On the road again...

I was talking with my sister last week telling her that I am so ‘agripada’. What is that? Gripe… the Spanish word for every cold, flu, or allergy symptom . I pretty much knew that my immune system was going to stall after traveling 12-13 hours every Friday and Saturday in October. The schedule kind of went like this… Friday morning. wake up at 6am, leave on the motorcycle taxi at 7:15, get to Santiago at 8:10, take a public car to the bus station, get on the 9am bus to Loma de Cabrera. Arrive at 12:30pm. Get off the bus and yell Restauracion until some random guy says over here. Load up in the car/truck/van that is going up the mountain and arrive in Restauracion at 1:30. Yes, that is 6 hours of travel!  Wake up at 6:30 am on Saturday morning, get to the corner by 7am to catch the bus going down the mountain and repeat the 6 hours of travel back home. So, just what would make me endure this travel schedule?

Me and my trusty motoconcho -Rafael, better known as Fe. 

I gave my word that I would help with a prenatal class back in May. So, four weeks ago I made the first trek from Baitoa to Restauracion, a small town just 10 minues from the Haitian border. That’s where I met these sweet ladies.  Some of them live in the rural countryside others come over the border for class.  After trying to take attendance on day one I realized that almost all of the ladies are illiterate, as they

looked up at me and asked would I mind writing their name for them.  Some spoke Spanish, but most spoke Creole. Wow, how in the world are we going to do a prenatal class.  We really had not anticipated that almost the entire class would be Haitian women. Honestly, I don’t know that they understood  more than a word  or two that was said.  What I do know is  that non-verbal communication is universal. Smiles, hugs, and true love and concern breaks every communication barrier. So we started out with about 12 women and by week four we were up to 21 women! Most kept coming back, some delivered along the way, some brought friends and Dr. Ricardo told me that they were understanding something be/c some started showing up in the hospital with the warning signs we talked about…. It hurts when I urinate, my baby isn’t moving, etc, etc.

So, yesterday I said goodbye as we wrapped up our last class. The ladies agreed to a group picture so we huddled up outside! Last night I reviewed the pic and I noticed the smallest thing. The ladies are smiling., Like really SMILING. If you have seen many pictures from the Caribbean these ladies don’t like to smile in pictures. Everyone is always so serious when they take a picture. It’s just the smallest, oddest detail, but to me it’s important. Sitting in this classroom, inside this church, learning about their babies and more about their bodies I hope these ladies felt safe, loved and cared for. Life for most of them is full of hard, difficult realities. We talked about rest after having a baby but for many of them they will be back out walking miles a day carrying tubs on their head, trying to sell flip flops, avocadoes or peanuts, anything to have a few pesos for dinner.  I can only pray and hope that the smile that brightens their face is reflective of having a few moments of rest on this hard journey of life. 

God put a rainbow in my window...

I'm listening to rain patter on the tin roof and window coverings and thinking about just how quickly this storm came out of nowhere. Just a few minutes ago it was sunny and bright. I looked out the window and noticed that I could see a clear line separating where it was pouring to where it was still sunny and bright. Wow! I stepped outside and saw the most gorgeous rainbow! I absolutely love rainbows. Its a fairly new love for me that started about 2 yrs ago, after I had just resigned from my job and made it official that I was making the move to the DR. I walked out those doors feeling light and heavy at the same time and was greeted by this most amazing rainbow! It felt so personal, as if the God of heaven was speaking just to me.

It's been a busy month here on the ground, and a part of me know that these 4 months are going to fly by. One is gone already. I also have had some other thoughts and worries in mind. As I looked out the window and saw how quickly it went from sunny to cloudy and sunny again I was reminded just how quickly seasons in our life can change.

I have been so blessed by this season in my life. Part of me wonders how will I ever go back to 'life as usual'. Just yesterday I was reunited with some beautiful faces from last year.  I don't know who was more excited, them or me!! My life has been forever changed from my time serving here. I'm so grateful  and I know that God has a plan to weave it all together. The rainbow today reassured me of that... my heavenly Father knows exactly what he is doing and he put a rainbow in my window to remind me! Does anyone remember that song from 198x?? I'm dating myself,  I know!  (click God put a rainbow in my window! )

Beans and Rice, Rice and Beans

Hello friends,

I have hit the ground running and things are picking up! I spent the day today in the homes of 5 of the ladies who are being trained to be community health leaders. It turns out that many of them were already doing a similar role either informally or through a government program that has been on and off again the last 2 years. They are super motivated learners and a few of them are planning to host their first community "charlas" (trainings) for the World Handwashing Day in 2 weeks! Wendy, pictured below, has even decided to go back to school to finish her high school diploma. She then hopes to go to nursing school. I love spending time at Wendy's house because she just loves learning new things and is excited about sharing it with others!

Our first training together 3 weeks ago we started on the topic of nutrition. It sort of went like this... anyone know the 5 food groups??  rice, habichuela (beans), blank faces. More blank faces. They were seriously stuck. I guess when you eat the same thing e.v.e.r.y  d.a.y it's easy to get stuck. I  was so proud of them at our training last week that every single one could name the five food groups, identify a couple of items in that food group and for the most part tell you why the group is important! It only took 3 weeks to get to that point, but that's ok. LOL.  I've had to let go some of my expectations and meet them where they are.

We also started talking about the rule of 5  - 2 fruit, 3 veg a day. Again, blank faces. They quickly explained that there just are not those kind of options for the campo (rural) folks. The city really is just a 40 minute gua-gua (raggedy bus) ride away and a measly 60 pesos round trip. ($1.50 but that is out of reach for most folks.)  Going to the city is a big deal and NOT something that is going to be done weekly for grocery shopping. I almost panicked... this is not supposed to happen!! My beautiful lesson plans are crumbling. Breathe, revamp, keep dialoguing. This is good. So, we started talking about how to make our plates more colorful. We compared the drab brown and white plate with beans and rice and started exploring ways to add color. Add a guineo (banana) someone suggested. Or an avocado someone else suggested. Great -- now we have a fruit, what about vegetables?? That's where it really gets hard. It's all starchy vegetables - potatoes, carrots, yucca, plantains, and almost nothing green. We talked about eggplant - fairly easy to find here in the campo, beets - high sugar, but great for anemia, a chronic problem. We talked about fiber in cabbage versus iceberg lettuce. We really need some community gardens!! Anyone interested?

We will wrap up our nutrition module tomorrow (or next week) with diabetes.... but I'm procrastinating because I really am a bit stuck on how to approach the nutrition aspect of diabetes in a diet that is SO carb heavy... so I decided to procrastinate and catch my friends up on what I've been doing, ie blog post. There will be another post in a day or two because I was really procrastinating and wrote 2 updates. Now, it's gonna be a LONG night prepping for class tomorrow.

More pics....

Last week they were nutrition experts!

The milk experts compared the nutrition in regular milk, 2%, to chocolate milk. Skim and 1% is a grocery store item only. After comparing the nutrition label (yay!) they wisely recommended the regular milk because it had less sugar and sodium. Way to go ladies! 

Here we have the bean experts. It was a novel idea to compare two of the same items for anything beyond price. They learned that one brand of canned beans had about 200 mg more sodium than the other brand for the same portion size. They were surprised! Let's hope they will share the importance of reading labels with their friends and community!

The garlic experts compared the processed bottled jar garlic to the fresh garlic. They realized they can save money and eat less salt going with the less processed form. We had a good discussion about what is processed food and how they have seen more of it in their food supply!









Well, and since we are on the subject of food I will leave you with a picture of the outdoor kitchen typical for where most people cook their food. This one is a bit 'fancy' because it has a new type of stove that is more environmentally friendly than the typical ones that require a ton more wood and leave the women standing over a smoke filled pit for hours a day. Bye for now!