In which the library moves forward...

I know that many of my readers were generous enough to make donations to my community library fund, so I thought I would give a brief update to let you know how it's progressing.

The room in my house that we are converting into the library space is almost prepared. We've plastered the walls, carved out a door, and will probably paint it this week. I am going to try my hand at painting a world map mural, so that should be interesting.

We already have hundreds of books, thanks both to the financial donations and to the many people who have contributed books directly. In about a week we are taking a pickup truck to a book fair in the capital that we will fill up with books using all the extra money that we have.

My service ends in about a month, so we are kind of coming down to the wire. But sometimes that's the way it goes. The books that are here are already being loved, and the people in the community are so excited that they are going to have their very own room filled up with books for them to read. It's an opportunity that none of them have ever had, so thanks to all of you for helping to make it happen! I will post some photos sooner or later.

Regarding relief...Day 3

(I am on the Haitian border, aiding with the earthquake relief effort. These are my stories)

Today was tough. Due to pressure from the local government, we are having to reduce the number of people within the hospital compound. This meant that today we had to make sure that each patient only had one family member staying at the hospital with them. Most families have had two or three people staying and caring for the patient. We had to go from family to family, explaining that they had to decide which of them was going to get on the bus that was going back to Haiti.

This is one of the most difficult things I have ever done. The Haitian people are extremely family oriented. These patients have lost their homes, and in many cases their limbs as well. Now we had to go around and tell them that we were splitting up their families for the time being. There was a lot of heavy emotion. Some patients refused to be separated, and tried to get on the bus wearing huge casts and with pins sticking out of their open wounds. Family means that much.

I feel stuck between the logical understanding of the practicalities involved with this operation, and a deep compassion for the people and a desire to do anything, no matter how unreasonable, to keep their lives from getting even crappier. It is not fun.

Regarding relief...Day 2

(I am currently at a hospital on the Haitian border, aiding the earthquake relief effort for about a week. These are my stories.)

What a day. I experienced a lot. I carried stretchers to operating rooms. I watched a medical helicopter take off. I had to scrounge to find food so that hungry people could have at least one meal today. I heard poor, homeless, injured refugees singing praise to Jesus at the top of their lungs. It was a full day, and I feel tired, frustrated, encouraged, satisfied, pessimistic and also excited about the world. Let's just say that I am learning a lot.

It all started when I got up at about 6 AM, to get ready for the early morning meeting with the team of translators. We assigned them to specific shifts in designated parts of the hospital. Apparently a lot of these guys have been working 24 hour shifts, following doctors around to translate their conversations with the patients. Not easy work. The translators are physically exhausted, emotionally drained, and are getting absolutely no compensation for doing a pretty important job. We have started making sure they get extra food at meal times to try to keep them happy. This meeting is the last specific event I remember from today. I am tired, but things also operate in such a whirl wind of activity that all that manages to stay in my head is a series of pictures, impressions, ideas and feelings.

The patients are mostly here with limb injuries. Almost everyone has either had an amputation, or is in traction. It is not easy to see, especially the little kids. It seems that most of them were just in their houses or at school when the quake hit, and the walls came down. It is encouraging to see them getting very good care, though. We have operating rooms, physical therapists, psychiatrists, 24 hour nursing attention and lots of other medical amenities that would not otherwise be available to these folks.

That being said, it is certainly NOT the mayo clinic. The patients are in crowded, dusty tents on thin worn out mattresses. They get fed twice a day with food donated by the local government. Lunch is a pile of greasy rice, and dinner is about half a cup of very liquidy oatmeal. Not exactly the kind of food that is ideal for someone recovering from a traumatic injury. There is no TV, AC, yummy hospital food, or caring relatives coming to visit. Each patient is allowed to have one or two family members staying with them. They have no connection with the people back in Haiti.

My job, besides coordinating the translators, is to do whatever I can to help out with the logistics of running this place. We volunteers do a lot of the dealing with local Dominicans. We are responsible for getting the food delivered and served every day. We serve as the cultural go betweens. It is not easy at all. American doctors like things the way they like them. In a situation like this, though, you have to work with what you have. Dominicans can be equally stubborn. I am learning a lot about international disaster relief strategies, but I won't bore you with that talk today.

We operate one day at a time, doing what we can to help the people in front of us. Right now it is unclear whether this place will turn into a long term care center. No one knows. We all work hard, and sleep is hard to come by. I am pooped. I will turn in soon, and try to write something more story-like tomorrow. I appreciate the prayers.

Regarding relief...Day 1

(I am currently at a hospital on the Haitian border, aiding the earthquake relief effort for about a week. These are my stories.)

I arrived here at the hospital around midday, and it has been a very busy experience so far. We are a few miles from the border. There are about 150 patients here, and about the same number of family members. Patients are layed out in tents, as most of them are still frightened to sleep inside a building, after having their homes collapse on them. There are a lot of sad stories here. People have lost friends, family members, and everything they have.

The doctors are mostly American and Spanish, here for shifts of a couple weeks. Peace Corps volunteers have taken over the administration of the facility. We distribute food, manage the translators, keep the books, and do all kinds of things to keep the trains running in week long shifts.

I will be in charge of coordinating the translator team. It is a group of about 20 young Haitian men, most of whom are relatives of patients. They were recruited for their ability to speak some combination of English/Spanish/Creole. They are not being paid. My job is to keep them happy, and make sure they are where they need to be to help the doctors. I start tomorrow morning. Look for stories tomorrow.

Regarding the library...

My community is trying to form a library. We have virtually no books for people to read. The schools are not very good. This library would make a huge difference toward the opportunities that my friends have to expand their horizons and live better lives.

Please help us out by donating some money.

Even a dollar or two would help.

Information here.

Thanks for reading!

In which Tim goes to work...

Most of my days are spent in the pleasant pursuit of leisure. I get up around 9 AM, cook a nice breakfast, read for a bit, make some phone calls, swim in the river, eat a tasty lunch, munch on some fruit, and maybe spend some time writing. I do occasionally work, but in recent months I have been between projects, without much to occupy my time. My project partner and I have been working for a while to get funding that will allow us to build some improved wood burning cook stoves, but we have been playing the waiting game for a while.

That all changed on Friday. A motorcyclist arrived at my house bearing a note written in all capital letters. It said: "TIMO. COME TO TOWN IMMEDIATELY. WE HAVE TO BUY MATERIALS FOR STOVES!" This was the first I had heard about buying materials (I thought we were still waiting for approval), but I got on the motorcycle, and went to town.

I found my project partner waiting for me in a state of panic. He told me that we had received approval, but that the project expired TODAY, so TODAY was the very last day that we could buy materials for our stoves. Tomorrow the money would be gone. He was pretty worked up about it.

So, we pulled out a piece of paper and did some calculations. We had about $3000 to buy materials, and figured we could build about fifty stoves with that. We ordered the materials we needed, payed the man, and were all set. Not quite.

The money may be spent, but now we have the job of choosing the fifty families and building the darn things. It will not be easy. Every one wants a stove, so picking the fifty people that will get them could become very political. Also, a lot of these houses are at the end of tiny little mountain paths, not very close to the highway. We will have to figure out ways to haul the 41 cinder blocks, half meter of sand, and two sacks of cement that are necessary for the construction.

In conclusion, my leisure time will be significantly less for the next few months. I am glad of this. I am ready to spend some time working hard. But hopefully I will finish soon enough to get a bit of beach time before I finish. Only eight months to go!

In which Tim begins to clean...

I am supposed to be an environment volunteer, which means that the focus of my projects is supposed to be on protecting the little piece of the planet that I've been assigned to. For better or worse I have gotten myself into the middle of helping with lots of grand and complicated projects, some of which are environmental in nature, and some of which aren't. Sometimes, though, I find it refreshing to do something very basic with my community that helps them think about earth stewardship.

Last week we decided to do a trash clean up. I live in a small neigborhood of about thirty houses, and we have no public trash removal system. Some people carry their garbage down to the city. Some people burn it. But an awful lot of people just dump their trash into the woods, or on the street. My friends and I are trying to do something about this. I acquired a few hundred big black bags, and went around inviting people to join me on the next Monday at 9 AM to do some cleaning.

9 AM came and went. The only people who showed up were a group of about eight kids between the ages of 4 and 11. I was disappointed at the lack of strong arms (a little kid can't very well lift up a bag completely full of garbage) but forward we went. The nine of us worked for about three hours, and filled somewhere in the neigborhood of twenty five bags. It was a big success.

Now the kids are going around the neigborhood asking the adults why they don't care enough about the community to help pick up trash. I have had some adults promise to join me next time we do a pick up! It is exciting, and I am hoping we can make a weekly thing out of it. Maybe we can even install some barrels and work out a permanent removal system. That would be awesome. But in the mean time, my friends and I will be scooping trash every Monday. Feel free to come join in!

Regarding the work done by his friends...

I just finished my "One Year In Service Training" conference. I got together for a few days with all of the volunteers who came into the country with me who are working in the same sector. There are twenty of us, and we spent the first three months in country training together. This group is more or less the closest thing I have to a big family here in the Peace Corps. Since arriving in country we have not had a single person have to drop out. We are proud of that.

We live all over the country, and each of us does some kind of work related to the environment. We do trash pickups, reforestation, construction projects to conserve natural resources, education, responsible farming, and even some health extension work Some of us are in cities, and many live in the country side. We work with youth, farmers, politicians, or some mix of all of them. We build stoves, latrines, tree nurseries, and lots of other things. Our list of potential job activities is really long. Most of us have chosen our own strategy based on our individual skills and community, but there is a lot of commonality. That's why we have conferences like this. To swap stories, and sort of discuss where we are going as a sector.

It was a really neat couple of days. I got to hear about all the amazing work that my colleagues are doing. Amy and Taylor (a married couple) were struck by all of the health problems in their community related to chemical pesticide use, and have recently succeeded in convincing ALL of their community members to stop using that pesticide. My buddy Chris has gotten himself teaching regular science classes at his local high school, in the middle of dirty urban slum (where education is needed more than almost anywhere). Joel, Anne, and Tim are experimenting with ways to build clean air stoves that will be more affordable to poor families than the current model we use. Destin has started an eco-tourism cooperative that had 400 people show up to their first meeting. This is to say nothing of all the trees that have been planted, garbage cans that have been installed, stoves that have been built, classes that have been taught, and all the other things done by this neat group of people in the past year. I am very proud of them. I'm excited to see how much we do as a group before we finish in a year!