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