Healthy Homes

So I´m starting a big, new, and exciting project and I need YOUR help! Here´s a copy of an email that I sent out explaining the project and how you can help.

Hello!

As some of you may know I am now volunteering with Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. I am a health volunteer and have been placed in a community in the eastern part of the country called Villa Hermosa. I still have more than a year left to my service, but it has been quite an experience already. Between learning Spanish, getting used to the food and heat, and adapting to a new culture, there have been many challenges. On the other hand, we have been able to form lasting connections in our community during our time here and through the projects that we´ve completed so far. So far, Trenita and I have formed an after-school program for the kids in our community, taught English classes, and taught a sex-ed class for teens, among other things.

Right now, I´m working on project called “Healthy Homes Villa Hermosa.” This project includes the construction of as many as 30 latrines the community of Villa Hermosa, as well as hygiene classes for the beneficiaries and other members of the community.For those of you who have never heard of a latrine, it is something like an outhouse. To build one, a whole is dug and cement is pored to line the whole, and as a foundation and platform for the latrine. Then, a wood and zinc structure is built around the whole for privacy purposes.

Villa Hermosa is a community where many people, who do not have indoor plumbing or toilets, depend on a latrine as a means to dispose of their waste. Many of these latrines are in very poor condition, old, and overflowing. Even worse, there are many people who can´t even afford a latrine at all and dispose of their waste in fields or behind their homes. Needless to say, this has caused an unhealthy and dangerous situation for the community. Worms, bacteria, and parasites are a few problems that this health issue has caused, and are most dangerous for the children who play in the areas where people leave their waste.

The good news is that there are means by which we can work with our community to fight this problem. The Peace Corps Partnership Program (PCPP) is a type of a grant system where volunteers like us can create a project along with our communities and get assistance to carry out that project from friends, families, and organizations back in the U.S. All donations are tax deductable, and be made either online on the Peace Corps website (faster and easier), or checks can be mailed to the Peace Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C.

My project can be found at https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=517-317

Also, general information about the Peace Corps Partnership Program can be found at https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors

So, please donate, organize a fundraiser, or at least pass on the email. If there are any questions or if any of you have good ideas for fundraisers, (car washes, bake sales, etc.) feel free to call or email me. My phone number is 809-723-9881 and my email address is dbchilders08@yahoo.com.

Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you.

-Darryl

Pictures

We have some pictures posted from our time here online at http://childerspeacecorps.shutterfly.com/

Check´em out!!

A Weekend in the Capitol

Right now I'm in Santo Domingo at the Peace Corps office. We came in this past Friday for what PCDR calls committee weekend. They designate a weekend every couple of months for volunteers to come together in the Santo Domingo to meet and plan for different committees and events. I'm participating in a committee that works developing programming that focuses on gender and improving gender relations. There are also committees that meet to plan camps and different events that are scheduled to happen this summer. Trenita and I both had a few meetings we wanted to attend this weekend, and we also needed to print, make copies, and make manuals for projects that we're about to start. There were meetings on Friday, Sat., and Sun., but most of the meetings were on Sat. We arrived Friday morning though because Trenita had an early meeting that day. She did her meeting and later on that afternoon we went to a salsa class that volunteers had organized to be held at the embassy. Things were going well until after the class when we returned to the Peace Corps office.

We were kind of milling around there, using the free wireless, deciding what we were going to eat when someone started pulling clothes from the "free box" in the lounge. The free box is something we have in the lounge where people can put things they don't want or clothes that don't fit, and other people know that these things are free for the taking. Well, Trenita found a pair of pants that she liked in the box. If you've seen pictures of her, you'll understand that she really needs some pants that fit since she's lost about 25lbs since coming to the DR and most of the pants she brought fromt he US don't fit anymore. So she went to the bathroom in the lounge, which you have to step up almost a foot to get into, to change into the pants to see if they fit. And fit they did. She was so excited about the prospect of free pants that fit that she jumped for joy and for the effect of showing off the treasured find to everyone who was hanging out in the lounge, out of the door of the bathroom. The only thing that was missing was an exclamation of, "TA-DAAA," as she leapt from the bathroom, face beaming with the pride that only free pants can give.

I would have no idea that what happened next was so serious until hours later. As she jumped from the bathroom she landed on the side of her foot and appeared to have rolled her ankle. I immediately left for ice and pronounced the injury a simple sprain(I AM a health volunteer. I know about these things). Trenita, however, insisted that it was more serious. She said that she heard a crack, and later others sitting near the bathroom said that they heard it too. So we decided to call the Peace Corps medical officer, who suggested we wait to see if it felt better, then go to the emergency room for an X-ray.

Things were suprisingly smooth at the emergency room. It was almost empty and we were seen pretty much immediately, and taken back for the x-rays. Once the x-ray came back it was obvious that her foot was in fact broken.

Even though we could easily see that it was broken, the surprise didn't come until an hour or so later when the specialist showed up and told us that she would need to have surgery! We were caught off guard, but they assured us that it was a simple surgery that could be done right here in the DR. They wrapped up Trenita's foot in a temporary cast and scheduled that operation for Monday.
After that, the weekend actually kind went on as planned. We went to our meetings and even went to Friday's to celebrate Trenita's birthday, which was the 22nd. Besides the whole broken foot thing, it was a pretty good weekend. Peace Corps even paid for our room for the weekend and gave us money for food since Trenita's foot was broken.
The actual surgery was yesterday and everything went well. The surgery itself only took about 30 minutes, but we did plenty of waiting and prep at the hospital before that 30 minutes. The doctor told us that they only made about an inch-long incision, set the bone and inserted a small pin to hold everything in place. We spent the night at the hospital last night. It was a pretty nice room with cable and air conditioning. We checked out of the hospital this morning and are back in the same room that we were in before the surgery for tonight. We should be heading back to our site tomorrow morning.
Overall, things went pretty well. Peace Corps definitely did a great job of making sure we had everything we needed. Now the challenge for Trenita is going to be just getting around at our site. The roads are mostly unpaved, rocky, and with lots of pot-holes. Also, our apt. is on the 2nd floor.We'll see how it goes. We'll keep you guys updated.

Speaking of updates, I just realized I hadn't put any pictures up on here for a while. Trenita has a lot of pictures up on a picture website you can get to through her blog, but here are a few from the past few months...








AIDS Walk way back in December for World AIDS Day. We didn't have a lot to do at this point since we were in the middle of a site change. It was nice to be able to get out and be involved in something. There were Escojo (Peace Corps DR youth HIV edu. program) groups from all over the region and lots of good energy and excitement.








Some of our new family in Villa Hermosa on New Year's Eve. We had only been there for a couple of days, but they did a group job including us and making us feel welcome right from the beginning.








We took a river trip with the family about a month ago and this is a picture of the dominos game they had set up in the middle of the river. They sat out there and played all day.




Me fishing by hand in the river. I didn't catch anything.

The flag at the base of the flag pole at the school in Villa Hermosa. Dominicans love their flag!

Coming Up For Air

I´m back! I´m now in my new site and things are good. Things have been pretty busy though, since we were trying to squish everything that we would have done in the first 3 months in a site, into the one month we had before our 3 month in service training. That´s the conference where we present our results about our community. We just had it this past week, and we presented resources and necessities of the community in general, and I also presented results from the health surveys I did in the community and ideas for future projects based on the findings. Everything went well, and now we are gearing up to really started with these projects.

In other news, we´ve finally moved into our own place. After 6 months of living with families, in the U.S. and the DR, we have our very own apt. once again. It´s not fancy, but it´s ours. We´re now in the process of getting stuff to put in it, since Dominican apts don´t come with things like a refrigerator or stove or anything else you might think is automatic. But we´re having a good time figuring things out and trying to find some kind of normalcy in all this.

Gotta go, but you´ll hear from me soon!