Profe in the DR 15

Profe in the DR 15

Friday I went to Neyba, to download several important work related emails.  It was about 11am as I entered the internet center and was told to come back at 2pm when the power came back on.  Apparently their inversora (battery backup) wasn’t working.   I bought a few things, talked with a few folks, had lunch, and then spent the rest of the time reading a book in Spanish in the park.  I returned to the internet center around 2:15 to find that it was still closed for lunch.  It wasn’t until after 3pm when someone finally came back, and another 15 minutes to get the computers all up and running.  I rushed through what I needed to do, then caught an old and extremely slow van, arriving in Batey 5 about an hour later.  Gitana (volunteer in Batey 7) was already there.  The two of us then waited an hour for Cameron (volunteer in Batey 9) and Elias (soccer coach in Batey 5).  The four of us then knocked out the final plans for a summer co-ed soccer league.  Co-ed sports are something new here so we decided to keep the league small the first time, only four teams. 

Saturday I started a new English class with several teenagers.  They had been showing such interest, trying to read anything with English written on it, that I felt compelled to teach them.  In the afternoon, after a little sumo wrestling, I taught a large group of teenagers how to play volleyball.  We cut two long wooden poles and hung a rope between them for a net, and marked out the court drawing lines in the dirt.  Despite their arguments, I got them to play co-ed, three girls and three boys to each team.  We played for about two hours, a new team replacing which ever team lost. 

We have been recording who wins in chess, and Sunday morning we went over the record of the week prior and determined the top ten players.  We then posted this list on the wall.  The kids are pretty excited about this, and are already working on trying to improve their lot for next week. 

In the afternoon I taught several boys how to play football (futbol Americano).  We played the school playground version with two hand touch and two receptions for a first down.  They seemed to think it was ok, but it didn’t quite grab them.  Afterwards we played soccer.  My team didn’t have a lot of talent so I was trying to make up for it by playing harder myself.  After about an hour of play, while going hard after a loose ball at mid-field, a player from the other team who was also going after the ball, tripped up right in front of me, and I went down hard, tripping over his legs.  When I came to my feet, I noticed that the little finger on my right hand was bent sideways at a 45 degree angle from the second knuckle down.  It looked pretty strange to say the least.  I promptly grabbed my stuff and headed back to my house.  On seeing my finger, little kids started following me, telling everyone we passed about my finger.  Upon arriving at my house I called the PC doctor.  Outside my house half the batey had gathered, either out of concern or to simply see my messed up finger.  Since it was already 6:00pm on a Sunday There were no busses to anywhere that would have an x-ray machine, so the doctor and I decided I would go in the morning on the first bus which passes by around 3am, getting me to the capital around 7am.

This morning I was up at 2am and in the capital by 6:30am.  The PC doctor Borianna took me to the emergency room and stayed with me for the four hours it took to get my finger x-rayed and fixed.  (I would have waited even longer had she not been there.)   The bone was completely dislocated at the second knuckle and I broke a ligament but I didn’t break any bones.  It was a French doctor who worked on me.  He made a partial plaster cast going up the right side of my hand and half my forearm.  He then wrapped it in an ace bandage to hold it in place.  I am so glad he did not make it a full cast.  With all the heat, dirt, and bugs here that would have been awful.  I have to keep the cast on for about 15 days.