República Dominicana: Day Five

Wednesday February 20, 2008

We (the traveling circus) need to keep on schedule since we have a 2-hour ride up into the mountains towards Haiti to the town of El Higiero. Much, much cooler here than at lower altitudes. Severely rocky one-lane paths, not roads, greet our packed bus and throw us around like a rag doll. We pass sugar cane fields and miles of railroad tracks. The harvested cane is loaded onto mesh railroad cars and transported to processing plants. The hurricane floods of October and December 2007 ravaged the fields and truly wiped out people's income. Times are tough and people are desperate.

Again, the docs and the pharmacy occupy the same building, a chapel; with the pharmacy raised on an altar platform. Worship us. The slowest day of the week with a mere 103 patients seen.

On the 2-hour drive back, an open truckload of people turns in front of us. And when I say "open truckload" I mean it: a pickup with people stacked upon people. As this road travels to and from Haiti, the national police are keen on picking up Haitians and sending them back. Police checkpoints are commonplace in the Dominican. Most trips we are waved through. Following a truckload of humanity changes things. The police stop the truck, and our driver is impatient and wants to pass. So he guns the engine. He has no room, so he rocks the bus back and forth in hopes the truck will pass. So such luck. So now we have brought attention to ourselves, so the law enforcement enters the bus.

"Buenos tardes," the stonefaced man says.

And in unintentional cheesy Romper Room unison, the bus responds, "Bueeeeeeenos tarrrrrrdesssss."

This brings a look of bitterness and anger upon the muscled policeman.

"Americano?" he asks the driver.

"Si," the driver responds.

"Médico?"

Now, we have a bunch of us in scrubs, stethoscopes around our necks. So the driver, in a fantastic fit of sarcasm, responds in Spanish to the tune of "What the f#&@ do you THINK they are????"

This precipitates an exchange where the policeman wags a finger menacingly at the driver. A flurry of Spanish flows with vigor and resolve. We then just seemingly drive away with no reprocussions whatsoever. Surreal.