Cerro de Chivas So Full of Need

Cerro de Chivas So Full of Need

Ingenuity at its best--an oil bottle and some plastic caps makes a great toy car.

   We started our day heading out toward Elias Piña.  We stopped at the Solid Rock school in Elias Piña so that some of the people who have sponsored students at the school could meet the students.  Deb Gallagher is meeting her new student in the picture below.  We brought the students some basic school supplies and got to spend about 15 minutes with them .

Deb Gallagher, Education professor, with her sponsored student at the Solid Rock school in Elias Piña.

     The barrio clinic we did today was in a community near the town of Elias Piña, a very impoverished city on the border of the DR and Haiti.  The people in this community have very little resources, and many of the people we saw today were severely malnourished and sick.  This community is named Cerro de Chiva (which translates to Goat Hill).  There are a number of Haitian immigrants who live in this community, and the poverty is more severe than any of the other places we visited this week.  The community has no running water ever.  They get water by walking down to the bottom of the hill and hauling it back up.  They never know for sure which side of the hill will have water, so if they hike to the bottom of one side and find that side has no running water on that day, then they have to go to the other side and see if they can find water.   The community has no school.  Children walk over two miles each way into Elias Piña in order to go to school--if they are old enough to walk that far and if they attend school.

Emanuel, the Solid Rock pastor, greeting the people at the barrio clinic

People were already lined up and waiting for us when we arrived to set up.  You can see a house to the left that is white board.  There are 18 people who live in that house.  The matriarch of the house has 11 children and is pregnant with a twelfth.  Birth control is a complicated topic here for religious and social reasons, not to mention educational issues that impact what goes on.  She is in the photo below with some of her children.  For many of us Americans, we shake our heads and simply think, "why don't they do something about that?"  And the real answer is that "doing something" is not nearly so simply.  Education, or lack thereof, access to facilities or resources to obtain birth control, religious norms, and cultural norms all create a situation that makes effective family planning exceptionally difficult.

The mother on the left and some of her 11 children.  She is expecting in the next couple of months.

The people who came through this clinic were sicker than we had seen in the other clinics this week.  There is a great deal of high blood pressure here in the Dominican Republic, and many people had bacterial or fungal infections.  We treated everyone for parasites since most of these people had not had parasite treatment of over a year.  We had one mother bring in a baby who was six months old.  The child weighed a pound less at six months than when it was born.  Such sadness.  The doctors told the mother that she needed to get the child to a clinic immediately so that the child didn't die.

This Dominican child has a red string bracelet tied around his wrist.  The Dominicans believe that the red string helps to ward off bad luck and evil spirits and helps to protect the child.

Cara Schroeder, ONU alum who graduated just a couple of weeks ago, and I with a gorgeous view of the valley out behind the community building where we held the clinic.

   The day was certainly a rewarding one.  It was hot and dusty.  I spent most of the day talking with the kids about brushing their teeth and washing their hands while handing out first aid kits, toothpaste, toothbrushes, and some hand sanitizer to people.  We talk about hand washing, and it all seems kind of pointless when the nearest water has to be hauled up from buckets from the bottom of the hill.  Nonetheless, we keep trying to share healthy behaviors and keep trying to teach.

The welcome sign from the community

The community had put up a sign to welcome us.  All they had was a yellow crayon, so it was difficult to read, but the sign, translated, says:  Welcome dear visitors.  Thank you for your support as a grain of sand among all of this sickness.  From Barrio Brisa del Sur, we thank you for your presence at this medical clinic.  Thank you.

A sign like this clearly comes from the heart.  Someone had to find paper (not an easy task) and locate the crayon to put up the small banner.  This community went out of its way to make us feel welcomed and appreciated.  What a humbling experience.

Handing out toothbrushes and toothpaste to kids in the barrio and explaining toothbrushing

This was another great day out with the people in the DR.  Tonight the students will begin to pack up their things to head back, we will reflect on the week we have had, and we will begin to look to the next trips ahead.  And we will thank God for all the good that exists, even among the bad.