Leap Day

The strangeness of February 29 makes it a good time, I suppose, for me to return to the work of reporting on our activities here in Ecuador. Our return to the US for the Christmas holidays proved to be something of an obstacle to my developing sense of belonging here, I'm afraid. It set back the Spanish somewhat. (Of course we COULD have spoken Spanish every day for an hour or so with Danny and Cristina Oviedo, who visited us from their temporary home in Florida, but we were charitable and helped them with their English.) And since at least for me, communicating with people is paramount to feeling at home, the month away slowed me down.

But in the last few days I have realized that I'm understanding the mothers at CRN better than I ever have (still not completely), so I feel that I'm back in the saddle. And it only took six weeks!

Three things from today are worth commenting on. Those of you who were in 4-H will doubtless remember "demonstrations", those little presentations each member did to show how to make something in the kitchen (I remember doing humble stuff like tuna salad, but Carroll and Alice Holder did some kind of amazing cupcake-decorating thing that involved mirrors and palindromic names like Sis and Otto). In a little conversation this afternoon a few of the mothers expressed enthusiasm for being shown how to prepare nutritious food. (One would think that such sessions would already be a part of a program such as CRN's, but they're not). So starting next week we're going to begin demonstrations.

I accompanied the CRN social workers on a visit to check the progress of a child who came to the Center for a period of time a while back. The home is in a neighborhood of mostly stick houses that have been built on top of a former dump site. The baby is still "hinchado" (swollen, a sign of excess water retention and malnutrition) and will be coming back to the Center with the mom and a couple of siblings starting Monday. They (family of 8, I believe) live in a place with an uneven dirt floor, one large room with two double beds and a stovetop/dish area, and a curtained-off space where a very decrepit-looking grandfather was lying flat on his back, asleep & wheezing, on a wooden bench with no cushioning or bedding of any sort. There was one other room: the "store". Like way too many of their neighbors in this little forsaken neighborhood, they had a few bagged snacks for sale, maybe 10 or 20 items. I am really curious what force is at work making such families invest their scarcest of resources in trying to sell stuff to other people. It seems impossible to me that these enterprises produce income, and I am planning to look into the matter and see what's going on.

I finished up the day hanging out laundry upstairs on the terrace. This is the warm rainy season in Santo Domingo, and oftentimes it's impossible to get clothes truly dry. But today there was a nice breeze, so we're in luck. In these days of worrying about global warming and sustainable lifestyles, it's a wonderful and simple thing to hang clothes on a line.

Building Houses

During the week of January 27 - February 3 I had a chance to do a little re-bar work and some hole digging with a Habitat for Humanity group from Lexington! The delegation from Christ the King cathedral excavated and did foundation work for a house a few kilometers from where Rich and I are living. The twelve or so workers were an inspiration - working from 7:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. for five days straight, performing some really heavy-duty labor while dealing with rain, mud, bugs and stomach issues. Four members of the team were medical professionals, and on Friday afternoon I took them on a brief tour of the Hombro-a-Hombro clinic, for which the cathedral parish has been providing significant financial support.

A different building effort, in the neighborhoods served by the Hombro clinic, took place the following week, sponsored by a university in Quito. About 50 Ecuadorean college students camped out in the Julio Jaramillo high school (high schoolers were on vacation), and worked for six days putting up four houses. These houses probably won't last as long as the Habitat-built concrete block house; construction materials consisted of cane posts and underpinnings with a thin concrete overlay. The Oviedos' son Andres was a part of this team, and we went to visit the site with Leonardo and Marcita, who were clearly proud of their son's efforts; this type of project was unheard of when they were his age.

Jemina the dentist; Rich lectures en español

Last week Rich took some photos of Gemina the dentist and her patients to send to Lilian Ranseen, who is doing a toothbrush-collecting project with Veterans Park elementary school. Part of Jemina's work is being supported by Jubileo. In examining the students at four schools in the Hombro clinic service area, staff have found a terribly high level of dental caries and/or need for extractions (more than 65%). Jemina spent six years living in Israel; that's where she met her Ecuadorean husband Jaime! She is very devoted to her patients and her work, and looking forward to implementing a prophylactic program using dental sealants which are being purchased by Jubileo and Hombro jointly.

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Rich has spoken at lots of pediatrics conferences, but on January 30th, his two talks at Voz Andes hospital in Quito represented a big first: he gave both "charlas" in Spanish!! In retrospect, maybe this challenge was a bit premature for the level of fluency he has attained, but he took it on, and due to intense effort, he did himself proud. He basically read the papers, which he had written first in English, then translated, then corrected with the input of several native speakers, then rehearsed many times. His preparation paid off in a polished performance. The only sign that he wasn't totally at ease was the amount of movement in the laser pointer; rather than hitting a particular point on the projected image, it would just sort of wander around the intended area. (I don't know if anybody but me knew that the instability was due to trembling!) He fielded questions from the audience well enough that he received the ultimate compliment from a participant who approached him afterward to discuss something - the person thought Rich was a doctor from Brazil!! (i.e., not a gringo).