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!