Secret Beach

Wes took the kids to Secret Beach a couple of weekends ago while I got to stay home and study. Secret Beach isn't very far away, but you do have to hike down (more like scale a cliff) and with kids, it is a bit more challenging. Our neighbor went as well while her boyfriend studied. She brought her friend's daughter, Coletta.

Jillian is still not willing to get too deep in the water, but she still enjoys the ocean. In this picture: Melanie (neighbor)

Here, the girls are having hermit crab races. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I think they draw this circle in the sand and put their hermit crabs in the middle and whoever gets out first, wins.

The girls are giving us their "silly" pose. This kind of looks like the Little Mermaid rock to me.

This is on the top of the cliff that they had to walk down. The island is very beautiful and we plan on exploring a lot more over the break between semesters. Maybe next time I can actually go to Secret Beach.

Wes is checking out a cave. I'm not so sure I would have been in it...doesn't look like very much room in there. He did get stung by something, but doesn't know what it was...no adverse side effects.


We'll keep you posted on our future adventures.

On the mend

For the last couple of weeks, we have been battling a cold. It started with Karissa and a snotty nose then went to Jillian...we passed it around a few times. We finally went in to the clinic last Friday to get the kids some medication, especially since Jillian had developed pink eye. We thought that was all that she had wrong and that Karissa was worse since she spiked a fever Thursday night and complained of a bad stomach ache. I was really hoping that it was not appendicitis. The doctor checked the kids over and told us that Jillian had an ear, throat and eye infection. Her pulse was like a humming bird at 160 beats per minute. That child never said a word about feeling bad. She is a tough cookie! Karissa had an upper respiratory infection and had to get blood drawn to make sure she didn't have anything else wrong. The doctor called later in the afternoon and said her white blood cell count was 13 (normal is 4-10) so we knew she had an infection. The doctor wanted her to come in on Saturday morning just to make sure she was doing well.

After the kids were checked out, Wes asked if there were something he could take over the counter since he is allergic to penicillin. The doctor looked in his throat and wrote him a script for a Z-pac and gave me one also. We are now on the mend physically. Financially, that was a spendy endeavor. Wes spent around $300 on medications! Now, that is in EC, so that translates to around $140 US.

We had an unexpected e-mail from a church family member in the states who had sent us some money. This person had no idea we were all sick, but this blessing could not have come at a better time!

Our upstairs neighbor is "dog sitting" a female dog who recently was fixed. She was evidently in heat when she underwent the operation and the vet said she couldn't be around boy dogs for a while or her surgery would be compromised. I'm not exactly sure why she continued in a heat cycle after surgery (I will have to ask my niece Jennifer), but she still gave off the "come on over" signal to the guys. Consequently, we awoke to a visitor on our steps for 3 days. He was kind of cute...in an old fat dog way. He was a short, squatty dog that the girls named Skittles. It was funny to see Wes cringe every time he opened the door and the dog was laying there, wagging his tail. Wes wouldn't let the girls feed Skittles, or really pet him for that matter, since he is an Island dog and has lots of fleas. Skittles always gave you a sad face when you closed the door and wouldn't let him in. Kind of heart wrenching. But, he must have wondered on his way because we haven't seen him lately.

Well, hope you are all well...we are now on the mend! God Bless!

Allow me to vent a bit...

You can skip this blog if you don't want to hear me complain, but there are a few things here that are driving me crazy.

For starters, I'm not sure if it is the students, the locals or a combination of both, but the litter here is insane. I am always coming out to the deck to study and the students eat lunch out here and leave their junk on the table or on the ground. I don't know if they are just from priviladged families that have maids to pick up after them or maybe they just feel that they are above putting their stuff in the trash. Whatever it is, I would really like to think that these people will fail out of medical school, because I don't want that type of person being a doctor. Maybe that is a little harsh, but I see doctors as being servants of others...and if you can't pick up your own trash, you cannot possibly serve other people.

Next on my list...facilities here. Wes was calculating the money that this school brings in and there is no reason that the restrooms are second to hiding behind a rock! Not sure where all the money is going because they are not upgrading anything here. Maybe they are funneling the cash to the Bahamas since they are now creating a school there and will probably eventually have all the students there instead of here. Hope the Bahama students appreciate the sacrifices we are making here!

Ok, last on my list of rants...my house...or shack...whatever you want to call it. I am wondering if it will ever be fixed. Just when you think progress is being made, things come to a stand still and no one will show up to work. We call it "Dominican Time". That is how things roll here. We have a new leak in our ceiling, the tile is still not fixed in our bathroom from the repair guy breaking it while fixing the last leak. Our toilet leaks...still. Even after lowering the level of the water in the tank (that was the solution from the landlord before), we still end up with water on our floor. I think it is the actual valve from the floor to the tank. But no one will fix anything until something explodes and there is an emergency. Furniture here is the most uncomfortable I have ever felt. I would kill for a recliner at this point. If you are wondering what our couch is like (if you want to call it a couch), just take a rough sheet and spread it over a nice soft rock. That seems to be what all furniture here feels like. Not sure what they use for cushions, but it reminds me of dead cockroach shells...

Anyway, I am done complaining (for now)...just needed to vent a bit. I am glad that I am here in school, but I really am looking forward to a nice bed to sleep in along with other ammenities that we took for granted back in the states. I guess the silver lining is, this is teaching us to appreciate the little things in life...like comfort. We will be a much more thankful family in the long run...just today...we were thankful that the bread for our sandwiches was just hard and stale and not moldy yet.

Here is a lovely picture so you don't think it is all bad here... :)

Critters in our Neighborhood

I thought I would give you all a glimpse of the wild life in our neck of the woods. I know there are quite a few people who do not like bugs, an I am one of them; however, there are a lot of bugs around here. We have a gap all the way around our door and there are nights that a flock of flying ant looking things swarm under it. I think they may be termites, but am not sure... They pour in under our door when it rains so I think they are looking for shelter. I only give them the can of Raid. In the morning, it looks like an insect massacre happened at our front door. Wes has discovered that we have a cockroach problem as well. They come through the big holes in our ceiling. They are really nasty and enormous. (I put the sunglasses there for scale.) I am always feeling like things are crawling on me in the middle of the night. Eewwhh!


We have an iguana who lives in the tree out in front of our house. He is really large. We have lots of smaller ones running around as well, but we like having them since they eat the bugs! Every once in a while we find one in our house. Jillian thinks we have a pet lizard that she has named Rainbow.

On our way to school we look for the iguanas on campus. Some of them have numbers painted on their sides. I'm not sure if this is some sort of research project or if some students thought it would be funny to paint them. There are even a couple that I have seen that have small beads in their head spikes. They remind me of the Friendship beads we had in school so long ago. Maybe the iguanas gave them to each other...

We also have a herd of cows that roam the island, or at least around our part of town. I don't know who they belong to, but evidently this is a free range community. There are days when the cows are in our yard and other days when they are frolicking on campus. (Now there is something you don't see everyday in the states!) It kind of makes me nervous walking right beside a big bull, but I haven't heard of anyone being gored or trampled as of yet.

(This is actually on campus. The school is just on the right side of the picture.)

Ok, aside from all the critters we have around, I have a couple extra pictures I just have to share. The kids have started the "Summer Program" at school which includes lots of arts and crafts and field trips. They swim every day after lunch, so they are pretty wiped out. After the first day, we picked up the kids and had extra cargo to pack home (care package from Grandma Dolly! ~ thanks again) and Jillian was whining that she was tired before we left the school, so we decided to get a cab home. We had to make it to the street to hail the cab and while we waited, our poor baby couldn't hang on any longer. She fell asleep on the sidewalk. Good thing we were getting a cab anyway, we couldn't have carried her up the hill!

Wes has finally had enough of the heat and decided to shave his head. We all knew it was coming sooner or later, since he is follicley challenged on his head. So, we shaved his head last night. Karissa and Jillian thinks he looks funny...they say he looks like the daddy of their friends at school who is bald. Anyway, I just had to share since most of us have not seen him like this ...at least not since the Navy!

End of June

We have reached the end of another month here, so that makes two down and 14 more to go (unless we do 5th semester here). The kids are done with school as of last Friday, but they are starting the "summer" program which includes swimming every day, arts and crafts, cooking and hiking trips. They should have a great time.


Karissa and Jillian usually went swimming after school most days, either at the pool or at the beach. Karissa is officially done with Kindergarten and will move on to the first grade in September. Jillian will remain in her class for the next year, since it is a combination of pre-K and Kindergarten. It was cute to see their report cards and what the teachers had to say about them. They even have a P.E. teacher that wrote about their physical activity levels. That is one good thing about this school...they actually get the kids outside, doing active things instead of sitting around eating cookies and chips! Things have intensified for MaryLou over the last couple weeks, with three tests down and a few more to go, studying is often a late night occurance. I'm sure that will not stop for a while.

Jillian, Karissa, Paige, Burke, Zack
(They are from Idaho too...who knew?!)


Karissa and Jillian out front of the pool.



Unfortunately, MaryLou has not been able to do many beach activities, but Wes and MaryLou got to snorkel one day while the kids were in class. (Yes, MaryLou played hookie.) The water was a little murky since we had just had a rain storm, but we were able to see a ton of fish and about 7 stingrays. We were actually in a big school of blue jacks, which are supposed to be edible. Wes did not have his spear gun, so they were really safe from our frying pan.



Jillian and one of the many Island dogs strolling down the beach. There are quite a few dogs that roam around looking for food.

Wes was able to go spear fishing another time with his friends, Mike and Nick. They got a couple fish and an octopus, none of which Wes brought back...it was Mike's turn to take the haul home for dinner. I hear the octopus was really good, so maybe the next time we will give it a try.

Nick and Mike

Wes stretching out the octopus.

Nick shows off the bounty.

This month has been challenging when it comes to our house. We don't really live in the most modern place, or the biggest place. We have a whopping 345 square feet for the four of us to live in, so space is an issue. The night after my first test we were awaken to the sound of water running. When we got up, we saw water running from our ceiling. It was coming in through the seams of our ceiling and the wood was starting to bow under the enormous amount of water trapped. Wes ran upstairs to see what our neighbors were up to and found a pipe had burst in their bathroom and they were underwater as well. We were cleaning up the water for a couple of hours. Not the kind of thing you want to be doing at 2:00 AM. (At least I was finished with my test.) Needless to say, we have had discussions with the landlord about the short comings of the place and are hoping that everything gets fixed soon. We are tentitively moving upstairs next semester since they have three bedrooms and two bathrooms and we would only be paying an extra $25.00 per month. (But they have to fix the bathrooms first).

Hope all is well with all of you, until next time.

The Newells

All about Wes - Waterfalls and hunting

I was waiting for Wes to post his adventures, but he is not getting around to it, so I will try to describe what he has been up to. Wes has been involved with the Spouse's Organization on campus, and surprisingly, he is not the only man. In fact, there are quite a few men here supporting their wives. The Spouse's Organization does trips to waterfalls and hiking adventures for those who want to experience the beauty of this island. Wes went on one such outing as well as taking a "boys" trip to a few extreme waterfalls.

The Spouse's Organization went to

Ben's Pool for a day of "water sliding" and cliff jumping. They had a great time.

Next, Wes went on a trip with a few other guys to Sari Sari, Victoria Falls and Abu Avi. He said that we definitely can not take the kids since there are a few river crossings and cliff repelling that has to be done to get there. The trip was intense but the pictures are worth it.

Wes said Victoria Falls was about 30' wide (first pic) and was amazing to see.

Wes made an investment in an spear gun, hoping to hunt down dinner for us (if you ask me, it was just an excuse to hunt something). He was hooked after his first trip. Wes and a couple of friends went out on a night dive because they were told the bio-luminescent fish were amazing to see. They ended up getting a 44" barracuda and three lobsters. They came over to our house to clean and cut up the fish, so I got to take the pictures of the happy hunters. We will probably have a lot more dinners like this and hopefully more lobster!

Wes has also kept his throwing skills sharp. Wes saw a huge iguana in a tree, but his friend Mike couldn't see him, so Wes said, 'watch me hit him with this coconut'. So, Wes proceded to tag the poor iguana in the head with a big coconut, knocking him out for a few minutes. The poor thing lost its hold on the branch and fell out, only to be caught by his tail that remained wrapped around a branch. I guess, after a few minutes, he came to, but did not want to hang out there anymore. (Sorry, we have not pictures of the incident).

Hope you are all well.

Until next time.

The Newells

School - Isn't this the reason we are here?

I know that I haven't waited an entire week to post another blog, but thought I may need to just in case I am no longer able to get to it. My first week of school was rather relaxing. I was really surprised at my stress level and the material we were covering in class. I told Wes that I was waiting for the other shoe to fall because this all seemed like review... It amazes me that we could cover an entire semester of undergraduate work in just one week of medical school! Now I am starting to feel like someone is force feeding me from a 5 gallon drum and all I can do is try not to spit it out! I was told that the success rate here is not really what the school says it is. The school takes its data from those people who made it to 5th semester...looks like around 10 -20% of those actually getting into school make it to 5th semester. Ask me how my stress level is now and it's only week 2.

I had my first "patient" today. She is my cadaver that I will have for this semester. That was a little weird at first, but once you start looking at the pieces, you kind of get over the fact that she is a real person who donated her body for the future of science (I am grateful). She was a 69 year old who died of metastatic breast cancer. Kind of made me sad since mom went through breast cancer about 5 years ago. Made me miss my mom...love you mom!

The kids are loving their school and have made lots of friends, even Jillian befriended a little girl who is more shy than she is. They really like it when Wes takes them to the beach or the swimming pool after school.

Well, I will sign off for now...Wes may have to do all the updates after this since I foresee myself stuck in a book somewhere.