It takes a village...

If there was one thing that struck me from the first moment that I stepped off of ILAC's "Gringobus" onto the dirt road of Yaque Abajo, it was a sense of familiarity. Now, I have never traveled to the Caribbean or to Latin America before, certainly not to the DR, much less to this idyllic mountain village two hours outside of Santiago. However, there was something so familiar about that place. After a few hours, it finally dawned on me: Yaque Abajo was the Dominican version of my family's village in the mountains of Cyprus. From the gorgeous mountain vistas to the donkeys along the side of the road, everything (save the fact that it was Spanish rather than Greek being spoken) reminded me of Omodhos, the village where my father grew up and where I have been lucky to spend many summers of my life. Perhaps the most impeccable similarity between these two villages that each hold a special place in my heart was the people. Everyone is family in Yaque Abajo, regardless of whether or not you share DNA. As you walk down the road, you are greeted by aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents, all eager to make you a cup of coffee or pour you a soft drink. All of the children playing and singing up and down the road are family, and even after just a few hours in the campo, they began to feel to me less like new acquaintances and more like any of the dozens of my cousins running around Ohmodos. I'll never forget 8 year old Brianna's excitement to meet us all that first day, Alex's insistence that we would look FABULOUS in one of his fashion designs, or Esther's unyielding hospitality and endless supply of quite possibly some of the most delicious food I have ever tasted.

As we got to know the people and way of life of Yaque Abajo over the next 10 days, I constantly kept coming back to the notion that a village is a village, no matter where you are on the globe. The importance of family and friendship in the village was infectious, and it became second nature to value taking time to share your experiences with others. It was such a rewarding feeling to walk up the village's main road each day after clinic, passing the homes of our new Yaque Abajo family members, knowing that we were able to have reciprocated a bit of the hospitality that they perpetually offered to us. For the first time, someone was calling ME their doctor, and going out of their way to let me know how something as simple as the Tylenol or vitamins that I had given them made them feel better. I can imagine that the pride I felt at having the privilege to treat these people would be similar to how I will feel when I am someday able to treat my own family members and fellow "campesinos" back home in Omodhos.