Resuscitation

After a beautiful three weeks in good old PA....I arrived back in the DR on June 11th.   Flew in on a late Monday night and caught a bus to San Juan on Tuesday.    Ahhhhh back in the saddle.   The mangos are flush.  And I mean, there are mangos everywhere.  Little boys are running around with bandaids on their heads from throwing rocks up into trees trying to knock them down and ending up with bruises from the rocks falling back on their noggins.   My teeth have been naturally flossed from the mango "stringy-ness".  There is a smell of sweetness (and of rotting fruit)  when we run on the backroads from all the mangos on the ground.   Everyday it seems that someone shows up with a bag of mangos for us.    And this morning I threw some in the blender with some guineos and ice and uffffffffff mango smoothies for breakfast.    Sweet.  Messy.   Like the life is down here.     It's hot and sticky and oh-so-lush.
And coming back.... there was some catching up to do.  Visits to be made.  Babies to be cuddled and friends to be hugged.    The pharmacy to be cleaned up a bit.   Prep for the teams arrival.  Rice and beans to be scarfed down like I haven't eaten before.  Oh and yeah- the need to be running because somehow the trip to the States involved eating at every restaurant on this side of the Mississippi and therefore an extra 10 pounds found their way to me.  Oops.   But onward we go.
Last week I was able to spend some time with the Sam and Terry Wellman team doing something I haven't done here before.   They (a team of 2 nurses, Sam and Terry, and a formula rep) travelled to 4 hospitals here close to San Juan and held Neonatal Resuscitation classes.     It was an amazing thing to participate in.   I've taken NRC multiple times...but I've never seen such excitement...such a desire to LEARN..from folks.   I can't exactly quote the maternal/infant mortality rate here...but after seeing what is AVAILABLE in some of the hospitals- I am humbled.   One of the nurses told me that they have a lot of babies die "on the way..." to another hospital where they might have supplies/equipment available.  Not all of the hospitals have fetal monitors (or dopplers or fetoscopes!).   Sometimes they don't have oxygen available.  One of the hospitals doesn't have even a single laryngoscope.   OR a warmer/incubator/heat lamp.  They don't have ET tubes or umbilical catheters or bulb syringes.   And yet....they use what they can.  They do mouth to mouth resuscitation sometimes with a piece of gauze as  protection.    They eagerly participated in mock codes with us.  They asked tons of questions.  They asked how things are done in the states....they asked if we could leave our "practice" supplies with them to use.    I can say without a doubt that this is single-handedly the greatest thing I have participated in during my time here.    I feel like it will SAVE lives.   I feel like education is the key and it was exciting and thrilling and humbling!   And one of my favorite parts is that was a SHARING time.  We took some valuable information from the hospitals and we were able to impart some valuable information as well.    I felt like it wasn't us coming in and announcing to folks how they had to do things.  Instead, it was a time to see what was working for them, review some new information and practice saving the lives of babies.  Phenomenal.
It made ME hungry to learn things again.   I met a midwife in San Juan at the hospital there and she said I could come spend the day with her.    It reminded me of how much I LOVE labor and delivery and watching new life come into the world.    We talked "shop" for a while and I was entertained to hear things from her that I would hear in the States....... deliveries, babies, stories stories stories.  I love it.    I think there were stars in my eyes.  
Anyway- all of these things are rolling through my head.   How lucky I am, again, to be here.  How good God is.   How Labor and Delivery comes around and reminds me that God calls us to many many things.....and even when I think that one part of my life is kinda put to rest...He brings it back again.
Oh and how much fun did I have with this group too!   Visiting sponsor families,  spontaneous Zumba classes in the kitchen,  laughing and telling stores,  squishing into a guagua and then piling out for the 2 flat tires,  having OUR Dominican clinic nurses (and Doctor Sandy too!)  participate in the classes and hang out with us, eating cinnamon rolls from the Mennonite bakery,  baking cookies with Terry late at night for snacks for the classes,  hearing first timers talk about getting their lives rocked, watching them leave with tears in their eyes, watching 8 year old Dawson grab onto "big brother" Monchy and not want to go....oh all of these things.     Reminds me of the lyrics of some song...How beautiful is the body of Christ.
And so it's Sunday morning.   Me and Laura and Monchy went to church at Central last night.  The youth service.  And I'm so not a youth but how can I NOT go....  we were singing and I was watching these kids raise their hands and sing their hearts out and share their lives with each other and us and listen some intently as Ronny spoke about being a Christian ISN'T about appearances as much as about our HEARTS.   And my heart was full.   Full like it might burst....might blow up into a million pieces.... that it's NOT how I appear (me and my extra 10 pounds and disastrous self esteem!)....it's how Christ IS in me.   Folding me up again and again and again in those brazos fuerte....  Cual grande.   Gonna stick with it.   :)