El Hogar

Hello! I'm still here! Thanks to everyone for your notes and messages - I really appreciate it. I'm currently living in the diocese's nursing home, Hogar Obispo Isaac. I've been here for nearly a month, but haven't been able to update since we hardly ever have electricity and when we do, the internet is sketchy and slow. Here's some description:

The Hogar opened last March with space for 32 residents, a kitchen, three balconies, a porch with a dominoes table, and other lovely spaces. Unfortunately, residents have not rushed in as hoped, so now we are working on advertising, brochures, announcements, etc. to get the word out about this great place.

We currently have three residents. This is a picture of Teresa and Titi (L to R), our most mobile residents. They are two of the sweetest grown-ups I know. Teresa has a beautiful smile and occasionally treats us to a merengue dance with the Sunday afternoon music program on TV. She won't go to sleep at night unless I brush off her "dirty" feet - and she smiles and chuckles at me while I go through the motions of feet-washing. I think it's pretty entertaining for her (and for me) to go through this ritual at night.

Part of the Hogar's mission is to provide housing for seniors regardless of their ability to pay. Titi has been with us since the home opened, but pays a nominal fee since his family can't afford much. He is friendly and talkative and engaging; I can't understand a word he says. He's from a very poor, rural community and his accent is unlike anything I've encountered so far. When he moved here at 77 he had his first-ever birthday party, with 100 people filling the Hogar from the neighborhood and church communities. He still sits me down occasionally and tells me about this fabulous party he had with tons of people there to help him celebrate. It's really touching to hear him describe it.... at least, when I can understand what he's saying. Titi is the biggest fan of my cooking at the Hogar, telling me how much he likes the pancakes and deep-dish pizza I made for the residents. A great guy!

Albania, seen here with a visiting physical therapist and one of the staff, is our third resident, though I don't know her as well as the others. She is blind from brain surgery for epilepsy done years ago, and she prefers to spend most of her time in bed. Albania, unlike Titi, has beautiful diction and I can understand every word she says. She has an incredible sweet tooth and really enjoyed the pancakes I served her with grape jelly.

Life in the Hogar has been very interesting for me in terms of culture-mixing. The building is the newest I've been in here and so has things like cable TV, a real washer and dryer, my own room and bathroom, etc. But on the other hand, we don't have electricity the majority of every day, our night watchman guards the place armed with an aluminum baseball bat and a machete, and there's a moth the size of my face (not kidding) called the Fever Butterfly that lives downstairs and, apparently, causes fever. (Similarly, I spotted two giant, hairy spiders each the size of my hand in the kitchen one night, but when I showed them to our cook the next day, she said, "Kate, I thought you said big spiders..." Yikes.) So every evening after the residents are asleep, I watch the night watchman set up his "weapons," stumble around in the dark with a candle, encounter strange, enormous insects, and then sit down and watch Law and Order (in English!) on the battery-powered cable television. Strange mix, no?

I found a drawer of brand-new puzzles in the Hogar and have been working on those (with a flashlight) after Law and Order. (It's a loooong night when all the residents go to bed at 7:30.) I just finished a second 500-piece puzzle last night. Various members of the staff come up and look quizzically at what the strange American girl is doing, since most have never seen a puzzle before. All are invariable impressed with the progress I make each day, but it's obvious everyone thinks it's a little crazy to want to make work for yourself like that. The word for "puzzle" in Spanish is "rompe-cabeza," which directly translates to something like "Broken Head" or "Head-Breaker." In this place where life is so tricky and challenging itself, I think people look at me and wonder why my culture likes to make up tricky and challenging past-times to fill our spare time. Haha - it is a little funny when you think about it. But, hey, it's something to do!

During the day I've been working on a variety of tasks. I just got a pretty, shiny, full-color, in-Spanish brochure finished and off to the printers this week. (I'm ridiculously proud of that thing.) We plan to distribute it at the diocesan convention next weekend to raise awareness of the Hogar. I've planted a bed of wild flowers, including sunflowers, purple cone-flowers, and snap-dragons, next to the Hogar (we'll see how these do in the tropics...), wall-papered a border in our doctor's consulation room, and labeled sack after sack of donated clothes and shoes with prices for our garage sale coming up in two weeks.

On Sundays, I've been helping out with Sunday School lesson-plans at the church. Three weeks ago the gospel was about the Lamb of God, so I surveyed our craft materials and decided on brown paper-bag lamb puppets, with cotton balls pasted on for wool. Here's a slightly blurry picture of me with my proud students and their puppets:


Today the gospel was the story of the Transfiguration. In a nod to my childhood Sunday School teacher, I thought that no lesson better called for glitter than this one, so we broke out the shiny silver-white glitter and decorated pictures I traced of the scene. The kids really have a great time with these crafts at the end of the lesson part of Sunday School - there isn't much in the way of art classes in their schools. Today's craft was another success. Thanks, Glitter Queen.

So overall, this month in the Hogar has been a chance to see and do different things in a really wonderful environment. This weekend will be the diocesan convention in San Pedro (where I was living before), after which I will move to a new city closer to the Haitian border to work on a potable water project and help translate for a visiting American medical team. I don't know what internet will be like in the next several weeks, but I'll do my best to keep this site updated. (And don't worry, I haven't forgotten about my promises to describe bus-rides and work in the HIV clinic!)

In case it's a couple weeks before I write again, Happy Fat Tuesday and Valentine's Day - my love to everyone!