¡Hola amigos, amigas, y familia!

Our Spanish is greatly improving with every interaction we have with the local Dominicans - at least we think so. Yesterday we went through orientation and attended a church service. We were able to spend some time in the barrios?¿ (neighborhood) next to our guest house. There are a lot of kids that just run around and like to play with all of the toys (including us). We had some piggy back races in honor of the triple crown win by American Pharoh. I was the clear winner.

 Today was our first day in the clinic. We split up the day, and the rest of the week, so that we would rotate a little between our three possible locations. Kelly and I went to the hospital clinic and saw a ton of neurologically impaired patients of all ages while Jill, Lindsey, and Heather went to the nursing home. Kelly and I were able to treat patients with cerebral palsy, spinal cord injuries, post-polio, post stroke, torticollis, and other diagnoses. This kind of experience was amplified by the fact that we were able to educate some of the therapists on treatment techniques. One of the shining moments was a little boy with Down's Syndrome named Samuel that was given to myself and Megan to treat... It was quite the experience seeing as the child wouldn't let me get near him. After trying to get him to do just about anythung PT related, we just had him pick up and throw balls around. It turned out well overall - the tears had stopped when his mom came to get him and he even blew us kisses goodbye. If nothing else we provided a lot of laughs for the PTs and OTs there.

Most of our travel is done in the bed of trucks, which is great because everyone that knows me can probably imagine how much sweat I've produced in this humidity already. After getting back, Kelly and I explored the city a little while going on a run, finishing up by meeting some of the our girls to climb to the top of a fantastic cathedral. The breeze was well appreciated and the view was great.

Tonight we've got some vendors coming to the guest house after dinner and then we're playing baseball with some locals. Potentially rain the rest of the week so hopefully it holds off! A few of us are headed to the mountains tomorrow to do developmental screenings, a program established by Bradley grads a few years back.

So far a pretty great trip!