Most of the Iowa students started their adventure at midnight on Thursday the 8th of August. We traveled to Davenport where we collected the last member of our crew, Theresa. We arrived at Midway airport at 5:30am and boarded our flight at 8:30. Finally at 10pm on Friday the 9th, after a detour through Orlando the Iowa crew met up with everyone else in San Juan. We had a grand reception from our taxi driver which included snacks of all types and a video a video of Puerto Rico...for our total of a 5 minute taxi ride. The next day we finally met everyone in person and headed off for our flight to Dominica!! Flying into the island was beautiful. I had definitely never seen anywhere so lush and green. We landed and were greeted by the crew from Jungle Bay who drove us 90 minutes to our final destination. While Dominica is a small island it takes very long to reach everywhere because you have to maneuver large hills. The island has about 91 miles of coastline and almost 5000 feet of elevation. Once at Jungle Bay we were each assigned our cabins. My roommate, Michaela, and I have 157 stairs just to reach it!!! And that is after a sharp incline we climb. We will definitely be in shape at the end of the journey! The view from my cabin is of the Atlantic ocean-It's okay to be jealous. I was really surprised to experience how early the sunsets here. Then at Jungle Bay we were allowed to relax and recuperate from our travels with a delicious meal.
The next day, Sunday, much of the island was closed so we were allowed to participate in travel activities. The day started with a surprise awakening at 5am with the sun in my eyes. Glenda teaches a beginners yoga class every morning at 7am of which we all participated. We decided it was a real treat because she sings at the end of class everyday. We then headed to Mero Beach which is a black sand beach. You read that correct, the sand is actually black. Apparently it is because the island is made of volcanic rock. We swam in the Caribbean Sea and play sand volleyball--ish; we are not very good. It was a great day, and I got to cross something off my bucket list that I did not know was there!
Monday we hiked to Pomme's Paradise. Pomme is a farmer. He was born on the island, moved to another island, and finally landed back to his homeland. The law in Dominica is that if you live on the land for 12 years you own it. Pomme said he has lived there 30 some years. He has a very large farm with a very large variety of plants, much larger than we would ever see in the states. He can tell you what they all are and where of them have originated from as lots where imported to try and develop them as a cash crop of Dominica. There are several reasons why this has never been successful which I will not go into here. Not only does Pomme have lots of fruits and vegetables, he also has a plethora of herbs which he can a medical use for each. While to most of us westerners this seems like useless information, however, it is good to know that last year the oldest lady in Dominica died at 127 years old!! She never used western medicine. Now you are probably thinking that this is good genes, or good luck. You may want to think again there are a lot of islanders who live to be very old and look very young for their age. Pomme has not been sick for years, but if he is he just has to walk to his garden to find his medicine. (Pomme also provides much of the produce for Jungle Bay which is a eco-lodge. Simply said that means that they support the community and protect the environment.)
Pomme had very interesting ideas on health, as you can see from above. He also has interesting ideas on life that we could all use more of. He does not claim a religion but is a God-fearing man. He lives almost a 5 mile hike (up a mountain) from any road. He strongly believes we do not have enough face-on-face contact in the world anymore and has choose to not have any internet of phone services of any kind even though he does have cellular service where he resides. He loves to have people come and visit him so he can sit and talk with them, I even got him to sing a song for us! His ideas on life I most easily related to the Dahli Lamas in that we are all humans and we need to have compassion and love for all humans. We need to take care of one another because we are all we have. It was very refreshing to discuss this with him because I think we all too often forget how important and wonderful a life is.
Monday night we heard Sam Raphael, the owner and creator of Jungle Bay, told us his story about how the Eco-resort was developed. Dani will be posting a summary of his story later. I highly recommend reading it. Sam is an entrepreneur by trade and has a lot to share.
Today, Tuesday the 13th, the students were split into two groups. One group headed to a main governmental health clinic in the LaPlaine district (Dominica is split into 10 districts). The group I was part of headed to a smaller clinic in Petite Savanne which is only about a 15 minute drive up the road. Once we arrived at the Medical Clinic we were lucky to witness the community helping each other out. There is a church in Petite Savanne which the medical clinic works hand-in-hand which. The church wanted to give back to the clinic and donated a water purifying system and some other equipment for use. After the ceremony we were introduced and gave our donations of medical supplies as well. Dominica is a developing country and there is a lot still lacking in there health care. (Of specific note they are always in need of more diabetic supplies. If you would like to help out you can go to https://www.choosefreestyle.com/select-your-meter.html and select the Precision Xtra Blood Glucose and Ketones monitoring system and they will send you one for free which we can then forward to our patients in Dominica.) I had the opportunity to interview several patients and assist them in their health care; they are very open to talk to everyone and really want to get to know you. Patients in Dominica carry their health record with them in a note book. This note book is where all important information is kept. It is also were most of their prescriptions are written, they then present this book to the pharmacist who will fill their prescription with medications provided by the government if they have them. What I mean when I say 'if they have them' is that being a poor country the government has to spread the medications they do receive, which is very small, between the 10 districts. If the pharmacist, who has to travel between clinics with all the medications, does not have a medication the patient can purchase it from a private pharmacy.
Talking with the pharmacist was saddening. Besides having to carry their small inventory with them the pharmacist does not have a computer system to keep track of their inventory. They take a large book with them and keep track of how much medication they give to each individual patient. Needless to say I think that sounds like a lot of work, and hopefully you never need to go back and find information because you will be staring at that book for a long time.
After interacting with the pharmacist I assisted Nurse Moyes. I took blood pressures, pulses, and respiration, I even had the opportunity to give a hepatitis B shot!
It was truly amazing to see how grateful the people where that we were there to help them and that we brought donations. I talked to a beautiful women in her 80s who was almost blind and deaf and she just kept telling me she praises God everyday for what she has. It was really surprising to me to see how much the people depended on their religion for their health, another aspect we have grown to neglect in western cultures.
Tonight a group of us hiked up a mountain which in English is "close your mouth", there is a Creole name for it but I will not try to spell it here. This hike was 1300 feet up a very steep hill, I'd estimate a good portion of it at a 60% incline, and we reached the top in 35 minutes!! We didn't stop there though, once we arrived back at Jungle Bay we headed out on a trail called Zom Zom which was the original name of this land when Sam bought it. We did not complete the whole trail however because we were already hiking back in the jungle in the dark.
This is just a short synapses of what I have experienced so far. There will be more to come. --Katie Hassebroek
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