Dominican Republic Day 7-Wednesday

It was hard to believe that we had been in Dominican Republic soaking up the sun or rather sweating in the warmth for a whole week. (It was often in the 90's--pretty warm for us in November!) Our time in country was really on the downhill side now.

On Wednesday morning we headed out to the village of Monte Cristi. It was closer to town then the other villages that we had visited. On this day, I chose to help with the small animals (dogs and cats) and I did mostly surgeries, spays and neuters.

First a little about the community. We set up at a church again and this time it had an old folks' home attached. Many of them had worked in sugar cane fields all of their lives. Pastor Geraldo was taking care of them at the church when SCORE discovered him years previously. We heard that at the time, the pastor was doing the best that he could but sometimes cows would wander through the building and the patients got bathed outside with a garden hose. SCORE helped them to plant gardens and to provide more help so that they could have better living conditions. (And the conditions when we saw them were simple yet clean with caretakers onsite to care for them.)

Part of the garden for the nursing home

Craig and I played a game of dominoes with a couple old men. (I won!)

I along with Peggy, Sandy (the vet techs) and Roy, my assistant (and expert flashlight holder and fan position-er), neutered 1 male dog and spayed 1 female cat and 1 female dog.

I am neutering a dog and Peggy is looking on.

Doing physical exam on the cat

I'm distracting the kitty while Peggy & Sandy give it sleepy meds.

Roy holding the recovering kitty.

Roy, Peggy and the dog posing!

Roy hadn't seen me do surgeries before. And he mentioned how he enjoyed seeing me in my surgeon role.

Bill & I

In between surgeries and after I finished with surgery I went outside to see what else was going on.

Bill and Craig looking at dogs outside while I was doing surgery.

This truck drove by & was selling chickens door to door. They were likely for cock fights.

Bonnelyn is preg-checking a horse.

Wayne is doing surgery--cleaning up an old draining wound on the other side. Jim and Jeff are assisting.

I love this picture of Jim and Wayne concentrating on the surgery.

The wound looks great after being sutured up.

 The vets and the team who went out to into the villages to see the large animals reported that they started by going to one cow enclosure where the cows were practically swimming in manure, but the rest were in pretty good condition. Then the word got out and animals (especially horses started coming with various ailments).

As we wrapped up the day, I realized that I enjoyed doing the small animal surgeries, but in doing so, I had stayed at the church compound all day. I really missed being able to go through the village and see it and interact with more people. 

Dan playing baseball with the kids. The impromptu ball was made of exam gloves.

Finally we finished up all the cases for the day and headed back to the SCORE compound. This was a special night for Roy and I. Before we came on our trip, Roy learned that Chad and Crystal Reynolds, IMB missionaries who Roy served with in Senegal are now serving in Santo Domingo, DR. They came to visit us tonight along with their 2 boys, Chase and Caleb. It was neat for me to meet Roy's friends and for them to hear our story. After they left, we realized that we forgot to take a picture with them.

Then we had another special treat --- Pizza! One of the SCORE missionaries makes pizza to order to supplement his support. We had ordered one for tonight and had been anticipating it all day. (It didn't arrive until 9 PM so we were really hungry for it!) Somehow, we did remember to take a photo of it.

Ham and Pineapple pizza--What a Treat!