Day 5, no water in sight.

Its day 5 of no water-gate and panic has set in. Looters have taken to the local shops, people are jumping off bridges, the whole town is engulfed in a putrid smelling light brownish cloudy haze. People are being driven crazy from dysentery and the rivers have become blood red.....

Just kidding! The aqueduct IS still broken, but everything is fine. The worst thing I heard the whole week was that there is a dead rotting dog carcass lying in the river upstream that no one want to take out. It may be contaminating our primary water source for those of us downstream, but what are the odds, right? The gossip chain is so erratic in this town. One person will say the water is almost fixed, another will say its still broken, another will say it never broke, and yet a fourth person will say this cheese is under-cooked, and just send it right back to the kitchen. As you can tell its hard to get a good gauge on the situation.

Other than that, things are pretty quiet around here. I have ALMOST everything planned out for the volunteers coming in March. In brief their itinerary will look something like this: House-to-house health census, clinic observation, healthcare-focused murals in local clinics/schools, and preventative health based presentations in the local schools.  Here's to hoping it all works out!

I am adding some glamour shots I took of Rosalia....enjoy :)

                                   Classy gal.

                                Not a bad view from up here. (P.S. Still waiting for visitors)

                                          Kissed by the sun.

                                         Yes, that's it!

Do you have enough water?

This morning I awoke to the sounds of dozens of chickens being slaughtered right across the street from me. Always pleasant. I headed to the bathroom to realize the water did not come back since it had gone yesterday. My "input" looked back at me as I made another deposit to the porcelain bank. I pulled out my cow-skin chair to the porch as i usually do to warm up with the first rays of sunshine the day would bring. I took a long pull of my pear juice and nibbled on some crackers as my friends Victor and Randy pulled up to my house. The first word out of Victors mouth was, "Do you have enough water". I tell him my reserve tank of water is almost empty. I know what is about to follow but i try to go back to the moments before those chickens were slaughtered, when i was sound asleep in my bed, dreaming optimistically that the water would come back today. Victor breaks the silence, "The tubing from the aqueduct broke, its going to take them at least a week to fix it". My mind immediately goes to those things that will be affected by zero water over the next 7 days: my mountain of laundry will be selectively re-used, looks like i'm just gonna throw out dishes as i use them, i really should flush the toilet, everyone is going to go to the river to bathe and contaminate the primary water source and we are gonna have an outbreak of some disease.
As everyone in the town begins to panic I think about the people who have never had running water at any point in their lives. Many live right outside of town.....jokes on us. Apparently, the aqueduct breaks at least once a year. At least it happened now and not when the volunteers are here.

Anyways, business as usual here. Still doing health census stuff. The end is in sight, though. We had another great census training and we sent out a few great ladies from the community of Cruz de Cabrera to census their community. We have 2 communities left, Valle Nuevo and Los Cerezos. Slow and steady, right?

Willi update: Doctor Ricardo (above, far left) and I went to visit Willi yesterday. Ricardo works at the Municipal Hospital here in town and pretty much echoed what I already knew; that he needs specialized attention. He is a great guy who does a lot of work in the community, and is more or less my project partner. Willi is 3 years old and weighs 18 pounds, which is level 2 malnutrition. Apart from that he has an apparent mental disorder and he will slam his head against the wall repeatedly until someone takes him away. He also cannot speak. We showed up and he had a huge welt on his forehead and scratches all on his cheeks and ears. He can't chew food, only swallow. So, food needs to be almost liquid for him. We are looking for a Peds specialist in Santiago, but it has been difficult. On top of all that his mom died after giving birth so he was orphaned. Whew, right? Tough to find the silver lining in that. Ricardo says getting him back to a decent nutrition level is very possible, but the brain damage is likely irreversible. He has a tough little road ahead of him.

Switching gears, after we visited with Willi, Ricardo and I walked back to my motorcycle only to find that the back tire was flat. We are 6km from the main road at this point. It was starting to get late so we pushed it about 3km before we got lucky and found someone who can actually repair the tire. Made it back home right as the sun was setting.

I am planning like crazy for the 3 volunteer groups coming in march. It is going to be insane. I don't really wanna talk about it.....

I will leave you with one more image of my life here. The other day i was sitting n the living room when i heard the sound of dirt or something falling from the ceiling in my kitchen. I am thinking you have got to be kidding me. They just put a brand new roof on the house and now its leaking dirt? I go to the kitchen and point my flashlight to the area where the tin meets the cement and I see two lizards vigorously expressing their love to one another. Every time they move a cascade of pebbles and dirt falls. I'm looking at them and I begin to wonder how they can hold themselves up there. As if on cue they both fall, hurdling towards my food. In slow motion both lizards fall on top of my food and scurry away to resume their carnal activity. Booya.