Friday, January 11th, 2007
Our team was split for the entire day today.
One part went back to the hospital. They didn't get back until late, so I'll not
be able to tell you about their work until tomorrow. The other team was the five
women from Murray State University who were in charge of the YWAM installation,
which is the one we paid for here at rlp.
Hooray for us!
I was hanging out with the young women, helping
some and taking pictures too. It was a basic installation. Two tanks in a
pumphouse, chlorinating the water and providing access at a spigot. It's not
fancy, but instead of buying 5-gallon bottles of water, they can fill them up
themselves at their pumphouse.
This installation was done almost entirely by
these young women, lead by Courtney. We were all so proud of them. And I thought
you'd like to see some pictures of the water purifier you made possible with
your gifts. I have a lot of pictures up at Flickr, but I'll include a few here
as well.
Courtney working on a water line.
Amanda working on the external spigot.
Putting together the Purifier
The finished system!
The team that put in YOUR purifier!
The hospital team ran into some...issues. So
we're a little behind there, but I'm sure we'll catch up tomorrow. The whole
team is going to the hospital, then the Murray State women and I are going to a
previous installation to do some continued water health training.
Please do check out the Flickr photos. They
show you more detail about the YWAM installation.
Pictures here.
Slideshow here.
I've got a couple of free minutes here, so how
about some personal stuff?
1. Dominican Driving - Driving here in
the Dominican Republic is unlike anything I've ever seen. At first I was
terrified. People pull in front of each other with the smallest amount of space.
Motorcycles weave in and out of cars. Two cars will merge into the same lane,
barely missing each other, horns blaring. And yet, we saw no accidents. My
theory is that there are several elements going on.
First, all traffic boils down to official
rules and unofficial morays. In the Dominican Republic, it's more morays
than rules. Everyone understands that if a person can pull in front of you,
they will. And it's your responsibility to watch out for that. Everyone
knows there will be motorcycles weaving around and people walking in the
street selling things. The whole thing forces you into a constant state of
defensive driving. You can't eat a sandwich or talk on the phone and drive
here. You have to be watching because on every trip, at least 5 or 6 people
are going to cut you off and pull in front of you or edge you over in your
lane.
In the United States, we drive according to
strict rules and expect others to follow them. This leads to us being on
auto-pilot. Then when someone makes a mistake and pulls in front of us, we
might not notice it because we aren't expecting such a thing. I wouldn't be
at all surprised to find that there are less accidents in the D.R. than in
the U.S., though I have no figures to support that.
2. Cold Showers - There is no hot water
where we are staying. None. At first this seemed like a terrible inconvenience.
"How in the world am I supposed to take a cold shower?" I wondered. Well, guess
what - If you are dirty and tired, you'll take any shower you can get. That's
the first thing to remember.
I don't have much experience with this, but
there seems to be two theories to surviving the cold shower. The first involves
sticking your head under the water and getting it wet, the pulling away,
shampooing, and sticking it back under to rinse. You basically do this with your
whole body. Quick wetting, soap without the cold water hitting you, then grit
your teeth for the rinse.
The other option is to suck-it-up and stand
under the cold water until you get somewhat used to it. Then shower as usual. It
never feels comfortable, but you do get so that it doesn't bother you as much. I
recommend the second method, but then I've only been at this for 4 days.
rlp
