Vinimos a Ayudar

Throughout the week we have been visited several bateys and gone through an exorbitant amount of patients all of whom were sick and had problems. However none of them came close to being as severe as one man we helped today. One man in his 70's came to us and sat down with relatively few problems checked off on his patient card. It soon became apparent that his problems were much worse when we saw that his fingers had been amputated due to a fire and were all shortened. From here it only became worse when he told us that he was a diabetic and that we noticed he had an injury on his leg. Molly immediately showed her brother, Jake, an orthopedic surgeon. Our translator, Bladimir could not stand the smell and had to leave. Luckily we were outside, due to a swarm of wasps in the school, so the odor dispersed rather quickly. Jake, Molly and Jesse, then began to treat the wound. Jesse and Molly removed maggots from under his skin while Jake poured antiseptics and peroxide over his leg.
****WARNING:  The picture of the leg was posted yesterday but we will move it to the comment section since it is VERY difficult to look at.  Please go to comment section if you would like to see photo-you've been warned.

This experience compares greatly with what Ms. Baez read and related to last night. She read an excerpt from "Women Writing Resistance" and in the book there was a quote that said "Vine a Ayudar..."I came to help". All of the doctors and students put feelings and anxiousness aside and accepted that we came to help and this man needed our help. This was a microcosm of our purpose; it was to come to the D.R. and help the people living here, regardless of the conditions.

We are here to help.

- Mack and Nick