Here it is Saturday night & it has been raining most of the day, with the rain becoming quite intense this afternoon. I still managed to get in my swim, but as I swam the rain was coming down, but I quite enjoy swimming in the rain.

It has been a good week, working a little bit on my essay collection, but then I got a bit tired with that project, and it is not such a good idea to write, when the inspiration levels are lower.

So instead I have started to get back into my ancestry work. The last major stint of work I did on ancestry was in 2010-12 and I had created some ancestry trees in a few sites: Ancestry, My Heritage, My trees, Tribal pages so I am getting reacquainted with that work as well as various emails and other notes and writing. The thing I find with ancestry work is it is quite mentally involving so when you focus on the information it seems best to dedicate a fairly intense period of time to absorb and process and record information. I will probably work on it intensely for the next week or two.

I have been enjoying various email tasks as of late. It is so great being able to tap off an email to someone in NZ or Australia or elsewhere, all the way from here in Dominican Republic and be receiving responses within minutes or hours or the next day. So many tasks with technology just could not be done like this 10 or 20 years ago. It is just amazing and it makes the distances not such an issue at least in communication.

On Tuesday, one of my motoconcho friends had an accident on his motorbike. The initial reports were that Gerson was going to die. My friend Michael who is staying in my 2nd apartment while it is unrented, got the message from his mother who lives near where our friend does. Even though fatality rates are extremely high in this country, so is dramatic thinking in Latino culture, so I thought 'We don’t know the true situation, so let’s just imagine it will be all ok'.

Michael & I caught a public car from Sosua to Puerto Plata and went to the hospital. There we found some of his relatives waiting outside the emergency department which is really just a small building. We were allowed to go in and visit him. He was in a small room which had two wooden tables. He was lying on one and another patient on the other. His mother was sitting in a chair. The other guy who had also been in the accident was also sitting in a chair. It was extremely basic. There were no machines at all. My friend had an intravenous tube into his arm and appeared to be in a  very bad state, but his eyes were slightly open so he was aware. We did not stay long in the room as we did not want to cause any stress to him. I touched him on the arm and said 'You will be ok'. We waited outside and met some of his family with me doing my best Espanol possible. 

I went for a walk to get some water and coffee. When I returned a car pulled up in front of the emergency room and parked. On the side of the large car was the word ‘funeria’. No subtlety here. Just imagine worrying about the state of a friend or family member inside the hospital, being made to wait outside and seeing that! They could at least have parked around the back!

A little while later Gerson emerged from the emergency room standing and conscious, clearly weak and assisted by his stepfather. He recognised me and squeezed my hand. I said once again ‘you will be ok’ He was then driven to a clinic for further examination. The reality in this country is that people have to pay for proper care which they get at the clinics but not at the hospital. That is my understanding.

Michael explained that we would have to wait a while so we visited his auntie who lives nearby and who is a lawyer. We had a good talk about many things including the family farm- campo where I have stayed, the upcoming election as well as strategies for ending corruption in DR.

When we returned to the hospital no family were there. We went into the hospital to see if Gerson was there, passing down a walkway where people were in beds and seats in various states of health challenge. We walked past a small room where medicine is kept. I was told by a friend in Santo Domingo that in these hospitals if you cannot afford the medicine and pay for it, they will let you die.

We went upstairs and found 2 large rooms connected together where all the men were located in very ordinary beds. Again no technology of any kind that I could see. I have been told that at these hospitals, if family does not bring you food, you go hungry. There were probably 20-30 men in the two rooms with family sitting near those in the beds. The rooms did not even have fans.

Gerson was not there, so either he was still at the clinic or had returned home. We later found out he had gone home feeling better about recovery there. He said that if he stayed in the hospital, he thought he would die there.

Many westerners see various problems in hospitals in their countries, but seeing these conditions is an eye opener to the old stories about pray you never end up in a 3^rd world hospital.

I always travel with insurance just in case. I try to never use it as there is an excess fee, but there is a very fancy hospital here in Sosua used by the gringo and rich Dominicans. It truly is a world of haves and have nots here and in many other countries. We all need to speak up with groups like the United Nations and demand we have a world where everyone has access to decent healthcare & medicine.

The next day Gelson was bouncing down the steps at Terraza to visit us and to get 500 peso that we said we could give him for his medicine. This is the same person unconscious and at deaths door the afternoon before. Only in the Dominican Republic!