El Campo

This weekend we all went to one of the Campos which is rural village up in the mountains of the DR and generally the poorer part of the country (the area looked like the movie Jurassic Park). Each campo has a coperador which is a leader in each community trained to help his or her people. Our group gave 5 lectures in Spanish on different important physical therapy related topics. My group taught on diabetes and wound care. In the afternoon, we treated people from all over the community. My group saw about 8 patients within a three hour period (usually with evals you take 45-60 minutes with each person).
We stayed with different families throughout the Campo for the whole weekend. Me and Janna stayed with a family (pictured above) who have 2 little boys. Our house had some electricity, but due to the DR's country wide power shortage, we primarily used oil lamps. There was no running water or bathroom (except the bowls placed under our beds and the wooden outhouse). At night, our 'mom' would take us out back were we'd brush our teeth with a bucket and hold each other's toothbrushes while our mom flashed the flashlight on us on the outhouse so we could see where we were going. Needless to say, me and Janna are going to be lifelong friends now since we watched each other pee. We took showers in a extension of the outhouse with a bucket and curtain to hide us.
Saturday night, the community threw a big dance for us. The marange and other dances involving only movement at the hips were done. It was so hard to communicate with our families due to the language barrier, but music has no language-it's universal.
Even though through most people's eyes, the Campo is poor and has nothing- these people have something that most people in the U.S. don't. They have a huge sense of community with one another and such welcoming hearts. Right when we walked in the community, the elders kissed our cheeks and the kids wrapped their arms around us and wouldn't let go. They took us in like we were one of their own and were so grateful for everything we were doing.