Some of the finished products

Here are some shots from Altagracia showing the completed latrines.  We are very grateful to the members of COTN that were able to complete the "thrones" in our absence. 
We see the physical evidence of the work we did but we know that our educational work will more than likely be the most lasting and beneficial accomplishment of our group's adventure this summer in the DR.





We learned a lot ourselves the week we were in the DR.  The people of Altagracia taught us the importance of living in community and using everything at hand.  Be it wood chips or bottle caps or rebar sticking straight out of a concrete block.  

We feel fortunate and privileged to have been able to participate in this trip.  It not only gave us hands on experience working but it truly gave us a window into the very heart of a kind and generous group of people.

 

Pictures of our teaching moments

I am going to post some of our moments of teaching. We read a story about germs, created a drama about the story, learned many vocabulary words related to good hygiene. They wrote the words, names them sight and sang songs about good hand washing.

Our hearts are still in Altagracia

Since we have returned, every day is filled with thoughts of Altagracia, the children, the poverty, their happy faces. I feel a need to express what we have done there by posting one more time some of our moments there. Bill did a fabulous job posting the detailed building of the latrines, so I would like to share moments of teaching and people of Altagracia for you.

The first day we met approximately 60 children to teach. We met in the feeding area before the children ate their one big meal of the day. Children of the Nation provides a meal for the children four days a week. They receive a dish of rice, lentils, beans, and sometimes filled with small pasta. Each child then receives a daily vitamin.

The children line up to wash their hands with two buckets, a bar of soap and towel. An older students assists by pouring water on the child's hand before using the soap and then pours water over to rinse into the second bucket. There is no sink in the feeding area. The water that is piped in has been tested and is reported to have E coli. More pictures to come.

The Building Process

We had great plans picked out in advance for our VIPs-Ventilated ImProved latrines but things did not work out that way.  We encountered a number of problems.

The first was that someone else was going to make the cement foundation and they made it to their design specs, not ours.  This picture shows that the base was surrounded by concrete blocks with rebar sticking up in the corners and beside where the door is suppose to go.   This owner wanted blocks all around as water flowed over his location and he wanted to keep it out of the latrine if possible.  There was no vent hole-we would dig under the latrine later to add a ventilation pipe.  The sticker bushes kept the local animals out of the enclosure as well!

This is the same idea but with an opening for the doorway.   We had discussed how we were going to fasten the walls to the cement foundation before we got to the DR.  We had brought a hammer drill and some cement bolts to "fasten down the sill plate."  We were very perplexed when we found the concrete blocks.  We scratched our heads and wondered what to do and when Manuel and "Spider-man" (so called lovingly for his ability to scale the walls of our structure and hammer on the roof pieces) could stand it no longer, showed us their design idea....


The first thing to do is to take the two by four and cut our half of each side that will run together like the picture on the left.  This was done by pre-sawing the ends of the boards half way down to the depth desired and then running more cuts to the end of the board and finally chiseling out the excess wood.  We finally drilled a hole where the rebar would stick up and through the connected boards that were going to act as our sill plates.

We then fixed our upright two by four to the rebar by toe-nailing them to the sill plates and bending nails around the rebar as shown on the right.

We wanted to secure them as strongly as we possibly could and Manuel assured us that this was very common practice in the DR.  We longed for the chance to run to a hardware store and buy some "L" brackets but that was impossible.  We were in a place far from consistent electricity when it was even on and depended upon a generator away from the actual job site to power what tools we had.  The only power tool we were using on site was a craftsman 19.2 screw gun for which we had limited screws that we were reserving for our "finish work" such as the doors and handles.  

We added a lateral support to our uprights and knew it would pull double duty as a "nailer" for our sheets of corrugated tin that would surround our latrine in time.  We also wanted to add another support for the top so that we could not only nail the tin to it but also act as a line for the top of the structure that would allow air flow through the latrine.   The DR gets very hot and if we enclosed the whole structure from floor to ceiling in tin, we would have an easy bake oven that could only be used in the evening!  Our first owner insisted on this and we were all very concerned for venting of the following structures.

The front of the latrine had higher supports which gave the roof a slant.  I believe that there was a six inch differential from front to back.  Lateral supports and nailers were provided for the three pieces of tin that were to act as the roof. 

A serious problem for us was that we did not have a ladder-so difficult to pack in suitcases and the COTN group did not have a ladder either.  We had to make due first with Mischael -Spider Man climbing up and hammering away first for the lateral supports and finally for the tin roof.  In the end, one of the owners of a latrine produced a short stubby ladder that enabled the rest of us to test the heights and hammer for all we were worth.

We had to support the ladder and the person nailing the roof pieces!  It was tenuous at best.

The line of tin once started was difficult to keep on track and level as you can see here.  We were not screwing this down so adjustments were next to impossible.  Once a piece was nailed into place, it was there for the long-term.  You can see the ventilation space at the top of this latrine and a small space at the bottom for some cooler air to come up from the bottom.

Sometimes we were out of materials.  The bracing and roof supports were made out of one by fours and in this case, we "sistered" in a board to extend the length of our roof support.  We had seen it in practically every structure we encountered in the DR and were not happy to be doing it but necessity proved to win the day.

I am pretty sure that I would not hire me to build anything back in the states but our customers seemed very happy and glad to have a motley crew build them these latrines!

And I have to say, that we were very glad to have been able to make them!

Just thinking out loud....

A million jumbled ideas are in my head.  I know each one of us is trying to process what we just experienced as a team and as individuals.  What many of us encountered again in the DR was abject poverty and a sense of the overwhelming problem it represents.

On the way back to Santa Domingo, we discussed how the "problem" of poverty could be fixed.   We all wanted to do something that would help those lovely people we had just spent a week with come up out of generational poverty.  It is only natural for such a response. 

We see the people in Altagracia as human beings who have the same desires and needs as we do.  We see them stuck in a place that is perhaps not of their choosing but stuck all the same.  We want to apply the models that we would use to help them move onto the next stage in their lives, get education, good jobs, buy a house and have some kids who will repeat that cycle, all the time moving farther and farther away from place where they currently find themselves.

In a sense, we see them as "just camping out in that Batey for a while."  We cannot comprehend that they have been there for a long time and have very little hope of taking any steps towards a better future. We are not stuck having to accept strange people coming to build us a place to go to the bathroom. 

To that end, I am very grateful that there are organizations made up of kind and loving people who have taken an active role in the lives of the people living in the batey of Altagracia.  If it were not for COTN, where would the people we have come to know go to for support?  How would we have heard of their needs and taken these small steps in hope for them?

We wear the symbol of the starfish on this trip.  It reminds us of the boy walking down the beach at high tide and picking up starfish stranded by the tide, dying in the sun and throwing them back into the sea.  When asked if he thought he could possibly make a difference to the thousands of starfish that were stranded, he looked down at the one in his hand and said, "I am making a difference to this one."   

Five latrines, education for kids for a few days....can you see the starfish sailing through the air?

Recuperation Day!

I am sitting here reflecting with Marty about our trip while drinking a wonderful cup of Dominican coffee. Aw! There is no sweat running down my brow, no clothes sticking to my body. In fact, I now have on long pants and long sleeves with a blanket on my lap and legs. Hmm, it's raining here, but it certainly is not warm. Transitioning back to our daily routines will be interesting. I know that a part of my heart is still in the the bateys with the children and the with the COTN staff as they attempt to provide learning to the children and give hope to their lives.

The hot shower I had this morning, the emptying of my dishwasher, the cleaning of our clothes brings new meaning to me now. I know that God is working on me as my life has been transformed once again. It will take some time for me to clarify what God has in store for my future work with these people. What will be my next involvement with these new friends, who have now been added to my heart as an extension of new branch to my family? For I have a love for them and a desire to continue to help give them hope for their futures. This transition will be challenging and perhaps unsettling at times, but I need to keep the fire burning in my heart and mind and not to allow my every day routine and jobs in life distract me or mute my desire to help, as I feel it now. For I know that it would be easy to let this experience fade into a memory and to not continue actively participating in our mission.

I pray that God will help our team to continue building on the foundation we created on this trip. And that our relationships will continue to develop between the people of Altagracia and Southminster.

I will post a few more pictures.

Cool to be back, pun intended

Amazing to get off the plane this morning to 60 degree weather (2:00 a.m.) Haven't experienced anything below about 72 degrees in the last 10 days. So, yes, the pun in the subject line was intended!

Paula and I woke up around 9:00 a.m. and have had our own little "debrief" of the trip. What an amazing experience we had! Some of my most heart-warming reflections:

--God used our team to make a genuine impact on the lives of children and adults in Altagracia. They now have a stronger model of hygiene and the beginnings of a better infrastructure. Those five latrines are the best buildings in the village! And I wish all those at Southminster could have seen the enthusiastic response of the children to the teaching about hygiene. We built loving relationships with the people of Altagracia.

--Leadership of young men in Altagracia is an encouraging sign. Manuel, a teen we met three years ago, is now at the university and providing leadership in his batey. He's not going away. He's a young man of faith and conviction. Wilson is referred to as the "principal of the village." Not just principal of the school, but the entire village. That's how important COTN's school is to them. There's hope for the children there.

--COTN provides hope through resources, education and spiritual leadership --hope that otherwise would be missing, I suspect.

--Southminster has a new "sister church" in Altagracia. We can learn from each other. Exciting times are ahead.

--As always seems to be the case on mission trips, the camaraderie of the team is profound. Deepening relationships among wonderful people was a great outcome of this experience. What a fun and gracious group of folks SPC sent to the DR!

Paula and I both feel so blessed to have been part of this ministry and we thank all our friends at SPC and especially God for the opportunity.