Intro

In June of 2007, we traveled to the Dominican Republic to investigate the opportunity for implementation of needle-free jet injectors (NFI) in the immunization program.

NFI delivers immunizations via a thin, high-speed liquid stream and eliminates many negative consequences incurred from using needles including biohazard sharps waste, inadvertent needle sticks, and needle reuse. We used individual interviews of health care workers, administrators, public policy makers, and international organization workers to gather feedback on the usability, cost saving potential, and adoptability of NFI technology for immunizations.

-Mike, Azucena, Sapun, and Rich

Monday, June 25, 2007

Day 15: June 24, 2007. Uneventful



Mike left for the airport at 7:30 this morning. He was ready to go home (as we all were) because the last two weeks were extremely exhausting. For a short while, I was a bit envious because I knew that we were all ready to sleep in our own beds. His departure put a bit of a downer on the day, but we were determined to have fun with remainder of the day and check out a beach on the Southern coast of the island.

Around 1 pm we found ourselves on a “2nd class” bus on the way to Boca Chica, a small town just west of Santo Domingo. It was raining during the ride to Boca Chica, which made us all a bit apprehensive about lounging on the beach for the remainder of the day. When we arrived, the scene was WAY different than we expected…Not only was it not raining but there was huge, free (sponsored by Brahma Beer), outdoor concert. Imagine the Stern Grove festival in San Francisco but add Spanish rap music, lots of Mamajuana (a Dominican rum concoction meant to take you to a happy place), a much rowdier crowd, and most people speaking a language that you don’t fully understand while others were speaking a language you’ve never even heard. It was a scene, thousands of people hanging around with open bottles, a crowded and dirty beach...just about the polar opposite of what we experienced in tranquil Rio San Juan the weekend before.

After adjusting to the madness, we managed to sit down for about 1 hour before El Lapiz, the pencil- a famous Dominican rapper, came to the stage, and the entire crowd started charging the stage. This large migration of people got a bit crazy and prompted us to c’est la vie to Boca Chica and get the hell out there. It was not a bit too soon as it looked like there were COPS trying to contain the scene shortly after we left. We quickly hopped back onto the gua-gua (I mean bus) and were on our way back to the safe city of Santo Domingo. Our blissful feeling about Santo Domingo lasted all of about 15 minutes as we had a strange encounter with a couple of biker-folks while we walking home.

To blow off the steam from the day, we came home and decided to enjoy $20 Cuban-Dominican cigars while consuming refreshing Presidentes. This was a nice ending to a crazy day. Now back to needle-free injection???

-Sapun

caption: Boca Chica beach party. A little different than we expected.

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