Catch-Up!

It's been nearly two weeks since I last posted. I can't believe it! There are so many things I want to share - be prepared for a long post.

So I'll start where I left off: The baby is born! His name is Gerald Enmanuel Rosario Pina, but he goes by Enmanuel. He weighed 9 and 1/4 pounds at birth and is a long baby with chubby cheeks and a lot of dark hair. He'll be two weeks old tomorrow, and I just got the chance to take pictures today. (He sleeps ALL the time!) I call this series: Enmanuel Wakes





Notice the single raised eyebrow in that last shot. This baby is suave.

As an added bonus to Enmanuel's birth, Grandma came to stay last week. Grandma is a riot. She comes up to about my shoulder and loves to talk. Grandma taught me the next step in my cross-stitching embroidery. She monitored my evening shower schedule so I would not get la gripe, a general term for colds/respiratory infections. (FYI: Contrary to popular belief, la gripe is caused by germs, not by getting wet.) Grandma force-fed me all week, which was fine with me, though I had to be especially stealthy to avoid the chicken feet in the soup during second and third servings. And now Grandma has invited me to come stay at her house some weekend. Looking forward to it!

At the end of last week, I took two days to do a little sight-seeing with missionaries one town over. We went to La Romana and saw the caves with indigenous drawings, an Italian-style village built by a very rich man for his wife, and spent a day at a beautiful beach in an exclusive, gated community. Being in such beautiful, exclusive places was a little bit of culture shock after the work I do here in San Pedro. I call this series: Wow Is this Different from Villa Faro or What?




But perhaps my favorite part of the trip was trying to get out of the gated community. We made several turns, and were a little uncertain of how to find the exit. So when we found a guard at an intersection, our driver (one of the missionaries from one town over) rolled down the window to ask. "Exito? Exito! Exito?!" she yelled out the window, trying to get a quick point in the right direction and not block traffic. As it turns out, exito means "success" in Spanish. So here's this car-load of Americans frantically yelling "Success?!" out a car window while a puzzled guard looks on. Hahahaha. Finally, the guard figured out what we wanted, provided the correct word ('salida') and directed us out. I laughed pretty hard for a while.

As soon as I got back from that trip, I went to the capital to see my Dad, who was here for a meeting. I took two HOT showers within twelve hours! And he brought Christmas music, pumpkin pie filling, advent calendars... true "necessities". Haha.

Everybody thought we looked exactly alike (a little scary for me.) What do you think?

He left last Tuesday, and so it was back to the clinic for a very busy few days. We have finally raised enough money to get started on the new roof! (We have about 2/3 of the estimated total cost - which has taken years to get - so we're starting with what we have.) The first phase of this project, and what we attacked this week, is cleaning out the unusable upstairs, where we've been storing medicine, equipment, and other stuff. The upstairs is dangerously filled with bat/rat droppings, so everyone has to wear a mask to avoid getting sick. I call this series: Evidence as to Our Dire Need for a New Roof





And then all of a sudden it was Thanksgiving! After a necessary international call to my mother with some questions, I successfully baked three pumpkin pies (one for the family, one for a Tday meal with Americans, and one for the office)! I got a variety of responses to them, though my favorites are as follows: The fourteen-year-old in my family took one bite and said, "This might be my new favorite pastry!" (There's no word for 'pie' here, so we use 'pastry'.) Then, after tasting the pie, two women I work with independently said, "You may get married." Apparently, that's a very high compliment indicating that my cooking is good enough that I can marry and run my own household. (Phew - What a relief! Heehee.)

Since then, I've been snacking on left-over pie, organizing a Health Promoters training on women's health, investigating merengue dance classes, trying to teach English to Enmanuel, and moving furniture in the clinic. I am avoiding cleaning my room as we speak. To close, I'll leave you with my Lost-in-Translation moment for the weekend: The Spanish words for 'piece' (pedaso) and for 'sin' (pecado) are very similar, and I often confuse them. Yesterday, Claribel asked me if I'd like any ice in my glass, and I said, "Yes, I'd like two or three sins please." Whoops....

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving everyone! Have a wonderful last week of November!

babytodaybabytoday!

The new baby is coming today!! Today today today!

Reyna was scheduled to have her C-section this coming Thursday, but her water broke early this morning and I woke to loud knocks on my bedroom door and a fast explanation from the family running out the door to go to the capital. They've been there all day.

I feel like some nervous relative in the waiting room. All of my week-long feelings of laziness have been counter-acted. I've fixed breakfast, been to church, washed all the dishes and cleaned the kitchen, visited another family, done two loads of laundry, and I keep returning to fluff our fake Christmas tree (which tends to clump) whenever there's nothing else to do. And so far no news!

Please keep Reyna and the family in your thoughts and prayers as they welcome this new baby into their lives. I am so excited I could explode. I'll try to post some pictures soon!

Seasons are Different

I have a couple little anecdotes about seasons for your reading enjoyment. Both take place with the fabulous people I work with in the clinic.

Autumn:
We got a new computer in our office! Now we can chart information and sum receipts and print-out signs... lots of good things. During the first days of the new computer, I glanced up and literally gasped out loud when I saw that the desktop background was a picture of autumn in the United States. It's that picture that comes with Windows, you know, the one with the bright red maple leaves overhanging a rustic-looking lane with a wooden fence? Anyway, about a week later the background picture was changed to something else, which made me a little bit sad. I said, "What happened to the picture of autumn?" and one of the girls said, "Oh we can find it again!" She promptly put up a picture of a spring tree with new green leaves. "Autumn, right?" I said, "No... springtime." Next, she put up a picture of yellow tulips. "Autumn?" "No, spring again." At this point I was chuckling and said I could find the picture. I quickly did, and when it was up on the desktop again, she said, "Oh no, that's a picture of a tree with all red blossoms like we have here in the summer." Hahaha. An attempt to explain color-changing leaves and bare winter branches ensued. She couldn't believe that the trees had nothing on them in winter, and I think she mostly chalked up what I was saying to lack of Spanish skills and lunacy. Oh, well - I thought it was pretty funny.

Winter:
We broke out the office Christmas decorations last week. We now have a reindeer in a sweater and holding a pair of skis sitting on the reception desk. There's also purple and gold garlands hung everywhere that remind me more of Mardi Gras than Christmas, but they're festive nonetheless. One slow morning this week, I decided to do my own decoration contribution by cutting a couple snowflakes out of white paper. This has inspired a craze, and now I'm teaching snowflake-cutting to people right and left. Everyone is so pleased when they make a few triangular cuts and out comes a beautifully lacy piece of paper - you gotta admit, that moment of opening a freshly-cut snowflake is pretty thrilling. At the beginning, I took the opportunity to explain that we make these for winter, not necessarily for Christmas, because they represent snow. I went on to say that no two snowflakes are identical, and neither are the ones we make out of paper. Etc. Etc. But then people, and most often the nurse, started asking me why I make them out of white paper, which doesn't contrast enough with the white walls. I reiterated my snow explanation, but after several days of having basically the same conversation I gave up. The nurse wants me to make several extra-big snowflakes out of bright green and red paper and then string them up from their centers and hang them from the ceiling. I think this will have more of a jungle effect than a snow effect... but that's fine! I think I'll call it the Jungle Pointsettia look...

So the moral of the story is: Seasons are different in different parts of the world. I'm having a wonderful time working and learning in a tropical Fall and Christmas season. But please step on a crunchy leaf and eat a falling snowflake for me! xo!

Villa Faro Video

Drs. Michael and Anita Dohn, who work at Clinica Esperanza and Caridad and are in charge of many things, including the Community Health program, shot this video of the Villa Faro neighborhood where we're currently setting up a new Health Promoters program.

I spend a lot of wonderful time in Villa Faro, and now you can get a live-action glimpse of what it's like! Enjoy! (And be prepared to turn up the volume... the narration is sort of soft.)

Noel in the DR

Today is the first day with some sun in a week! It looks like Tropical Storm Noel has finally moved on. Thanks to everyone for your notes and check-ups - my area wasn't hit too badly, and my family and I are fine. The storm was an interesting experience, though, and I'd like to tell you a little about it.

It started raining last Friday, a steady rain that reminded me of chilly October days at home. That's pretty unusual here, since most rains are heavy cloud-bursts that clear quickly, but for some reason I took no particular notice. On Saturday, I went to the capital (about an hour away) to visit friends. The roads were fine despite the rain, and I had no trouble getting to the city. Once there, it rained and rained, until we all started commenting on it: "Wow I don't think it's rained like this since I've been here" and "Oh the power's gone out! How unusual for this neighborhood... I wonder why..." For some reason none of us knew about the Noel weather predictions.

After a lovely, though rainy, 24-hours, I headed back to San Pedro Sunday afternoon. The first bus was lashed with rain, and the sea was crashing against the highway as we drove back to the city. The local San Pedro bus (and by 'bus' I mean deteriorating 9-person van with Saran-Wrap for windows) was doing fine until we came to several blocks of the route covered in about 1.5 feet of water. The cobrador (guy who takes your bus money) slid the van's side-door closed (which I've never seen happen before) and we headed into the water. Water splashed against the windows and leaked in under the door. And still I didn't find this much out of the ordinary.

[Side note here: In retrospect, traveling during a tropical storm is not advisable and I don't think I'll do it again. Also, the flooding I just described is not that uncommon here after a big storm - very few streets have adequate drainage. I think my lack of surprise/shock at all these things, though, is for another reason. My threshold for "surprise/shock" has risen tremendously in these last three-months. Everything is so surprising/shocking, really. Now, I think I over-corrected my dial, because there is plenty surprising/shocking about a tropical storm.]

I got home just fine and had a pleasant evening. (We ate nothing but big bowls of rice pudding for supper, and I am A-OK with that.) The family mentioned TS Noel at the table, but I still didn't think about it until the next morning, when I woke up to no power. I headed down to breakfast and then to the clinic, not thinking that maybe we'd be closed, like the schools and stores in the city. But we were open, despite no power and no public transportation.

Now, the clinic desperately needs a new roof before the upstairs can be human-friendly. Right now, the windows don't close and the whole place is covered in bat/pigeon droppings, which can cause serious illness. Nevertheless, this is where the community health office is, and where we store all our HIV meds. On Monday, three of us headed upstairs to find the boxed meds sitting in an inch of water. We pulled tables away from open windows and leaky ceiling-spots and transferred all the meds to new boxes on elevated surfaces. Luckily, the meds are undamaged. (And I'm thinking of providing some plastic storage shelves....)

The clinic eventually did decide to close for the afternoon, so I spent the extra time in the house, listening to the wind literally howl outside. Just as we were lighting candles to settle down for an evening without power, the lights came back on. We were very lucky to be without power for only a day. (For many people, including the clinic, the lack of power also means no running water, since the pipes are powered by an electric pump, so we're also lucky to not need a pump.)

Tuesday and Wednesday passed with more wind and rain, though the clinic was open both days. On Tuesday word was out about another danger in addition to the storm. A barge carrying 50,000 barrels of combustible gasoline had run aground about ten miles out to sea from the city. In the wind and churning water, the hull was being ground against the sea-floor, causing wear and friction. But nobody could do anything because the storm conditions were too dangerous. Locals were fearing an explosion; some even talked about an explosion-caused "tsunami" that would come drench the shore-line, including our clinic/my house. Officials monitored the ship and waited out the storm for the last two days. And while I haven't officially heard it, I bet they were able to get out there today. So far no massive explosions!

We are all relieved that the storm appears over. While damage in my area wasn't too extensive, other parts of the country truly suffered. As of yesterday, there were over forty people reported dead (mostly from mud-slides) and tens of thousands missing. Schools have been closed for most of the week. Entire crops of rice, tomatoes, and plantains were destroyed, ruining many farmers' livelihoods. And prices for these basic foods will rise in the cities. Telephone lines are down, and officials are worried that water reservoirs have been contaminated in many parts of the country. Rivers are swollen and roads and bridges are washed out. Our team has had trouble getting to communities because of a gas shortage and continued flooding. So even though the storm is over, the disaster continues.

I'm truly thankful for the safety of my family and co-workers, as well as my own. And it was wonderful to hear from you all once the electricity returned! This update has gotten longer than I intended, but I hope it helps all of you appreciate Dominican life in a natural disaster; it certainly opened my eyes to be here during this storm. Please keep this country and its people in your thoughts and prayers!

xo!