Hi! This is room 7 (Crystal, Bryn, Gabrielle)

Today was our first medical clinic. We went to CIDECO, a community where residents were offered schooling, housing and medical attention. Before that, we went to visit a little town, La Herradura. To get there, we drove around and saw the local life. This village was close to the ocean, so whenever the tide came in, it was flooded. Because of this, there were make-shift bridges to get around. Under them was all the mud and excrement. We got the chance to experience the poverty stricken community first-hand. This was a huge eye-opener for us. We learned that actions speak louder than words. Because of the language barrier, we had to find different ways to communicate with the locals. We interacted with the kids and saw the way these people live. After that, we returned to CIDECO to start our medical clinic.

The residents of CIDECO are all former La Herradura inhabitants. We were divided into two groups: entertainment for the kids and pharmacy. Those who entertained the children did everything from face painting to playing soccer, while those on pharmacy duty filled prescriptions for the 204 children, 123 women and 50 men that we treated. In all, we had 6 doctors and 4 medical kits. After it all died down, we took tours of the CIDECO community. It was a real contrast to the town we had visited earlier. Instead of one room shacks for a family, these houses had several rooms and indoor plumbing.

After this long, grueling day, we went out to dinner at an outdoor food court and finally got our lost luggage, which we will be unpacking and sorting soon.

Room 7