Adam and Carol's Volunteer Misson

From previous posts, we know that Carol G. was out of the country for a while. She and Adam were in Dominican Republic doing volunteer work. Here is her report about their volunteer mission:

"Here are a few photos from our trip.

Somos Amigos Medical Mission is a group that has been traveling to and serving El Naranjito in Dominican Republic for more than 10 years. When the program first started, there was no actual clinic building and only one doctor came. Now there is a clinic with several examination rooms, dental area, pharmacy, and clinical laboratory.

This year, Somos Amigos will make 3 visits to the area, bringing about 30 volunteers on each trip, including doctors, dentists, translators, and others. This group works closely with the local community, and residents of El Naranjito consider the medical mission their own service project, preparing food for the volunteers, giving us housing for the week, and supporting the mission by organizing the patients.

Somos Amigos serves approximately 1000 Dominicans, many of whom have no other source of medical treatment. We arrived on a Sunday, traveling by buses about 3 hr from Santiago, and first set up the clinic.

By 7 am on Monday, patients had already gathered and signed into the list for the day. We worked 12-13 hr days and in the 3.5 days the clinic was open, 635 patients were treated in the medical clinic and approximately 200 in the dental clinic. Adam's job was to help with the movement of patients from the waiting area (outside under the trees) through registration and to the doctors. I worked in the pharmacy. One of the photos that I am sending of the group coming down the hill in the morning after breakfast, where you can see that patients have already arrived and are waiting for us. The location was beautiful, the people were friendly and warm. It was a fantastic experience and both Adam and I want to return again."

Carol also says, "the group is always looking for donations (money, equipment, medications) and volunteers (medical professionals and others), so if anyone is interested they should contact me and I can put them in touch with the Somos Amigos organizers." Carol's e-mail is hoploppitry@yahoo.com

The description of the eight photos from top to bottom are:

(1) Adam and Carol.

(2) Group of volunteers.

(3) Carol working.

(4) Adam working.

(5) Morning trip.

(6) Beautiful view.

(7) School boys.

(8) A Dominican Republic cow.