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.