27 Charcos

So my birthday went well. Unfortunately there are no pictures of the 27 charcos because we left our cameras at the insistance of the guides so they wouldn't get ruined or wet and they told us we could buy a disposable water proof one at the visiter center. We got there and they were out of cameras, so we have no pictures. But, it was a BLAST. If any of you come down here and are into hiking, beauty, and a little adventure, this is what you should do. http://www.27charcos.com/index.php

I got to see two more volunteer's places, so that was nice. It's always nice to see how you live compared to other volunteers.

Apparently our ambulance made it to my site on Saturday while I was here, so at least now we have one. The sad news is that it is supposedly covered with pictures of our Senator who took all the credit for the project.

I am now sticking it out in the capital because there is a transportation strike between here and my site, so I am just hanging out here until it clears up tomorrow. What a pain.

Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes. If you sent me any packages, the mail is backed up so I am not getting anything right now. Hopefully in a couple weeks!

Happy Birthday to Me!

It seems to be official that we are never going to get internet again in my site, so blogs and e-mail answers will be relegated to when I am in the capital.

I am passing through the capital today to go to the 27 charcos (a “charco” is the small pool at the bottom of a waterfall). It is a national park that Peace Corps helped developed and there is currently a volunteer working there. You go and you can get a guide to take you up and jump off the waterfalls. It’s really one stream with a 27 different drop offs in succession. I plan on doing all of them on the 27^th, my birthday! I have some other volunteer friends coming up there and we are staying at the houses of a couple volunteers that live near there.

When I get back to my site my friend, Chulino, told me he was going to show me a Dominican birthday tradition. I asked around and found out what he was planning. The tradition is to through water, eggs, and flour on the person for their birthday. So, on the 28^th, I will be covered in water, eggs, and flour in celebration of me turning 23. Chulino’s birthday is on August 5^th, so I will at least be able to get him back in a couple weeks.

Last week I went to the hospital to set up the cardiac monitor which wasn’t set up because we didn’t have a table to put it on. When I got there and went into the room where it was being stored I realized there were boxes of needles and other supplies that they need and claim they don’t have. They were supplies Mom sent down, so they were “saving” them for when they really needed them. Then, I realized that the doctor I gave the much needed fetal Doppler to had not informed the other doctors that they had it, so between those things, the work at the hospital is still a priority even though we’ve had a huge amount of progress. The ambulance should be arriving on August 2^nd and we worked it out with another government organization (that has nothing to do with health) to pay for the gas and driver when we needed to use it.

A couple of my projects (the computer center and the homework center) were put on hold until next month because the mayor’s office (the people helping me with these projects) decided to wait to start them until they’ve finished their new building. I think this is a good thing, the new building is huge (and quite frankly a waste of money), but at least I get to put it to good use. We are also going to put a library in the building, so I will start searching for places to donate money or books. The community used to have a library but it was washed out in Hurricane Noel. The building was fixed up but donated to a family who lost their home. They managed to salvage some of the books, but not very many, certainly not enough to have a library.

The stove project is coming along. I’ve finally got my project partners to realize there is a finite amount of money and I can’t just give everyone of a free stove. Now, breaking that news to the people will be a pain and a lot of people will probably think I’m just a horrible person, but in I can deal with that as long as I know I’m doing the right thing. It still amazes me how some people understand completely when I tell them about how I can’t give them a free stove and might not be able to help them at all because there are so many people and others yell at me for being a greedy, rich American who doesn’t realize how poor he or she really is (I mean, do they think I’m keeping the money for myself?). A man here has decided he wants to make the making of these stoves a business so Claire and I are setting him on the right path. I’m not sure he’ll have enough clients to make a lot of money (the stoves are expensive, that’s why volunteers do them, they can find money to lower the costs), but he assured us he does. This might actually make my job easier because if he knows how to do the stoves well before I get the money to do the project, I can just hire him and save money training a new person.

There was a big rain storm that came through this last week. In one night it turned the stream behind my house into a raging river. The repairs to my tin roof didn’t hold and I woke up to dream where I was swimming in a river and freezing, in reality my bed was soaked and my floor was a lake. I had to move everything out of my bedroom and my mattress is still not dry. My house is positioned so I will never have major structural damage from the rain, but on the other side of the stream from my house there were some people who went to sleep with a backyard and woke up without one. The basketball court that the mayor started rebuilding was completely washed away as well. I’m now working rapidly to fix my roof before we get a real hurricane and I have to turn my bed into a boat.

Video Link

Hopefully this works for everyone!

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=617837297580&ref=mf

If it doesn't, and you don't have facebook (you can find it on my profile if you do), then find someone who does!

Poop Stories

The back of the truck going 3 hours on a bad road to the Bay. There are 20 of us!
Another volunteer, Jesse, and I looking out over the ocean. This is the view from our hostel.
One view of the bay.
Second view of the bay.

In Peace Corps, poop is a big deal. Whether you are pooping too much or not enough, it's usually an issue being discussed. After the 4th of July, which was AMAZING, I went to Batey 6. Batey's were created to house the Haitian migrants working in the sugar cane harvest. Now, they are permanent residents for the Haitians that work on the sugar cane harvest and then don't leave because, well, Haiti doesn't have any opportunities either. Needless to say, this place is POOR. Hardly anyone has a bathroom or latrine. They bathe in the river, which is gross, and use the sugar cane fields to go the bathroom. My volunteer friend that lives there uses the NGO office she works with to go to the bathroom and bathes on her cement floor. This morning, however, before I left to go home, I had to use the bathroom. It was 6AM and the office wasn't open and most people were sleeping. The bus was 4 hours, so I decided to have the Batey experience and use the sugar cane fields. It was...interesting. You never realize how incredibly good you have it until you have to use a field to go to the bathroom, and that's just normal for the people that live there.

The other bad thing about the Bateys is they are dry and deforested. That means, there are dust storms really bad. In the states it wouldn't matter so much because your houses can easily be shut, but here that is not possible. You get dust EVERYWHERE. In your teeth, in your cup of water while you're drinking it, everywhere. It was such a change from my mostly wet community where we have dust, just not to the point where it could be considered a health hazard.

Back up to my site today, no internet until I come down for my birthday on the 26th. Hope you're all doing well!

My Video Didn't Work.

I made a little video on the hospital. It was taking too long to load so I left it for now. What we really need are: Nurses, medicines, and replacements for the disposable items like gloves. The problem is that our liaison between here and the regional office sucks. So, I am going to do an analysis of the hospital’s daily needs and record how much it can’t meet them because we don’t have the correct medicines or supplies (because the regional office sends us the wrong stuff) and then bring it to the regional office myself because, seriously, who ever heard of a hospital without gloves? We did get a ambulance that should be arriving on the 2nd of August and we got a different government agency (a coffee and agriculture association, not a health association) to agree to pay for the gas and driver when someone needs to be taken in. That will be an amazing thing to have because right now people have to wait up to an hour to be taken to a hospital with the equipment to help a serious emergency (think blood transfusions, head injuries), and then it will cost the patient about 2,000 pesos (the average family makes about 5,000/month), so it's clearly not affordable.

The stove project is going along but I did put my foot down about what kind of people I would find funding for. I thought it was a little selfish that the people with gas stoves and the money to buy one of these other stoves (which, they probably won’t even use) still want me to find money for them. I get so sick of hearing how “poor” someone is. I understand they are poor, but that is such a relative word and compared to their neighbors, these people are rich. I explained to my project partners that there was a finite amount of funding and I wasn’t going to take it from someone else who really needed it to give it to someone who doesn’t. They didn’t seem too pleased, but frankly I don’t care. It’s not that I don’t want to help these people; it’s just that there are other people that need more help. I can tell that this project is going to make me some enemies and be a huge pain; I just hope it really helps someone and it’s worth it.

For the 4^th of July I am going to the very southern part of the country toward the Haitian border. Some friends and I are going to Bahía de las Aguilas (Bay of Eagles) to enjoy a gorgeous, undeveloped, protected beach. It also happens to be sea turtle birthing season, so hopefully I get to see some of those little guys hatch and swim to sea. Happy Independence Day!