Christmas time is near again and the tradition here is everyone cleans and paints the house and everything in it.  I love all of the bright vibrant colors of the houses here.  I chose a bright peach paint for my room to keep with the tradition. Well for me it doesn’t feel much like Christmas time, as I said before, the only thing that reminds me of Christmas around here is all the red flowers (what I call Christmas flowers) that grow naturally here. The people here call them “pasqua.”

The month of November, I continued with the weekly health classes in the high school, with very little support from the professors… This has been a huge frustration of mine, one that I continue to struggle with. Because of the little support I find it very difficult to find motivation within myself. Here is an example, December 1 was World AIDS Day; I spend weeks organizing an assembly with all 150 students an educational video about a Dominican women living with HIV. School was canceled the day before, so I decide to show the video the Monday after. The most important part of the presentation in my opinion is the discussion I prepared the professors to have with the students afterwards. There was no discussion, not one of the professors I prepared came forward, I was left alone standing in front of 150 youth with my broken Spanish and my face as red as the ribbon pinned to my chest.   

I was home in Providence for Thanksgiving. My trip home went well, I have to be honest I was very glad to get back. Why would I say something like that you ask? Well here I have very little options. My life is much less complicated that way. All of the things I felt were complicating my life the things I was trying to escape from when I left for Peace Corps was still there when I got back. I realized I haven’t changed as much I thought. On a more positive note, it was really nice to see everyone, I can’t believe how fast children grow and change in one year. My sister’s baby was 5 days old when I left; she is already walking and talking…I realized how very blessed I am that I have such a supportive family, especially my mother. The dental office where my mother works donated 10 blood pressure cuffs and stethoscopes for the first aid course I am preparing with the health promoters. They also donated lots of used clothes for my family and friends here and had them shipped over. Thanks everyone!

I got back from the states, to learn that not only had my World AIDS day assembly been canceled but that my friend Teresa had been sick. Teresa works in our campo variety store (colmado). Everyone told me that she ha been “mala” so that weekend I hiked up to her house to visit. There she was with her face blown up like a chipmunk. “I caught a wind” she explained, this is a “resfriado” she says and explained the cause to me in great detail, a wind that was trapped under the skin. To me it looked like a huge tooth abscess. The next time I saw her was on Monday morning but by that time she had been crying the pain was so bad. Christina, who is our town’s natural medicine expert, whipped up a natural remedy of boiled herbs, leaves and aloe from around her house (the mixture smelled very much like an antibiotic), Christina put hot compresses on her swollen face. We all decided this was no resfriado but an infection and that Teresa would need a doctor. I accompanied her in the bread truck for the bumpy hour ride down the mountain. Even though they have very little money, her husband decided it would be worth it to pay a doctor in a clinic rather than bring her to the public hospital. For 800 pesos (25 dollars) she was seen by a very nice young doctor who sent her home with prescription for pain med and antibiotics…she’s doing much better now. Gracias a Dios!

I have a few thoughts about poverty. I don’t know if everyone would agree with this statement but here it goes. I think there are 2 kinds of poverty. There’s poverty (people having little to no money) and there is also poverty of the mind. I’m calling this poverty of the mind because I don’t know what else to call it. I have been evaluating my stove project these past few weeks visiting all 55 families for whom we did stoves. I have been evaluating a bunch of things, but most importantly, if the mothers are adjusting to cooking with the new style stove. One of the most important things required having a Lorena stove is that you take care of it. If it is not painted or cleaned every other day with the same clay and water from which it is formed (and the clay is found everywhere in these mountains)…it falls apart eventually. I found 2 mothers in particular who received stoves in one months time have already let the stove fall apart and are back to cooking over open fires allowing their small children to inhale the same smoke, even though these women understand the health consequences. If you look around you see the houses and the children of these women are also filthy. So how am I supposed to expect them to take care of a stove?  Poverty isn’t the reason these women have to cook on the traditional open fire but poverty of the mind. After feeling very bad for myself, and for our stove project, I enter another dirt floor small wooden house of a mother who is 17 and holding her 3 month old baby girl in her arms while cooking on her new Lorena stove. The house is spotless and so is the baby. I am so pleased to see that while the mother is cooking neither she nor the baby is inhaling smoke. The stove is in excellent condition and the mother tells me how proud she is of her new modern stove and how she cleans it every day. Poor people really can make rational decisions for themselves and their children. 

Well I have an exciting second year planned and it looks like 2007 promises to be BUSY! Wishing everyone Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I will keep everyone posted for 2007, si Dios quiere.