragile condition. "Take them away, let them sit down somewhere, she's fine!" I shouted, perhaps with less tact than I should have had considering they are her family. But I didn't want screaming family members to disorient her more than she already was. Someone ushered them away. I think that the Heimlich did move the bone to a new place in her throat, because she was breathing better. But after a few more thrusts, she was still coughing a lot, and was now softly crying from the pain. The Pastor said we should take her to the hospital now, and we all agreed. There was not much more that we could do for her. I climbed into the backseat of the car, with Giselle, the girl choking on the bone, sitting next to me, and two other family members sitting on either side of us. We raced off to the hospital. The car ride was mostly silent, besides the coughing of the victim, the sporadic crying of the various passengers, and my feeble advice. "Try to control your breathing if you can," I told her. I didn't know much else to say. She looked absolutely miserable, but she certainly wasn't in danger of asphyxiating.

We arrived at the hospital, but unfortunately it was 10:30 p.m. on a Saturday night, and the one doctor working there was busy with a trauma victim. We had brought a water bottle for Giselle, and when I got out of the car, I put it on the roof before I carried her into the hospital, and Victor, the Pastor's son, drove the car away to park it, and there went the waterbottle. It was a boneheaded move on my part, especially because there was no water in the emergency area of the hospital. There was only saline solution, which the nurse tried to pour into her mouth, but Giselle spit it right out. We sat for 10 minutes in a room with a nurse who didn't know what else they could do for us. She told us to go to the private clinic, maybe there was a doctor there. We rushed back out to the car, and headed over. "Pastor, I can't pay for the private clinic!" Giselle said in tears. It was a moment you could see some politician exploiting for their health care proposal. He told her not to worry about it.

Much to our dismay there was also no available doctor in the private clinic, but the nurse on duty did seem to know a thing or two about airway obstructions. She inspected her throat with a tongue depressor and asked her a few questions about her condition. The treatment that followed was a marvelous display of modern medicine. "Do any of you have 5 pesos? Go to the hot dog stand outside the clinic and buy a hot dog bun" she said (in retrospect, I wondered why I did not think of having her eat something solid earlier. Duh! Lesson learned.). 5 minutes later, Victor returned with a bun and a (new) bottle of water. Giselle took a big chunk of bread and began chewing on it with intense displeasure. She washed down the bread with the water, and then looked up at us for a second, and her face changed from a dismal expression to a faint smile. And then that all important moment arrived: she began to laugh. And we all followed suit, finally knowing that everything was going to be OK. The bone had passed to her stomach, and she quickly returned to her cheerful demeanor that I had remembered from when I first met her. The nurse suggested a radiography for the following morning, and we headed back to the reception, a full hour after the initial bone swallowing attempt.

We were met by riotous applause upon returning to the reception, and it was clear that everyone had been waiting nervously for the last hour to see that Giselle was OK (Pastor Ramon had been on the phone continuously with Tom throughout the extravaganza). They let out a communal sigh of relief upon seeing a laughing Giselle walking up to them. But it was not the last sigh of relief that would be had that night. Apparently during the fiasco, another OO volunteer had gone to the pier with a flashlight and a mask to hunt for the ring, and in a stroke of extraordinary luck that you would only find on a day like the one we were having, the volunteer saw a flash in the water (only 3 or 4 feet deep at the end of the pier), and jumped in to grab the ring. Five minutes after we had returned to the wedding reception, this second party returned, and one of the Dominican teenagers ran into the room with the ring raised in the air. Another thunderous round of applause ensued.

So in the end the wedding was an enormous success, despite some less than optimal circumstances, and with my medical escapades I gained the respect of the new people that I had met. The groom walked up to me and shook my hand, saying "Hey so you're a doctor right?" I laughed and tried to explain to him my pre-med year off situation, but stopped and just said it was a team effort that night. Giselle gave me a hug and said in a thick Dominican accent "Thank you very much." And then a group of Dominican guys came up and harassed me, chanting "Ecoy" (the final evolution of my name here. Scott, Escott, Esco, Eco, Ecoy!), shaking my hand, patting me on the back, and laughing at the night's insanity. The gringo moments seem to come at regular intervals here, and after a few weeks without too many embarassments, I managed to hit one out of the park that night, as a wedding party of 50 Dominicans witnessed me embrace a bride's maid and induce horrendous artificial coughing. It was a moment you could find in a Chevy Chase National Lampoon's Vacation movie. I've been slowly integrating into the Montecristi community, but it took an over-the-top Dominican wedding for me to truly feel at home here. I'll never forget that night.