"28"

Life isn’t what I thought what it would be at 28. I don’t have a family or a home of my own... things that I once thought I might be living out in today. 

But on my birthday, I am reminded that my life is so very, very full... full of people, full of love, full of sharedness of life. I am full of family – wherever I may be, friends that live life together in that present moment as family; mothers, fathers, grandmas and grandpas that have adopted me as their own; and many, many children who have weaseled their way with their sweet smiles into my heart, running jumping into my arms each day for hugs and clinging on with arms around my neck til my own arms can hold them no longer.

I love this little girl, Santica. She doesn’t have a mama that is present in her life.. but she is so, so dearly loved.

Santica, Mifa, Ismae, Samuel. Mifa and Ismae are sisters... their family came from Haiti and have become a part of this community.

Gosh these kids melt your heart quick!

I shared this birthday with yet another UNION team, a perfectly awesome, perfectly family one, in the “middle of nowhere”, Dominican Republic. Middle of a beautiful village a long bumpy ride up into the mountains where these little souls live. “Middle of here” where life slows down enough to actually live it, to sip a mug of hot chocolate in the cool morning dawn, to sit around telling stories and shelling beans, to pick rocks in the mountainside, to swim in rivers, to feed goats, to scrape out a coconut to make a pot of coconut cornbread over open fire, to end every night with hoots and hollers of kids and the scrambling of little feet playing stella-stella-ola, London Bridge is falling down, or never-ending dance parties, until finally we brush our teeth in the dark each clutching a water bottle under the stars. To share life, and laugh and laugh and celebrate together the beauty of it.

I found myself bundled up the last few weeks under a few sheets and a bug net on a pokey wire bunk bed, surrounded by 9 recent strangers, the bulk of my possessions in a backpack on the floor... so routine now it’s become part of life as usual. Sometimes I feel a little homeless, living in spits and spurts, different set of people in each place. But every morning, as we hopped in the back of a pick up truck to make our way up a steep and rocky mountain road (to pick axe, dig, and sweat together with the community in building a 20km irrigation system through the mountainside that will transform the dry land to do what it was meant to do – to produce and give life in abundance)...

 

 and I found myself surrounded by the beauty of “here” painted with the golden glimmer sunshine off a thousand shades of green, together with people I quickly grew to love...

...  in those moments on the dusty and rocky roads less traveled, I realize I am full of home. It is more than comfortable. This is so my place in the world, and I love every ounce of it. My life... many “lives” sometimes it seems... is so full of home.

When you’re in a place that feels like home, you kinda forget to take photos of the “ordinary-ness” of it... and this community of La China in particular felt like home so immediately. So.... it turns out I’ve missed taking pictures of almost everything that was part of my day to day and the people I shared it with. :(  But I’ll get pictures from the other 9 cameras with us that froze some of those glimpses of home. :)

Anyways..... 28. Along the way the first week, someone leaked that it was my birthday the next, and the whole community came together, a week in planning, with all secrecy and shushed giggly enthusiasm, to surprise and love on me. From the littlest to the oldest 83 year old member of the community, everyone was in on it. The community somehow managed to convey to the team without me that they were to go to town and bring back a cake without letting me know. The team realized that that would be very much impossible without me/Spanish, so I got a cake for us, pretended that I hadn’t smuggled it in, and practiced my surprise face. :)

That day, I probably spent about 5 hours outside the church where we’d made our home, visiting with our neighbours, having cookies, rice, and beans with them while talking about life and families, all while my team “prepared” and women and children in the community rushed around giggling and shooing me away from our door.

When it was all said and done, it was like Christmas in our home, as much as creativity in a rural village would allow. Toilet paper streamers, pine tree branches in the window slits, a banner that all the kids in the village made together with paper and felt pens... and, best of all, a "disco ball" for the dance party, made from flashing headlamps inside an empty gaterade tin punched with holes.

I walked in to a round of Happy Birthday in English and Spanish and was swarmed with hugs and felicidades (congratulations) from each and every one of the community once I got inside. After hearing our birthday song, one guy even wished me a happy birthday again in English with his hug. Unfortunately it came out as “Happy Baby For You”, which I couldn’t help laughing out loud at, but it was very sweet.

So were ALL the bundles of cards and letters the team and community wrote me! :)

Even if I knew what was coming, somewhat, it was still pretty beyond amazing. Sometimes I think we get little glimpses of heaven on earth, when lives and worlds collide, beauty from ashes, wealth in poverty, and I am blessed to share in some of these holy moments. 

Dominican Take 2!

I'm off to the Dominican Republic again! This time with a team of 9 other Vancouverites excited to be a part of life in the rural Dominican. 6 ER nurses from Surrey Memorial Hospital, a nurse's cousin, and two friends of my own. It'll be good! :)

The likelihood of actually being able to blog at all down there is slim to none... but I like to pretend at least that I tried. :) And maybe I'll have some stories to share when I get back. Though the stories of last year never did get shared. :S

But... even better than my splattering of photos and stories, a film crew is actually in the Dominican Republic right now in the community where we'll be staying for the next couple weeks! They're making a beautiful, inspiring film about the communities there making their way out of poverty for this year's dinner & film gala. I really wanted to send out invites this weekend before I left but found myself scrambling and out of time as per usual. :S  I'll send real & personal invitations when I get back in a couple weeks, but just in case you want to mark your calendar, it's the last Saturday of April (27th) this year. Sorry such a very lame way to let you know about it for now! :S

Hasta la proxima!

xoxo
Rainbow

At the town hospital last year, part of evaluating our healthcare program of donating much-needed medicines and medical supplies. I'll be visiting with some doctors and nurses and patients again to see how things are going...

Most of my time this year will be spent in the mountains with the team living in a rural village, working alongside the community to build an gravity-fed water system to bring water from the mountains into the village for drinking and irrigation. And living in a community means we won't just be passerby'ers like I was last year just taking pictures of landscapes!

But beautiful, no? :)

Humble beginnings

Humble beginnings, because there's much in this little province on the little Caribbean island that the Dominican Republic is on, that I'll never quite capture in few words... and also because I don't have quite the time I need to even share what few things I can! I’m actually now writing from Quiche (read: “kee-CHAY”, not french egg pies :) ), the town where our work in Guatemala is based. :)  I absolutely LOVE this country! :) :) :) After a lovely but WAYYYYY too short :( 2-day visit to San Pedro La Leguna where I learned my Spanish about 2.5 years ago, I’m here in Quiche ready to start a couple days of talking with our staff here and visiting a couple communities/project (clean water supply, emergency relief). 

I’m a little afraid my time here over the next couple days is going to take over my headspace with Guatemalan projects before I finish writing all the reports for the Dominican Republic that I never got to finish (my last night there which I had designated Report-Writing-Time ended up being Biggest-Annual-Holiday-in-Ocoa-So-Everyone-Including-Me-Needs-To-Party-Til-2am Time.  :)  So needless to say, very little report writing happened. :) But I guess (or decided as much!) that’s part of work too, and Meringue with colleagues (easily double my age!) & their families in the town square, is indeed part of relationship building when it comes to the Dominican Republic! 

Everyone told me, next time you come – less work, more play! :) Haha. We’ll see. I love play. But I ALSO love my work. So I left the DR on a pretty darn good note, even with a mountain of notes and thoughts to compile into formal reporting. :)

But you know what’s even more fun than reports? BLOGS! :) Haha. Nooo that’s not true. I do love report writing too. But ANYWAYS. Blog. Here we are. :) Just a note or two for fun – I’m sure there will be more later. Soooo much I could share -- were to start? Hmmmmm......

How bout this photo :) 

ADESJO (“Association for the Development of San Jose de Ocoa”), HOPE's implementing partner in the Dominican Republic. Being a newbie staff (after 2 years, many things still feel new!), I still get kicks out of pictures in front of our country offices. :) 

ADESJO is nothing short of amazing. They work intensively and “integrally” with all 83 villages in the province of Ocoa, working alongside communities in sustainable agriculture, soil conservation, reforestation, education, health, and everything in between, empowering them to carry out the development of their own communities.

From here, we could verge many places. :) Behind me is a metal gate. Behind the gate is....

Boxes and boxes and then more boxes of: medicines, medical supplies, and medical equipment. Here’s Chicho on the left, and Dr. Maximo Briseño – medical doctor and the director of ADESJO. Both are actually really cheerful and smiley in person, but this was the very beginning of Day 1, and I guess they had their professional face on. :)

ADESJO works closely with the Ministry of Public Health in delivering primary health care and health programs in general. HOPE procures (ie, gets, from donating institutions) medicines and medical supplies and sends these to ADESJO in the Dominican Republic, as well as a number of other countries. Millions of dollars worth. And as I saw, facilitating millions of miracles in these rural communities that are otherwise working with rather empty shelves. 

I visited a number of hospitals and rural clinics. They do get some medicines & supplies from the Ministry of Public Health, but definitely not enough, and not covering the range of illnesses that they frequently need to treat..... When supplies run out or simply don’t exist, patients in these poor communities can only be sent on their way with nothing more than a prescription scrawled on a sheet of paper, and empty pockets with which to (not) fill them. Where treatment might make the difference between life and death (eg, surgical equipment or even “just” needles or clean gauze, antibiotics for infections, meds for hypertension, malaria)... these donations facilitate nothing less than miracles for the people who live in these communities. 

If I get better internet, I’ll upload a video I took of this doctor at a rural hospital telling a couple stories of patients that he was able to treat as a direct result of having access to critically needed medicines – a lady with severe respiratory illness, and another that had an accident. 

Clinic after clinic, all around the province, I heard the many but the same story --- these medicines save lives.

 

My key purpose in all these visits was to get a better sense of what is being used, what is most useful and what is most needed, so we can best take advantage of donations to meet needs. I heard time and again, that a huge problem in the province of Ocoa is diabetes and hypertension. Unfortunately... I wasn’t surprised.

Not to make light, but we were always served little tea-party-play-set sized cups of tea, and there was probably 12 spoonfuls MORE sugar dissolved into that little cup of tea than should be chemically possible! Yikes - somewhat also unfortunately, I "had to" politely accept one with almost every meeting I had -- I've definitely had my sugar intake that I need for the month.. or season.. at least! Yet, that's not to point fingers at Dominicans and say they "should change their ways" and not rely on donations of insulin for treatment, though that definitely even crossed my mind at first reaction. Yes, stepping up preventative education and resources alongside the Ministry of Public Health and Ministry of Education might be important, but it’s not just a lack of knowledge and a careless diet. Diabetes is skyrocketing in North America too, and one might notice that it is most often lower-economically resourced communities and populations that struggle most.

Hmmm. Ramble. I won’t make any more short and sweeping statements. :) But definitely at least, health is tied so closely to integral (holistic, not elementary :)) development that enables communities to have opportunities and resources to care well for their health. To really "be well". And treatment, prevention, and everything in between and around, there's need for support from all sides. And maybe some miracles. :) We'll hopefully be able to be a part of that even more and better this year.

I was going to write a little more about this, but the director of the local organization here in Guatemala gave me an 80 page report on the way out today before I finished writing up this post, that I'm going to try to read before tomorrow... and my day starts at 7am tomorrow :P... so my mind's not quite here anymore! :)  

In any case, they were good visits, and it was encouraging to hear many affirming stories of real lives being impacted by these donations that, from Canada, looks like endless lists and lists of antibiotics and medicines, etc. (I am thankful not to be responsible for this -- sorry Michelle!). Though in my visits, I also had a sky high learning curve very quickly, learning names of illnesses & pharmaceuticals for treatment, in Spanish. :)  (I smile now.) :) 

Some pictures.  :)

One of the rural clinics constructed by ADESJO (likely with HOPE's funding?)

Visiting with a doctor and patient

Me in front of the main hospital in town. I was with Dr. Briseño and he thought it fit that I wear his stethoscope for a picture instead of a picture of the building by its lonesome.

 

Many more photos and stories to tell that are more landscape-y picturesque as well. We’ll see what happens. I’m actually staying in a little room on the gated compound of our local partner’s office here in Guatemala, so it’s nice and close [and safe – best not to be out alone at night here, I’ve been told], and it’s a little more culturally mellow here so no one’s knocking on my door for a dance party anywhere:). AND I have access to internet here without needing to wander into town to find an internet cafe. (The director actually just gave me his keys on the way out today and told me to feel free to use his office! I’d known him for all of about 6 hours. That... does not happen at home. Lol.) Not sure what the next couple days will look like, but we’ll see! :)

Hasta la proxima! :)

"Bees" :)

A follow up from the end of my last post. :)

 Bees! And the women who are keeping them. :)

The women work collectively - they share in the labour, share in the care, share in the "harvest" of honey (for health - they know how good honey is for you, all the nutrition and medical benefits/treatments, probably more than most of us! AND for selling rather profitably at the market, where there's always a demand and honey always gets a good price!) , and share in the joy of working together to make new roads forward for their community. 

I met with one lady who is part of this project & had a good chat - just off-hand since I wasn't doing any formal monitoring/evaluation of the bee project. 

The lovely, lively Julia

Her name is Julia. She is, I don’t know, maybe 60 years old? And the liveliest animated little lady you would meet. I was actually just having lunch with Chicho, one of the staff, in a local eatery and she happened to be in “town” (she lives up in one of the communities in the mountains) and she came scooting over to greet Chicho and pulled up a chair and sat down and started telling me all about the bee project, grabbing a napkin to demonstrate how to take the bee hive square thing (I believe she used a more technical term in Spanish :P) out of the box and extract the honey, and dip in (wax – I think) if it needed re-laminating. Ugh, I totally wanted to whip out my camera and take a photo or a video while she was waving her napkin around!! (But didnt want to interrupt or take away from the spontaneity of the moment). She is a member of the women’s association in her community & one of the leaders of the “community council”. And just so proud of her community, and with so much "fuerza" ("strength", but the kind with some real ooomphf behind it!!) . And so happy to talk to me – she kept saying, "before, I never spoke my voice or talked to people I didn’t know!!" It was so refreshing to hear her enthusiasm. One day, they’ll invent something where you can take photos/videos with your eyes! :)  And when that happens, I'll have even more to share with you!

Annnnnnd for the record, I DID find sheep!!! 

Not many, but I found these ones! :) (or, they could be goats.. but the one in front looked rather fluffy). They were down in the lowlands, a bit between mountains. So what do you know, maybe we COULD have a sheep project after all! :)

Speaking “Dominican”

Thoughts on language learning .. again! :)

Scrawled from yesterday, Day 1: My mind’s been spinning since daybreak!  I’d missed a connecting flight in New York, so my trip ended up being up being more than a 24 hour journey that started with a red eye flight from Seattle that I didn’t really sleep on... after getting re-routed through Miami, I finally I got into Ocoa, the province in the DR where we work,  at 1:30am ... and was “off to work” by 8:30 am that next morning for a meeting with all the Heads of Department of our partner, ADESJO... by the time the whirlwind of introductions finished, and I was still processing the last 10 minutes of what was being said, everyone had turned expectantly looking at me -- and I was drawing blanks.  Luckily, Chicho, the Head of the Education Department who had picked me up from the airport the night before and I’d been able to chat with for the couple hour drive into Ocoa while in a better (running on no-sleep adrenaline, and one-on-one) headspace, saved me by introducing me until I got my head back together.

But no WONDER i have such a hard time understanding them on the phone!! I usually make calls to our partners from our office when there’s a need cuz I can speak Spanish, which I’m always happy to do, as it’s a joy to be able to put it to use. :)  But no WONDER I struggle to talk to them on the phone, I can barely understand them in person!! It’s such a different accent here than the Spanish I’d learned in CR/Guatemala – if I were to put a totally Rainbow-centric label on it, I’d call it mumbly and slurred... almost like they have a suuuuthern drawwwwl to their accent or something!  When I’ve talked to a couple staff on the phone before, I thought that particular staff just wasn’t enunciating very clearly... but then... turns out EVERYONE speaks like that here – I’M just the oddball out that can’t understand! I say I’d catch 80% of what they are saying when I am listening hard...  hopefully the important 80%! I almost feel like I’m re-learning the language to figure out what they are saying. My mind was working overtime, trying to catch everything I needed to know about projects, while half trying to figure out what was different  about their accent so I could better catch what I was missing – I got, maybe it’s coming from a little further back in their tongue/throat so their articulation of consonants is a less pronounced... it was like they were dropping S’s and sometimes t’s and d’s off the ends of their words, and sometimes off the syllables in between, and the R’s a bit more of a thick L, than a typical (to me) Spanish rrrr. But all that, and the fact they ACTUALLY talk faster than ME (in English, when I’m excited -- aren’t drawls supposed to slow you down? :P), means that they were pretty much incomprehensible on 6 hours of sleep in 2 days when I wasn’t paying 110% attention!  I gave up trying to be part of the lively conversation when we were having lunch... better save my fading energies for projects!

At one point, at the end of the day, in a group interview with a women’s association (a group of women who get together and work together for the improvement of their community), I was dancing around gender issues, and whether there any social issues that have come as part of organizing of, or participating in, such a women’s group, and everyone was talking at once, and the conversation eventually seemed to diverge away from how the women’s group and the men’s group interact, towards <<????>>,  and then towards  the fruit tree reforestation project, aguacates (avocados) in particular.. and JUSSST when I thought I’d gotten back on track with the avocados, they were like, YES, that’s the problem!! (yes, yes, murmur of agreement). Say WHAT’S the problem?! The avocados????!  Aiy! I’m using my camera as a voice recorder tomorrow!

Avocados :)

Nothing yet about the projects here – I’ll sum up with some photos tomorrow! :)                                           

*  *  *  *

And... from today :)

Ok, still no actual project photos & stories yet – I need to work on compiling those:)  But just a funny story for now, along the same line of tripping over language. :)

I’ve been visiting various projects that HOPE has funded, in particular, reporting on a medicines/medical supplies donation program, a reforestration program, an innovative greenhouse agriculture program, and a latrine & sanitation project. There’s a lot more going on, but those were the key ones... but over the last 2 days, they kept talking about the “sheep project” too, every now and then, which I was a little confused about – I hadn’t realized we were funding sheep programs, but hey, it more often than not surprises me what we are a part of that I don’t know being still a HOPE staff for just 2 years in a partnership that has been ongoing for over 20 years!  Anyhow, I just kept thinking, I’m no connoisseur of pastoral life, but it surrrre seems awfully hilly – and forested – for sheep to thrive here – not the Psalm 23 image I usually think of! Finally at the end of today, making our way back from a community for the latrine construction project, we hopped out of the truck, so I could see this so-called “sheep project”. It was seriously a 60% grade hike up behind a family’s home in the forest, and I’m just WAITING to see how on EARTH these cuddly baaa baaa fluffy sheep make their home in this rough landscape... when I look up to see

... boxes. 

And then it clicked. AHHH. 

“Abejas”. 

= “Bees”. Yes, we have an apiculture (beekeeping) project for women to keep bees to produce honey as an income-generating activity. 

“Ovejas” = Sheep. Unfortunately, b’s and v’s are pronounced the same in Spanish. :P We do NOT have a sheep project. I SEE.  LOL.

Haha. Anyways. Not sure when I’ll have access to internet again. But I will try to get some more interesting photos & stories up when I have the chance... though I’m switching gears and hopping countries after tomorrow...  I’ll see what I can do!  :)

Much love!

Arco Iris (my name here, Rainbow in Spanish) :)

Bienvenidos a la República Dominicana!

Welcome to the Dominican Republic!

I had no intentions of having a blog for this little trip to the Dominican Republic. What could I possibly have to share in a 5 day visit?? Well, more than I’ll have time to write about, apparently! But fun and awesome things happen, so here’s to something that might hopefully be more sometime in the future!  :)

I’m here for, well, 3 days really, not including the travel days ,for monitoring visits of a handful of projects that HOPE has funded here in San Jose de Ocoa, a rural province in the Dominican Republic – the eastern half of the island that it shares with Haiti in Caribbean. 

All the countries where HOPE works/has worked - past countries in blue, current countries in yellow. :)

It. is. beauuuuutiful here. In the middle of endless, beautiful, lush (we’ll get back to that:) ), sometimes even seemingly untouched natural paradises of mountains in every shade of green – it’s hard to believe at first sight that there are even people living here – where exactly are they in these picturesque mountainsides??  :)

But they are there, and are they ever! :)  I’ll share more hopefully in coming posts. 

“THIS”, I have been told, is “La Republica Dominicana”. Not the beaches. Heck, locals here can’t even go to the resort beaches that we think of – they’re privately owned and way beyond the average DR’ans capacity to afford. “We don’t have access to them; the Italians and Spanish build those big resorts there, and they take their money and ‘se van!’ (they go!) ”. Which I haven’t followed up on to see how much of that is solid truth, but I’m guessing perception isn’t far from reality here. Tourism vs. Development.  Aiy. :)

Anyways. It’s beautiful here. I’ve got one last day of project visits, and then I’m gone too. But hopefully taking something with me that will leave this place more beautiful than I found it. 

A couple pictures that do zero justice to the beauty here (it’s hard to take pictures driving along bumpy roads; these were just a few pit stops), especially without explanation (yet) of all the hidden treasures that these pictures really entail.  But for now, they will have to do. :)

By the way, if anyone wants to come and see the DR for yourself... come! 

This summer! <--- check it out. :)   

(and Latest UNION newsletter here :) )

Bienvenidos! :)