May 4/12

 So, I have been home for a handful of weeks now and am still processing the trip to the Dominican Republic. Half baked ideas are floating around in my head about what is going to come next. For the moment, it means attending the District Rotary Conference in June to fire up more Rotarians from this region to get involved. After having been literally in the trenches and seeing the differences the water filters we are funding are making, I am a great advocate for continuing our support. How much of a difference you ask? Well, we dispensed all of our metronidazole antibiotics in the first batey. The people were being treated for both GI infections and vaginal infections and I don't remember the breakdown, but the key was that batey did not have water filters. At the second batey, we were an hour into the clinic when I realized that we had dispensed no metronidazole so I asked if they had water filters. The answer was yes.

 One of these kids had been seen at the clinic that day. His head is liberally painted with Selsun Blue to treat the fungal infection on his head.

One of the best parts of these trips are the people I meet along the way. This is me with Fernando, my hermano Dominicano. We met last year when I was there with Rotary to see what the water program we were sponsoring was about. He goes out into the bateys to teach people about clean water and sanitation and monitors the water filters that have been placed in people's homes. A few moments before this photo was taken, he was holding up an exhausted me and letting me soak in his strength for a few minutes before we continued on with our work.

April 17/12

 An interview with the local newspaper led to this great article on my then upcoming trip to the Dominican Republic as part of a medical team. The team went to the sugar cane villages (bateys) and the La Romana prison to see patients. I was a little nervous and cleaned the house like mad before the photographer showed up.

 My friends were very generous in making donations to me. Two boxes of prescription medications were purchased and the remainder of the money was spent on all of these over the counter medications. US Customs almost seized the lot if the secondary screening agent had had his way. Fortunately for me, his supervisor was more kindly. The supervisor took one look at me and my boxes and said, "She is on a humanitarian mission; let her go". Whew!

And the end result was about 700 people were seen by the team during the week . Here one of our interpreters is explaining the medications in Creole to a family. Sometimes I felt like we were not doing much, but then I would see the smiles on the kids' faces as we handed out bandaids and the grateful thanks from their moms as they received vitamins and medications made me realize that we were making a difference.

Feb 12/11

     Oh my! It has been a while since I last made a post. My life has been a whirlwind what with the return of one brother from Afghanistan on Dec 4 and the engagement of the other brother that same night, holiday mania and getting ready for my most recent trip to the Dominican Republic. Nope, not your typical resort vacation although we were housed at Casa de Campo near the city of La Romana.

   

    My Rotary district had partnered with the Rotary Club of La Romana Incorporado in a clean water project so 13 of us traveled there to help install water filters in the bateys. A batey is a village out in the sugar cane fields where the Haitian sugar cane cutters are housed by Central Romana, the sugar company. The filters consist of a large blue pail, two layers of gravel, a layer of sand and a layer of biologicals at the top that kill of pathogenic bacteria.

 

Here I am post-installation of a filter in one of the homes with the mother of the house, her son and Wascar, one of the young men who work with the project in La Romana. Most times, the water being used for drinking and bathing at the bateys is piped from a nearby river with no treatment whatsoever. Diarrhea and skin infections are not uncommon as a result and it has been found that these filters significantly reduce the incidence of these maladies.

 
    When not installing filters, my time was taken up with the children of the bateys. I uploaded 837 pictures upon my return and probably 600 of the pictures are of the children like these three little amigas who held my hand while we walked around when they were not making funny faces at my camera!

The weather was amazing in the DR, especially compared to the snowstorms that were battering the East Coast while I was away. Having a tan made shoveling my driveway a little more bearable when I came home, but only just a little!