Water and baseball

woo been pretty busy. Spent a week in La Vega at an orthopedic surgery mission, as a surgeon...i mean...translator? Thats was fun. We also took my class to a local baseball game. Well, it was kind of like the wild card playoffs for the Dominican League. Our team won and all the kids were so excited, most of them had never been to a game.

We also started construction on the water system i received money for. That has been a blast. I spent this past weekend starting and finishing it basically. It is just a small extension of a pre-existing water system, but it will have a huge affect in that it will serve over 20 families that did not previously have water. The only thing i was in charge of was buying the materials. These dominicans wasted no time, and had the entire trench dug out in 4 hours. Of course, i bought one wrong part so we had to wait until the next day to actually put the tubes in the ground. My one job, right? We got the part and they put all the tubes in right away. These guys know exactly what they are doing. It is crazy. Also, i have a confession....i have never swung pick-axe. I came to that painful realization when i began digging out some of the trench and another worker came over and send, "Here let me take that, Americans are really good at supervising." Ha! Another one of those humbling moments....i AM really good at supervising :) It has been a really positive experience. The community has taken all the manual labor upon themselves, even some of the women are providing meals for the workers. They are collecting money from each house that is receiving water to put in a fund for future projects such as quality electricity cables. It is crazy how sustainable this one little community on a hill is.
The children that live on the hill have been the most excited. They have been running around screaming, "we are gonna have a faucet in the house!!" When is the last time you heard kids screaming that in the suburbs? ha. Before this project, these people had to create this elaborate contraption of hoses and tape, basically a hose long enough to stretch a football field, in order to fill their 50 gallon tanks with water once a week. From the tank the fill buckets to bath, cook, flush the toilet, etc They were not only bathing with this water, but drinking it straight from the hose. We were able to solve both of those problems by 1) extending the water system to this community so they can have running water 2) installing bio-sand water filters n the houses so that they can drink purified water. It has been a blessing to see this community work together and get everyone involved, even the kids carrying shovels, in order to make this project go as quick as possible. Sometimes it is just a lack of resources that prevents the most basic of services from being offered.

Other than that, just going to the school everyday and getting ready for the 50th anniversary celebration stuff. I am helping organize some of the presentations for this fancy shin-dig in the capital for a bunch of returned Peace Corps volunteers. I will be in the capital from Feb. 7-10 doing stuff for this bash, which i think is gonna be pretty cool. You can see more about what we are doing at the conference through this link http://new.fotdr.org/50th/nationalinitiatives/
Josiel and I will also be representing Fondo Quisqueya grants, which he applied for and received to study english. He will have to present himself and what he has done through the grant. It will be a great opportunity to rub shoulders with some bigwigs and make connections with some organizations.

Then, on the 11th i am hosting the director of the organization that granted me the money to complete the water system. I have to take him through the community we worked in and just show him where the money went, basically.

At the end of Feb. we have our Close or Service conference, which talks about life after Peace Corps and begins to phase us out, haha. Then Stephanie Dutka is coming to visit!!! My first friend to bite the bullet and make the trip down! Thanks a lot guys, 2 years have gone by and i haven't seen any of ya! just kidding, ha.
Well thats about it! enjoy the photos!