Tihs is a Cevler Bolg Tlite

I am in the land of plenty.

I am spending 2 days in Santiago to celebrate Christmas with my Dominican family (I drove here today in the pouring rain, go figure). Christmas is different here. Christmas Eve is a crazy celebration that begins with a dinner of roasted pig with moro de guandules (rice and beans) and usually lasts until the sun comes up the next morning. Every family is together and they just spend the whole night talking, drinking and enjoying life. It is quite interesting. Christmas day is just another day. There is no tree with gifts underneath. No one puts out milk and cookies (because milk is expensive and the rats would just destroy the cookies).

I have been a busy bee (yea i said it) the past few weeks. As i mentioned in earlier posts we managed to survey 130 homes in a village cluster in the region. Since then, we surveyed 2 communities; Kilometer 1 and Kilometer 2.....sister villages if you will. It was originally going to be myself a local doctor/nurse and my friend Miguel to translate Creole to Spanish. In typical Dominican fashion, the doctor and nurse backed out the day before. Having become accustomed to this behavior I decided to take Miguel and we would just do it ourselves.
We hitchhiked out to the entrance to the community and then began to hike. These villages consist of homes about 1 km apart from each other....wayyyy back in the forest. I wore my rubber work boots (first time ever wearing them, who am i kidding) and we schlepped all through the country side. We managed to survey all 10 homes in the region. It took a good 4 hours just to give you an idea of the distance of these homes.

If you squint your eyes you can see a house way back there. Middle....of...nowhere. It took a good 45 minutes to get to this house. Notice the lack of a defined trail. 12 people live there. And their bathroom looks like this:

Yes. That IS just a whole in the ground. They DO have privacy walls...sort of.....which i guess is better than this one:

I want you to go into your bathroom and hug your toilet. This is how Cholera is transmitted....among other methods.....uncovered human feces.
We also went to the source of water for the surrounding region. Every house in the area fills up their jugs of water here then carries them back home.

It is pretty clever actually. The pvc pipe is maybe 6 inches log and just rests between 2 rocks as water flows through it to easily fill their jugs.

We surveyed 10 homes and....80 people. That's an average of 8 people per household with an average of 2 bedrooms per home. I guess these numbers aren't really fair because one home housed 16 people:

I know there are not 16 people in this photo, but it was difficult to keep them all together. We also surveyed 16 children 5 years and younger and measured them for growth deficiencies and malnutrition. We found that 4 were severely malnourished, 2 were moderately malnourished and 1 was technically "dangerously obese" for his age (how does that happen?). 7 of 16 were at the current moment suffering from Diarrhea  and all of them had "gripe" or cold like symptoms. Women in the region have been pregnant 7 times each, on average, and among the pregnancies, 6 children have passed away either in the womb or shortly after birth.

These were just the children ages 5 and under. You can imagine the state of hygiene and sanitation in this zone. What we plan to do is develop a nutrition plan for the malnourished children with supplemental.... supplements. We also (well im gunning for it) plan on building sanitary, possibly compost latrines in the area.

The average household income is.....US$0.00 or RD$0.00 if you consider the exchange rate. The men tend fields and live off of whatever the land gives them. Every now and then they can sell produce if they reap a bountiful crop. Not one house has electricity, water, cement floor or enough beds. But I tell you what, you would not know it if you just met these people on the street. The entire time we were out there, not once did even one person complain about their circumstance. It is not like they are ignorant. The main town is a 45 minute walk for most of them. They have seen wealth and people with money, nice homes, cars, etc. They just had a ton of pride in what they DID have. I told them I was from an American foundation working in health, but they did not ask for a handout. I would literally mask my horror at these condition as they PROUDLY toured me through their home. Perhaps it is a culturally Haitian thing. The people who don't ask for anything are the people you want to empty your bank account for.....maybe they know that.....maybe they know there are people who are even worse off than them??

 Other than that, I have been in full blown planning mode getting ready for the 6 student volunteers that will arrive the 30th of this month. We will be putting on a community health fair in El Carrizal, which should be interesting....since i have zero experience putting on community health fairs. Again, what am i doing here?

The other day Miguel, Garret and I explored a new waterfall (well, new to us) in the area. It was maybe an hours walk outside of town, but totally worth it.

The water was bien fria, but super refreshing.

In this holiday season we need to be thankful for what we have, because no matter where we are in life there is ALWAYS someone with worse circumstances. It is easy to lose sight off that. There is no method to make understanding that easier....but we need to swallow that knowledge :) AND thank the good Lord you don't have to poopy in this....thing when the moment strikes at 3am!

Feliz Navidad!

Umberto se fue...

Just as mysteriously as Umberto arrived and touched my heart....he was gone.

Ever since I wrote that blog about Umbe I have not seen him. Maybe he could not handle the pressure of viral fandom. Oh well.

This is just a quick update on this weekends activities. I mentioned we were doing a health census in El Carrizal, which consists of 5 communities: Mochito, Guanete, La Garrapata, El 14, Centro Carrizal. I had low expectations (the result of living here a pair of years) and gave ourselves a target of 80 homes to census on Saturday.

Well, the morning started out in typical Dominican fashion and everyone was late. Granted, it was 8am and the fog was so thick here you could barely see 5 feet in front of you. I had arranged a breakfast of stale bread cookies and coffee. Who wouldn't come running for that?
Surprisingly, everyone eventually showed up ready to work. We reviewed some key points and then they went out in their teams to tackle the day! Myself and another community member had La Garrapata to census, which is the farthest community from the center. We decided to walk it, for whatever reason, and we got to the first house about 20 minutes down the road when I realized I had forgotten to pack the measuring ribbon in everyone's materials pack. Basically, no one was going to be able to fully complete the survey. I ALWAYS forget SOMETHING. Those of you who know me best know i always forget the one thing that is almost essential to the event/activity i am attending. I planned the crap out of this census and thought i had hedged that risk.....nope. Anyways, we luckily caught a ride back up the road. I got on my bike and drove to where the teams were assigned and passed out their measuring ribbons. I told myself it was a good excuse to supervise the team, and see how they were doing :)
Anyways, after that mishap it was smooth sailing. I arranged a lunch for everyone and we discussed whether or not to continue on into the afternoon. THEY decided that they wanted to finish strong, to my everlasting surprise. I should mention they did this voluntarily....without pay...
By the end of the day, as the sun was setting, the teams came in to hand in their surveys and we counted a strong 130 homes and 464 people! I wish i could take the credit for blowing the target number into outer space  but they took it upon themselves to finish. They are just a motivated group of individuals, and i think God placed them before me because he knows i'm an idiot and was in way over my head. Those numbers represent about 85% of the community, which is more than enough to draw conclusive data.

One community cluster down.....6 more to go....yikes. It was a great start, and we are starting another census in KM 2 on Wednesday. This one is way smaller with only about 20 homes, but its the community we plan to build latrines in, because to date there have been 2 outbreaks of cholera within the last month. It is almost exclusively a Haitian population. It is going to be myself, a Doctor and Nurse from the local clinic and a 12 year old Haitian boy (who also doubles as one of my best buds here) to translate for us. I got a pair of rubber boots because we will be trudging through the muddy countryside.

I went to the Catholic church dinner service last night. It started at 7 and they did not serve dinner until 10. Needless to say i was upset. I don't know why i keep thinking things will ever be different, haha. People brought snacks.....to a dinner party.....thats when you know its a little much. There WAS a gentleman that sang 2 bajillion songs to everyone's misery before we were allowed to eat.

That's about it. Volunteers come in 2 weeks!

Adios

Lizards in the Bathtub

In my quest to acquire new friends i neglected to recognize those that i share the same living space with! (How pathetic does that sound?) Umberto is a lizard who has half a tail and lives in my bathtub. It took me by surprise the first couple times, but now its a welcome sight. He is always there....he is my rock....this is getting weird.

Today Rosalia and I explored a new village. I have been waiting for the clinic administrator to take me around to the different rural clinics in the area and introduce me to the medical staff, but she is never around, so I decided to "cold call" this particular clinic. The community is called Valle Nuevo and it is super far our there, as if i weren't already far enough. It is a village that survives on subsistence farming, there is no electricity and the only water the collect falls from the sky. It is quite beautiful. I am sure they do not necessarily see it that way, but for me it is a slice of paradise.

No radios, tv's, cell phones absolutely nothing. It was so quiet. You could close your eyes and just hear the wind, and birds chirping and the sound of machete on sugarcane. It is my new favorite place on earth (maybe a little much?). Pictures don't do it justice.

Anyways, I went into the clinic and met with the two female Haitian (whhaaatt??) doctors. They were very nice and welcoming. A nice woman named Rita, afterwards, approached me and said she was a health promoter in the community. We spoke for a while about her work with World Vision (bllahh), and i was able to see a few of the documents and census that she did for them......FIMRC is waayyy better :) Our diagnostic is so much more detailed and telling. Ill get off my soap box. Long story short, her son invited me into the field and gave me a piece of fresh cut sugarcane (you bite a chunk off, suck the sugar out of it then spit out the rind) then Rita invited me to have lunch with them (which i can never refuse, shameless). We had rice and beans with what they could only describe as ave (bird).
"What kind of bird?" I said
" You know the kind that flies?" Ritas son (Chiche) says.
Blank stare, "So, is it like chicken, or rooster or hen or bald eagle?" Said I.
"No it is the kind you see in the tree then poww with a rock!" Says Chiche with pride.

So, i ate the mystery bird (which tasted similar to guinea fowl, mom) and it wasn't till later i realized what i had eaten was a pigeon.

Yeeeaaaa.

In other news: We are preparing for our first community diagnostic this weekend. I have been training 15 community members from El Carrizal to assist in a health census. Tomorrow is the final meeting and Saturday we begin! It will be interesting to see how this turns out. This is my first experience with this kind of thing, so we shall see. We should have (if everything goes perfectly according to plan) 160 homes surveyed by Sunday afternoon.

Wish us luck!

The Presence of Nothing

My door has falling off, the roof has a a huge hole that soaks my kitchen and the chain to flush the toilet snapped in half trying to flush a stubborn pay load.

My house is falling apart piece by piece. I closed the door one day and the door didn't just fall off its hinges, the screws were too small for the hinges, so the screws stayed in the wall and the door fell off with hinges intact. The tin roof has a few holes that let water in then it runs down the grooves of the tin and settles on one of the wooden beams, once the beam is completely soaked it drips (pretty heavily) all over my kitchen counter. Not to mention, the water damage to the wood has already claimed the lives of two structural support beams. The old porcelain general decided it had its last flush and the chain that connects the lever thingy to the suction thingy snapped, forcing me to stick my hand in the rust water every time I need to flush my business.

Things have gotten a little more difficult since moving to Northwest of Nowhere. Luckily, I have a pretty descent landlord who has fixed 2 of 3 problems, and is promising a new roof in the future (i wont hold my breath). I DID get a new bed (gracias a mis padres), so I no longer sleep on an air mattress.

It is easy (and kinda fun) to complain, but I have been very humbled since coming to Restauracion. Many of the living conditions I have seen make me wish I had a bigger hole in my roof.

Really cant complain too much. In terms of work, I have been slowly chipping away at the massive block of wood that I hope to one day whittle into a majestic sustainable preventative health education system. I have only been in the site for 2 weeks but I feel like i'm wading through mud. I want to be moving faster and starting projects, but then I realize....i'm still kind of figuring things out.

I have started the diagnostic process in two different communities: one on the outskirts of the main town called Kilometer 1 and its sister village.....Kilometer 2(yea, for real) which is mostly Haitian and recently had an outbreak of Cholera. Another about 20 minutes down the mountain called El Carrizal, which is a pretty descent sized village (2,000+). I am attempting to train community members on taking weigh/height/length measurements on children under 5 years of age to chart their growth. The people of El Carrizal came out in droves to my community interest meeting. It was very encouraging to see how committed they were right off the bat(back?). Granted, I still need to figure out how to do all this stuff myself, so its a learning process for everyone.

I have been making friends in the community, and met a few solid kids that hang around my house when i am there. It has been nice. I have also come to be very close with a unique little family, a single older woman named Rosa raising a 12 year old Haitian boy named Miguel. We made dinner together the other night, and i made spaghetti (Italian style) with the sauce on the top. Dominicans make spaghetti with condensed milk, onions, peppers and tomato sauce and mix the pasta and all together, so its like macaroni and cheese, but spaghetti........get it?

Miguelito made fried plantains (tostones) to accompany the Spaghetti. The little dude packed away a ton of food. It has felt really good to find a solid family that I can relax around and talk about random stuff with.

There is a Haitian market here in town, and also in Dajabon the bigger border town. I just want you guys to see where all your donations and things actually show up when you send things to Haiti.

Where do all these fresh unopened packaged of shampoo and diapers come from?? Unopened first aid kids (don't sell those!) I have been told if you give a Haitian a bag of rice they will sell it and buy the half grain of rice (lesser quality) and take a little profit from it. Here is something to think about: would you want your donations to be used by the people or sold as a source of income? Who knows what the money goes towards. It is not a lot, but i'm sure most of it goes towards food. I also benefit from your donations :) The poor development worker that needs a new sweater or some toothpaste/pop tarts. I can get most things for pennies on the dollar. So.....thanks. I got a few pairs of sheets as well.

I came back into Santiago this weekend to pick up supplies for the diagnostic and celebrate Christmas with friends that are going home for the holidays. We had a nice dinner with smoked ham, mac and cheese and tons of desserts.

Potluck style!

Anyways, that's about all the updates for now. Keep the project (and my sanity) in your prayers as I prepare for our first group of volunteers to come in 2 weeks. Going to be exciting!

Adios

Que vaina (at a loss for a good title)

It has been an interesting week. I have done a lot of meeting and greeting, getting to know the town and the people. I have been to some pretty remote areas and seen some pretty grotesque living conditions. I mean, absolutely deplorable. Things that make bathing in reclaimed pig urine(why do i keep going back to that?) seem hygenic.

More than anything else, I am just trying to establish relationships and foster connections and begin to network. We have a lot of ground to cover and its not super effective if I walk into a clinic and say, "blah,blah, blah, infectious disease, blah, blah, host a volunteer?", so I am meeting people that can introduce me into the community. It is quite a process. The people here are very supportive of our mission, so that's nice.

Recently, there has been an outbreak of severe diarrhea/cholera in the area heading towards Haiti. The municipal hospital here in town has been overwhelmed with people being admitted for severe dehydration with symptoms of the dreaded cholera. The fear is that it will begin to penetrate the town center, and from there to the outlying villages. Once the ball starts rolling it is hard to stop. The local medical staff here took the initiative to spend this morning going out into the most affected areas and giving them a brief class on cholera prevention techniques and also gave them clorox to disenfect water, soap to wash their hands, and rehydration salts to treat diarrhea. I was able to tag along and contribute, which was a really great experience. We must have hiked for around 3 hours to 6 or 7 different homes hidden/scattered throughout the hills. Mostly one bedroom houses that slept 7-10 people very uncomfortably. No floor, no bathroom, no kitchen. The problem is that these Haitians that live in the area do their business wherever they can pop a squat and that "business"...henceforth.....makes its way to the river that they, coincidentally  drink from, bathe, wash dishes, etc. It is a vicious cycle, and its heartbreaking to see a whole mess of filthy Haitian children with extended bellies full of parasites, malnourished.

Needless to say, it is an area we plan to focus on  and hopefully partner with the local government to build some latrines so we can reduce the number of incidents. Not even 3 days ago a child died from severe diarrhea, which is something very easily preventable.

This photo took 15 solid minutes to upload on my "dial-up" connection, so its the only one you're getting! One of the homes had easily 4 children like this running around naked with terrible skin infections and lesions . One of the local Doctors i was with wrote a few prescriptions to have filled at no cost to the families, which was a great sign of solidarity between Haitians/Dominicans.

I had the opportunity today to travel deeper into the Haitian countryside and visit a remote community called La Miel. I went with a German NGO that is doing work in reforesting Haiti. They have done a great job there making the land sustainable and implementing techniques to avoid erosion, which contaminates the main water source everyone drinks from. They are a model for sustainability, and I hope to work with them at some point during our project. I spoke with a local leader in the community about possibly bringing some work there. AIDS and Cholera are prevalent in the area. We will see how it fits in the program. I am getting overwhelmed with possibilities. I need to relax and start at least one of them, ha.

Well, i guess that about it for now. There are a few holes in my roof that I discovered after a heavy rain when my kitchen was completely soaked. I was feeling unfortunate about it......then I went to Haiti.....im good :)

Ill upload more photos later.

Llego Papa

I'm here! Not only did we decide on a site, I mover there! Big stuff happening. 

So, I arrived yesterday around 5pm. It took me 5 hours to get here in, of course, the pouring rain. Why is it always raining! Before we left, I gave Rosy a good tuning up, and by me I mean I went to a mechanic and he did it. She got new all-terrain tires, oil-changed, gears/chains tightened and greased up good to go!

I got here and my landlord and key project partner (if you will) Frank was putting the finishing touches on the house, things like water and electricity: 

I bet you're thinking, "wow, that's nicer than I imagined". You probably thought I was going to live in a shanty, half underground and eat dirt, worms and bathe myself in reclaimed pig urine.....well, me too.

Seriously, its a very comfortable 3 bedroom block structure with "constant" water and electricity every now and then. I feel very fortunate to be here. Restauracion is a very cool town. To re-iterate, Restauracion is a semi-developed town (paved streets, mostly block homes, small stores, etc) and is surrounded by 7 villages (the opposite of the town). Our work will primarily be in those villages and Haiti. I chose to live in the town because I believe I can still be an effective development worker and not have to bathe myself in reclaimed pig  urine :) . Having Rosalia with me makes getting to those villages easier.

Anyways! Today was my first full day, so I spent the morning outside reading and catching up on some work in hopes that I could meet some people as they walked by. I was reading my bible a little and praying for some encouragement (its lonely sometimes guys) and almost immediately a group of Jehovas Witnesses comes to my patio an starts chatting me up. Gods sense of humor? Super nice group of people, and not even 20 minutes after they leave another pair of Witnesses comes up and talks with me. Apparently, 25% of Restauracion are JW's, ha. Interesting tidbit for ya. It was great to meet them and boosted my confidence. 

Shortly after, the Peace Corps volunteer that lives here (yup there is one here, Garrett) came by and he showed me around the community a little bit, and we got to meet a few people he knows/has worked with, which was great! At this point in the project (first day) I am trying to feel out who the leaders are and who are the people with influence/are willing to learn and better the community. This involves a lot of small talk, which i'm not super good at, but trying hard. 

I feel like I have had a pretty productive first day in terms of meeting people and getting my life organized and ready to go. I have a lot of great leads on potential project partners and people who would be interested in volunteering for the foundation. Tomorrow I hope to take Rosy out to the villages and see what they are all about. Also, I have a Pica Pollo (fried chicken) guy now. Great chicken. 

It feels a lot like i'm doing PC all over again, but this time I know exactly how to get started instead of stumbling through the first 9 months, ha. Not to mention, I know a scoche more Spanish. I know I am still on a learning curve because this is a new community, but I'm excited to get started! 

Adios!

Drumroll please.......

After 2 and a half months traveling around the country, meeting with community members, being offered copious amounts of coffee and driving my motorcycle through torrential downpours......We have finally come to a final decision on which site we will be working in. It....is.......

So, my boss Meredith came down last Monday to travel to the top three sites I had identified; Tres Ceibas, Paradero, Restauracion. Each site is so unique and brought their own set of advantages and weaknesses.

Paradero is located on the tippy top of a mountain about 2 hours outside of Santiago. It is the most remote site among the three and the only way to get up there is take a 4-wheel drive machine an hour and a half straight up a dirt path. Nearly a thousand people live up there and are served by one poorly staffed and ill-equipped clinic. The community is very organized as a good representation came to our meeting on Tuesday and asked all kinds of questions and responded very favorably to our concerns and inquiries. Meredith fell in love with the people in this site. They are so incredibly warm and welcoming! This would be a great project!

Tres Ceibas is located on the north coast near the beach town of Rio San Juan. It is a very rural village with very limited access to water. Hardly anyone has running water in their home as they have to travel great distances to retrieve water from wells. They have no health clinic and the closest one is in Rio San Juan which is a very long 8km walk. The community represented very well with 24 community members showing up to our meeting on Wednesday! Very encouraging. Many of the members who showed up were interested in our health promoter program. Many of the homes were made of tree bark and palm leaves. Definitely among the poorest of communities that I have seen. Possibilities are endless here!

Restauracion is a border town approximately 12km from the Haitian village of Tiluri way up in the mountains. There are about 10,000 people in the village. There is a town center, which is fairly developed and 7 outlying rural villages which are about 50% Haitian. There is a municipal hospital and 4 rural clinics that serve this population, but given its proximity to Haiti and the influx of immigrants there is not enough infrastructure to support the number of people visiting the clinics. The clinics are understaffed and inadequate in quality. The hospital is basically a clinic in that it has nothing better than any of the clinics. It is a level one care center. Great site!

Which one, which one...............

We rented a small SUV to get to the sites. I thought it would be a better idea than both of us on my motorcycle for hours at a time. There were a few times I didn't know if we would make it up certain inclines, mostly in Paradero. It was nice being able to drive through the rain and not get completely soaked!

So, I will be spending the next year and a half enjoying the fresh mountain air in.............

Restauracion!

We have a winner! Restauracion offered so many opportunities to work not only with the Dominican population, but also with the marginalized undocumented Haitian communities on both sides of the border. We had a great meeting with the local government  which offered their full support of our project, but I think the moment Meredith and I both knew was when we crossed the border and it felt like we were in a different world. We saw malnourished children running up to the car banging on the window begging for food. It was very upsetting. You want to give them everything because you know if you give them whatever you have at the bottom of your left pocket will make them the richest kid in the village. Homes made of earth, and no electricity/water whatsoever. A little education would go a long way here.

We are going to work on integrating into that village as a side project. I am very excited about the opportunity. Can't wait to find a niche there and get involved in the culture. Gonna be awesome!

I move in next week!!

Haitian countryside:

More countryside...












Awesome picture of 2 kids crossing the border in Dajabon. One guy got on the others shoulders so as not to get clothes and shoes wet, haha. DR to the left, Haiti to the right:

Thats it! 

Pulling dinner out of the ground

I am finished with the second round of site visits. Some of you may be saying, " i did not realize you were doing a second round of site visits". You are now caught up.

I just got back from Restauracion (on the border) today, and I am fairly tired due to the loud rap music that permeated the night. A cockroach scurried across my neck all night and went in my mouth and pooped in my eyeball...ok that last part didnt happen, and its really gross, but I was woken to the light fleeting sensation of a cockroach on more than one occasion. I have been off visiting sites and preparing budgets for volunteer costs; lodging, food, transportation, rat poison( for the rats, not volunteers) and all that jazz. I took public transport to the 2 of the sites so I could compare the trips.......I like my motorcycle.

In between site visits I may or may not have been to the beach.....twice.....

Gotta stay motivated, right?

I don't really have much to tell you guys, but I wanted to update you on where i'm at in my life. I have a fancy new cell phone now with unlimited data so if you have a smartphone download the app Whatsapp and we can text for FREE.....UNLIMITED....WAAAAAOOOOO. My number is 829-562-9792. Hook it up brotha.

Ummmm......what else......nothing. Here are some photos of what we had for dinner last night. Its called yuka and its a root, literally:

So its a little tree and you pull it out to the roots, cut the roots ( the thick poop looking things), peel the roots, boil and eat the roots.....its actually very good with some onions and cheese. This guys just went into his field and picked some out.

Little taste of the Dominican diet for ya, Adios!

Tall brooms

Things are sssllllooooowwwwwwwww.

We have narrowed down options to our top-3 sites! Drumroll..........Restauracion, Tres Ceibas, Paradero! I know that probably means nothing to you guys, but there it is. I feel like we can't really go wrong with any of these sites, so what we have to do now is research the volunteer program costs. I will be traveling back to these 3 sites to collect data on lodging, transportation, food costs. For the most part, volunteers will have to stay with host families, so I have to go back to the villages and check out a few families recommended by the leadership in the community as well as current PC volunteers. Once we get all the costs figured out, we can analyze which project makes the most sense cost-wise since we already like the work aspect in each one. Rosalia and I will be back on the road!

I have until November 12 do to all of this. My CEO is coming on the 12th, to check out final suggestions. This means I have a month to visit 3 sites....

I am trying to learn a whole bunch of stuff on random health topics. I have a whole dropbox full of manuals and lessons that I need to look over in order to familiarize myself with the material that I will be teaching. It is hard to fill the day with that, so I am really just taking it easy for the next 30 days. I am learning a bunch of new stuff......and am really really bored.

I went to some local waterfalls with my buddy Jake (not the same waterfalls for those of you who have been here). It was really cool, we made our own trail of sorts which ended up being a tad illegal what with all the trampsing through protected land and what not. It was a really cool experience. We climbed up, down and around these sheer rock faces bare-foot, and jumped off random cliffs into deep ice-cold spring water. Of course, I caught a touch of poison ivy/oak whatever, which has since gone away, but was pretty uncomfortable all over my arms. Pretty neat falls, though:

This is in front of the falls.

Behind the falls, swimming through mystery caverns and climbing up rocks.

Also! how could I forget this? I recently became the proud owner of the worlds longest/skinniest broom. This old guy was selling them door to door, and it is clearly worth 2 cents, but I paid top dollar. Check it out:

This picture doesn't even really do it justice. On your right is a conventional broom.
It is so long and skinny, and the broom top is a haphazardly strewn together collection of pine straw. I tried to sweep my room and it all started shedding off. It is purely a show broom from this point on......

See how bored I am? Adios!

Perejil

So, my post site visit day-to-day has been a little slow. I have been reading up on health education materials to try and learn what i will be teaching in the next few months. Currently, I am 1/4 of the way through Donde No Hay Doctor (Where there is no Doctor), and I must say, i'm overwhelmed, ha!

I ended up meeting a great group of people during their stay the the HUB, whom were organizing a solidarity march towards the border of Haiti to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Perejil Massacre that took place in the Dominican Republic. Long story short, upwards of 20,000 ethnic Haitians were slaughtered with machetes and shot-guns by the Dominican military under the harsh rule of dictator Rafael Trujillo. It was an event that was covered up by the Dominican government, and news never leaked out of the island so the world was kept in the dark while one of the most heinous acts against mankind was carried out. It was never labeled a genocide, but a "systematic campaign of extermination". There was a litmus test to verify if you were Haitian or Dominican, because Dominicans can be very dark skinned as well. They had to say the word Perejil (parsley). That Haitian accent makes it very difficult to pronounce the word correctly, so it was a dead give away.
The motives of the massacre are uncertain and range from land acquisition to general hatred. Members of the  dictatorship were never prosecuted or sentenced because of some legal mumbo jumbo (love politics). Racism against dark-skinned people was very strong all over the world at this time, so its no real surprise that it did not make the headlines.

I was ignorant to this whole incident, and I have been living here for almost 3 years. Dominicans do not really know of it either. Anyways, I hitched a ride with Elaine (most incredible woman ever) her daughter Portia and a handful of study abroad students to the border to join the march (which was only like 1/4 mile). It was a very neat event: 2 simultaneous catholic masses (1 in DR, 1 in Haiti), we lit candles and marched to the border where a river separates the two countries. The river is called Rio Massacre, which means massacre river, and they say that when the killings were taking place that the river was pure blood red. There were not thousands of people, but a small group of maybe over a hundred. It was a very intimate event, very quiet, and moving. We sang hymns, people read poems they had written:

Reminds me of a quote that is on the wall here in the HUB, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. "- Margaret Mead

I remember being there last night and as the event started to wind down you could hear a voice in the dark distance. From the poorest country in the western hemisphere, a country that has seen so much strife and turmoil in even the past decade, a country marginalized by the rest of the world, came a solitary little voice over and over again, "Merci Anpil!" , which means, "Thank you so much!" in Haitian Kreyol. It brought the entire night into focus. Two small groups of Haitians and Dominicans coming together in the name of solidarity to remember the past and make sure it never happens again. Mutual respect and appreciation. My heart stopped for a second. It was very cool to be a part of this event.

Other than that, I have just been hanging out. I am enjoying the peace, because things are gonna get hot and heavy here soon once we decide on a site. I made arrangements to visit one more site, because it seemed to good to be true. I'm doing that on Monday, but after that we should be good to go.

Adios!

Rain rain go away....

When your on the road and it begins raining there is no difference with driving an inch or a mile...you are totally soaked within the second.
Anyways, as you can imagine I got caught in the rain again. These were fat rain drops too. I know you guys know what i'm talking about. There is fat rain and skinny rain. This was fat rain. I decided to stop on the side of the road this time, because....I don't really know. I stopped and took a leak in the woods, because why not right? Whilst relieving myself, I found a sizable banana leaf that I decided to use as covering for my soaked backpack. I fancied myself a young Robinson Crusoe the way I was utilizing the island for my necessities. A few Dominicans that got caught in the rain decided to stop where I was as well and use my covering. We had a typical Dominican-American conversation:
Him: Where you from?
Me: The United States
Him: oh New York
Me: Sure...
Him: Nice bike
Me: (thinking to myself: great, just go ahead and take it what am I honestly going to do about it)  Yea I really like it, its fun to drive around, but it sucks to get stuck in the rain.
Him: Better lock it up or someone will steal it.
Me: (never heard that one before) Thanks, yea I have this huge chain to lock it up wherever I go.
Him: nice
Me: cool
Now that I have you on the edge of your seats......as the rain stopped and I decided to continue on I reached for my glasses that I had put in my rain jacket pocket.......they are not there.
Now, there is no way homeboy took my glasses because he never touched me, we never shook hands, nothing. Could he have stolen them? Because I am completely confused as to how I could have lost them when they were sealed in my jacket.
Him: What are you looking for.
Me: My glasses
Him: Where are they?
Me: (blank stare) I put them in my pocket and now they are gone.
Him: They probably came out a ways down the road, because when you drive a motorcycle  lots of air can push things out of your pockets.
Me: No, I just took them off when we were standing here (as i continue to look for them)
Him: Well i have to go. Check down the road a ways. Things can fly out when you are driving.
Me: but...ok. Thanks see you later.
After that useless exchange I spent the next 30 minutes trying to figure out how they could be gone. Eventually, I find them in  random area of the woods that I was never in. Did I black out, and in my unconscious state fling my glasses into the woods in a fit of incoherent rage? I don't think I will ever understand what happened that day......but I found them, gracias a dios, and I can see!

Rosalia and I stopped off at the beach before the torrential downpour began.....

I'm sorry for having wasted your time with that ridiculous rant on how I ALMOST lost my glasses. It can get lonely here.
I was up on the north coast this week finishing up my site visits, which are now officially done! I visited two sites that are very close to the beach :) There are a lot of non-profits in this area, because it is an attractive program for volunteers. Lots of touristy things. They were both interesting sites though, and neither community had access to potable water, having to walk as long as an hour round trip with their bucket.
Needless to say , there is tons of need and I have an even harder decision to make now that I have to narrow them all down.
I will be doing paperwork all weekend and then try to get a feel for what direction i think we should go. Keep praying that i make the right choice!

 Why sit in a chair?

 Many homes made of palm bark walls and palm frond roofs....with a tin door kicker.

Anybody fancy a poop?

Mountain Biking

I spit in my helmet the other day.....

Got something stuck in my mouth and my natural reaction (like anyones) was to spit out. I did not realize i had a helmet on so i splattered off the face mask and back onto my face. It was pretty gross. Now that you have that image in your head......

I am finishing up site visits, and traveled to remote Paradero yesterday. This campo is about an hour and a half up a mountain.....all dirt and gravel. It really tested my driving ability, which turned out to still lack experience. I felt so uncomfortable that I paid a motorcycle taxi driver to drive MY motorcycle back down the mountain after the visit with me on the back until we hit pavement. I was even more scared being on the back than driving myself, ha. Made it alive, gracias a Dios. View from the top:

So, since this site is so remote the project pretty much defines itself. It has a lot of potential with the infrastructure that already exists. We are not trying to re-invent the wheel or anything. The goal is to build off of what is already there. They have a "clinic" that is very poorly run and the one doctor and zero nurses are hardly ever there. When he is there, he does not seem qualified to treat patients as many have left the clinic confused and given medicine to treat symptoms they do not have. There is a lot of Doctor turnover as the on-site doctor is really a medical student who is doing an internship, and they change out every 9 months. The instability leads to a lot of uncertainty.
There are some health pomoters, but they are undertrained. The biggest advantage Paradero has is it leadership, and its mostly women. The ladies control this town, and since the men spend most of the day in the fields, this is a good thing. They are making positive changes in the community. They are involved in micro-business, and a community bank, which is phenomenal. The initiatve is impressive and i think FIMRC would be received well here. We shall see.

I have a few more sites this week to visit, but then I am pretty much done! So,Ii need to sit down and seriously evaluate everything I have taken in over the past few weeks, and narrow it down to 3-4 solid options. Pray that I make the right decision!

More photos from Paradero,

Home sweet home!

Adios!

Pooping in the monte

Well, I managed to make it back from my whirl-wind adventure up and down the country. Rosalia and I went to the Capital then way down south to Barahona and the Haitian bateyes. It is kind of like driving from Florida to South Carolina...and then some, time wise anyway. I was able to visit a few bateyes and a village right outside of the Capital.

Rosalia and I had a few adventures. We got caught in the rain, blew out a tire, and got lost. Those 3 things pretty much happened in one day. I was on my way back from Barahona and it began to rain, so I stopped off at a gas station to wait it out. I continued on after it dissipated, but I kept running into showers so I just drove through it....slowly. I roll into the Santo Domingo area around 5 and i decide to take an alternate route, which i thought was a short cut, but in reality just turned me all around. So I am cruising through some unknown part of the Capital when the back of my bike starts wobbling. I assumed it was uneven pavement and kept going. Eventually, I started realizing what everyone on the sidewalk was screaming at me.....my rear tire was flat. Great. Everything is closed, so I am pushing Rosalia in the rain during rush hour traffic in Santo Domingo. Luckily, I found a tire repair shop just about to close. I was able to buy a part and get it replaced. I arrived at my friends house around 7pm. So, that was my day 11am-7pm on the road, blah.
Here is Rosalia half taken apart:

Other than that, I am pretty much a pro at riding now. I have ridden in every condition this country can throw at me. I was in the south Monday through Thursday so I have just been catching up on paperwork since I have been back.

The Bateyes were a very interesting situation. I spent 2 days traveling to 3 of the 9+ villages that are comprised mostly of Haitian sugarcane field workers. It is an intriguing project, because there already is a lot of aid present in the area. World Vision has set up a huge health clinic, and staffed it with specialists and nice new equipment. Not to mention, they have a child sponsorship program where you too can give a child a better future for only 20 dollars a year. Medical missions trip head over heel to offer care to this minority immigrant population. So, what would we do there?
There are ideas and realities. Medical missions have a great idea in coming down and providing free surgeries and general care to the people who can't afford medical care. World Vision has a great idea in building a clinic and providing children with sponsors for better futures. The reality is, with so many medical missions coming in the people begin to depend on them for their primary care, but what happens when they don't show? The reality is, World Vision sponsors so many kids, but after interviewing over a dozen families it seems that the children aren't receiving any aid from the sponsorship program. So, where does all that money go?
Initially, i'm sure every organization sees a problem and develops an idea that turns into a reality they may or may not have envisioned. What is mine going to be? I'd like to think we are different from everybody else, that we will have a real impact on the world. Who knows? Sustainability is such a subjective idea.

Those are my deep thoughts for the year. Here are some photos from my travels:

 Yea, that's not sanitary....he is not happy either. Thats 1/4 tired filled with questionable water. Bathtub?

 These kids loved having their photo taken.

 Does you kitchen look like this? What is what, right?

The trick is to cook your meal without burning the tire.......Haitians are creative and resourceful. I would not have thought of this.

Big river below

I took Rosalia to get her first scheduled maintenance yesterday :) " Hondas only get better with age" , says the mechanic. Vamos a ver.

I opened a bank account here too, so i'm in it for the long haul.

Today, we went to a site called Rio Grande Abajo. We as in the HUB and study abroad students from PUCMM. I tagged along so i could knock out a site visit and a service project in one day. Efficiency! The site is really cool, nestled in the mountain next to a river. Very picturesque:

Anyways, we ended up going there to help the community re-paint their elementary school. We spent most of the day doing that, and i got the opportunity to meet with some of the community leaders and discuss our project. They seem very driven and supportive of what we plan to do, and have even started construction on a clinic (unrelated to our potential presence). It is a logistical dream from a volunteer standpoint, because Puerto Plata and Santiago are each about an hour away, you can hike a nearby mountain, swim in a nearby river, or drive on over to 27 waterfalls (those of you who have been here know how cool this is). So, tons of stuff to do for volunteers that have worked their butts off all week. Not to mention, the area is in need of a well equipped medical center.
There are many other campos in the area that could use help, and that presents an opportunity for us. One of my only hangups is there is an overexposure of volunteers in the area, and I'd like an area with no real expectations of Americans.....good luck, right?
All in all a really cool site, we went to the river, hung out with some cool kids while we painted the school, and ate some good-looking street food (bet you're loving that Grandma, ha)

Tomorrow i am heading to the Capital then spending most of next week looking at sites in the south of the country. Should be a good bonding experience for me and Rosalia (Rosalia and I?). We have already logged 750km!

That's it for now, sorry this one was really boring.

Hiya!

The Art of Electrocution

I was in two countries today. That is one of the things I think is cool about this island; its 2 countries. I visited a site in Restauracion, which is 12km from the Haitian border, so when I finished with all my meetings i just drove over for a quick sec. Then I drove all the way back to Santiago which is about 175km away. Rosalia and I had a quite the adventure. The day before, I drove into the border town of Dajabon and stayed the only hotel I could find. Check this out:

Probably squinting your eyes huh? (maybe its just me that does that) What is that thing? Is it some type of artificial lung or a lawn mower battery? It is the shower head in my hotel room on the dinky border town of Dajabon. It "supposedly" "heats" your "water" as you "shower". What they really mean to say is, "This will electrocute you to death." No thanks, I choose life. You are supposed to flip that switch while your in the shower all nakey and what not. Yes, the water does drip from what looks like the male end of an electrical cord, it drips right off of that onto your body. Things you don't see everyday.....

Anyways, the site i visited was great. There is a lot of potential there to help not only the Dominicans that live in and around the town, but also the Haitians that live in and around the town. The population is about 1/3 Haitian. Most of the town is functionally illiterate, and the main source of jobs are the coffee and other cash crop fields. The leadership the town presents is outstanding, and that is not something you see everyday either. Most leadership is non-existent to weak at best in rural sites, but Restauracion has a bevy( oh yea got to use it) of leaders that are very willing and excited to work with us. It was very refreshing. They have a small hospital that only offers basic treatment, no surgeries, and they are very poorly equipped with staff and supplies. I feel like everything is in place it just needs a big shove to get going.

I met with the town mayor, hospital director, local teachers, local governmental staff and some families. It was all very positive. I have a good feeling about this one. Here are some photos:

 This is a typical Haitian home in the town. All wood and tin, warehouse style sleeping arrangements.....

 This is a cute little Haitian boy who was being treated at the hospital....

This is a special room where they treated everyone who got Cholera when it broke out last year. Hundreds of Haitians flocked to this hospital to try and nab one of these 3 beds.......

Really looks like Haiti is the theme of this blog.

Like i said, after i spent the morning here I sped down the mountain to come back to home sweet home, Santiago:

This is what my drive back looked like most of the way; curvy country roads. Now you can see what Rosalia and I see :)

Adios! gonna spend the 2 days doing all the paperwork and not dying in the shower!

Some visits

The last two days i have been on site visits. I went to two different communities; Portrero and Cuesta Arena.

Cuesta Arena: This is a little campo (rural village) about half an hour outside of Santiago. Its close but far from civilization. Close as in its only a 5km drive to the nearest school/town. Far as in there are literally (literally, we counted) 3 vehicles (motorcycles) in the entire village of 250 people, so its a 5km walk to the nearest school/town. Don't forget the dirt roads and stifling heat. Also, their only source of water has been labeled unsafe for human contact. They bathe, wash their dishes, laundry even drink this water. Obviously, this leads to chronic stomach pain, parasites, skin and vaginal infections for women. There is also a large majority of children that suffer from sickle cell anemia.
It is definitely a community with huge needs, and it is close enough to a big city that volunteers could stay comfortably and commute to work. The leadership in the town consists of a man named Guillermo and his brothers. They have no real formal education, and most people don't know how to read or write in this village, but the brothers are well respected.
Here are some photos of Cuesta Arena:

Portrero: This was an interesting community. Not that they all aren't, but it is very unique. Rosalia and I drove to Guatapanal, which is the closest town to Portrero and about an hour and a half outside of Santiago. Once we got there, out contact took us to to Portrero in her jeep over 12km of rocky dirt. This place is in smack dab (who came up with the term smack dab? what does that even mean?) in the middle of nowhere. Fabian came with and we kept commenting as to how desolate and remote this place was, even compared to Bateyes. There is nothing for miles, then you come up on these sparsely spread out houses; one eveyr quarter mile or so. There are no general stores. They drink straight from the river because they do not sell bottled water. Their main source of jobs? Working in the fields harvesting this weird plant that they sell as raw material to make.....lasos....like rope....Thats it. That is life in a nutshell for these people. There is a basic school that goes up to grade 5, but it was only built 3 years ago. Many of the families we visited had no formal education at all. One of the questions i ask is, up until which grade did you study? They would just shake their heads and bare a shy smile.
The Ministry of Health did build a clinic, but they forget to staff it or put any materials in it. So, it is an abandoned building. It is a very nice structure, and it would be perfect for us as we could just move right in instead of having to build something from scratch. We shall see how things turn out.
Here are some photos of Portrero:

The top photo are the kids coming back from school. 3 or 4 kids on the horse with backpacks hanging from feet. Dominicans are so creative :) The bottom picture is the most populated area of the village.

Well that's about all i got. Its tough to visit these sites and know i can only pick one out of a dozen or so. It is really cool to see these places and meet the people that live here. I feel very blessed. Now i have to do all the paperwork for these visits...goodbye Friday.

Adios!