Fiestas de 16 de Julio- Palmar

palmar just has their fiestas. this time it´s for 16 de Julio which aside from being the date of the fiestas and the name of my neighborhood i am not really sure why that is when we have the fiestas but my guess is that it´s the birthday of the Virgen Carmen who is also the patron saint of the fishermen. And being that palmar is a fishing village..... anyway the fiestas include burning the castillo which is crazy fireworks and a vaca loca ( more crazy fireworks). this is always kind of scary and this year my friend actually got hurt when a chunk of burning firework landed on his head and he had to get four stitches and there was a lot of blood. this is when i feel very lucky to personally know the nun who runs the clinic and where the nurse lives so that stitches at 2 in the morning is not too hard to come by. each night there are dances in the tent where i am seated below. the music booms until about 7am and then there is a parade and a well... long program of singing, dancing, talking etc and they always try to get me up on stage but nope--- this gringita is not about to dance in front of the whole town. not now not ever. after that there is more dancing all night again. it´s a rowdy time and the people have lots of fun. so did i. i am always amazed at how people can dance all night and work all day and do it all over again. strange to think that these are my last fiestas and that i really only have a few weeks left here.......

Medical Brigade 2009

Last week or so an amazing group of korean american doctors and volunteers came to palmar and offered their services for five days. I was lucky enough to be able to help their efforts by translating. I was also really lucky in that the same dentist from last years medical brigade returned and we got to work together again. I really love to work with him because he really cares about the people and doesn´t lose his cool when kids scream bloody murder ( which they do.)

Actually everyone involved in the medical brigade is pretty amazing . This year we spent three days in palmar and two days working in some more needy communities. Medical translating is one of my favorite things to do. It´s the next best thing to being the doctor because you really get to help someone. One of the medical services this medical brigade offers is acupuncture. I got really bad food poisoning and so the doctors offered me acupuncture. So i thought- sure, why not? So I did acupuncture which was a really cool experience. I really hate needles but you almost don´t feel them and i really believe that without acupuncture i would not have been able to continue working. I actually ended up doing acupuncture twice.

We set up the dentist office outside one day and worked around dogs, turkeys, a bee hive and chickens. i don´t have the exact stats but my guess is we served about 250 people (dentistry alone) altogether my guess is 1,000 or so. It was a tough week but so worth it.