04-JUL-B-8
OUR DEPARTURE FROM THE DOMINICAN
REPUBLIC BY A LONG RIDE ALONG THE BARREN MOUNTAIN RIDGE OF THE HAITI BORDER, TO
ARRIVE AFTER DARK AT HOTEL TEO IN ELIAS PINA, OUR LAST DOMINICAN PORT OF
DEPARTURE
It was a five and a half hour confusing bus ride around Lake Reid Cabral, to arrive at Elias Pina Elias Pina is 18* 52. 29N, and 71* 42.08 W. At the last minute as we were waiting for the returnees from the “swimming trip” to the basin as I was schlepping medicine bags into the bus which should have left at 3 as well known to the swimmers who did not dribble in until 3:30 PM we saw Serge Geffraud, who had taken off since he was told he had the afternoon free. He went out to see some patients in a Baptist mission in Haitian border towns. He just happened to come back despite the several messages I had sent all around saying we would be in the Hotel Teo in Elias Pina tonight if he could catch up again. There would have been no way he could have had he not gone with us as the accidental meeting had him scurrying back to pack up to join us delaying us a little again. The long bumpy bus ride was selected, they said since the roads were better in the northern diversion, but it was bumpy enough to have several calls for bladder breaks. We learned the real reason when one of our Dominican staff hopped off at the turn around the lake and having practiced all during the trip, said “Pleased to meet you,” and took his leave from the bus.
We checked in to the Hotel Teo with a great confusion again on whether we were going to use the same bus or another, so we unpacked everything including all the spare medicine bags to learn later we had to carry them back down from our rooms in which they were stored to board the same bus—but it could not go further than the border.
We went to a Restaurant down several blocks from our hotel passing—would you believe—a bar and disco—so our group got the idea that tonight was party night—an idea they would come to regret later. We went to the restaurant as the only customers, and there never was nay illumination except what I could supply from my headlamp. The menu was “special” which meant that they did not have much of anything so they were preparing to give us what they had. It was a kind of sausage and fried platinos, and a following “postre” called “Cha ching—“ a cold cornbread pudding.
Everyone was eager to get out and go to the disco, presumably to get their last dose of Presidente beer, but more likely to find something else to eat as well. I could not join them nor did I want to since I had to make a house call. One of our own crew had collapsed and was unaware of where he was. In fact, Zeb had consolidation in his lower lobes and had a full blown pneumonia—confirmed by Duc’s exam as well. So, I started him on Zithromax, the Biaxin that should be good for all the gram positive bugs from his upper airway that colonized his lung. He went down for the count, and was half way better but still drowsy out of it in the morning.
That is when I heard of the “adventures” of the others who had decided to go out drinking. This is a military base and an outpost. As they came into the bar, one fellow was having a loud argument with another, the kind of situation in which a fight could and most probably would have broken out. But, this time there was a swifter response. The fellow hiked up his shirt and produced a revolver and gunfire started ringing out in the bar. The students lost their interest in the local pageantry of the Elias Pina nightlife, and split.
I am glad I had warned them all not to go, but they insisted they were just fine on their own since at least one of them spoke a little Spanish—the little she got out was “Vamos!”
Allegedly,
we are getting up early, and packing the bus, each of us will be paying a $20
exit fee, and then we have to decide how we get out of the DR and into
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