May 8, 2013- Martin Alla
Today started off like the Dominican’s like to say “Fantastico”. Woke up around 9:30 a.m, tired, but ready to serve. After a light breakfast and a badly needed coffee our first trip was to the university PUCMM. There we were informed on the requirements of attending a Medical University in the Dominican. Let me just say for the amount of knowledge you gain in comparison to prices, the U.S doesn’t have a bees knees to stand on. After our meeting with the head Anesthesiologist we headed to the place of death… a.k.a dealing with cadavers. The faculty was generous enough to pull out a cadaver and lay the body out for us to inspect.
Gloves ready, thinking caps on. We dug into the flesh as if it was a Tres Leche except not as tasty. We rummaged through the intestines finding the lungs, the stomach, kidneys, liver and so on. It was an interesting start of the day but fun in the sun with the cadavers had to end. After dropping the body back inside its Formaldehyde bath we walked briskly around the breezy campus checking out the architecture of the private university, then we were off to lunch.
The burgers were tasty to say the least. The best part was working off the excess Kcal. Shoes ready, head bands on, into the van we hopped and onto the courts where we sweated buckets and dunking in the basketball as if we were LeBron James, or the Black Mamba to say the least. Ok that last part isn’t completely true, we were semi decent below average players barely making contact with the rim. But it was fun.
After the game our next trip was changing out of the sweaty clothes and drive down Unidad De Ninos Quemados where the doctors showed us around the children’s hospital and the burn unit. The best part was seeing a lonely Haitin child, bandaged up sitting on a green chair next to his bed, eating a bowl of rice and watching Sponge Bob. He was no more then ten years old, alone in a foreign nation with no family, friends or caretakers. Apparently some other children out of naivety decided it would be entertaining to pour gasoline on him and light a match. Luckily he survived, though the experience was an eye opener, considering how cruel we humans can behave towards one another with no remorse. Groupthink allows us to commit atrocious crime because, the banality of evil makes even the most docile man do crimes of horrors. It really made me think that we need the strong to take care of the weak cause even the most evil man needs a light to shine down and brighten the horrors of the mind. This trip has been an eye opener that no matter how bad you have there is always someone who has it worse so be grateful appreciate what you got and give back.