More visuals

The park you see in the background of these pictures is adjacent to the English Institute, and is the place that we spend most of our free time. These two little buggers are sisters, and their names are Yolani and Mary Isabela. They like climbing on top of me and pretending that I am their chauffeur, yelling "Con toda tu fuerza, caballo!" (with all your strength, horse).

Another public health sign, this one sponsored by the Dominican government. Bleach is commonly used to sterilize water containers in the bateys. If diluted by 1/5 and left to sit for more than 20 minutes, it will kill pretty much any organism that is an ID threat.

This is a transport line to a banana packaging factory in the batey called Jaramillo, the closest batey to Montecristi.

Here we have the first step in the banana packaging process. The bananas are being cleaned in sterilized water.

Here's Doctor Miguel Garcia, my mentor here in the Dominican Republic. He is an epidemiologist and adolescent psychologist who counsels pregnant teenagers. He spends every afternoon working for Banelino, a cooperative that owns the banana factory I just showed you. Banelino was founded by a Dutch woman who came to the DR around 10 years ago and organized a group of 5 banana plantations to form a cooperative which participates in fair trade practices with European nations. The profits from these plantations are all spent on public health programs for 14 bateys around Monte Cristi. It's a fascinating program because it shows how Dominicans are producing more than enough wealth to build sustainable social programs.

Here's the health clinic next to the packaging factory. The doctors and nurses who collaborate with Banelino keep many of their medical supplies here along with 2 other buildings, one in Montecristi and one in Mao. There is a batey right outside of this packaging facility, and it is one of the bateys that is part of the public health program. For that specific one, Dr. Garcia and his associates will go there on a monthly basis and set up a free clinic, and all the villagers with health problems come to the clinic to get checked out. In each of the 14 bateys they have trained at least 1 community health worker, who works as a liason for Banelino, keeping them updated on patient's conditions and notifying their communities with Banelino comes for the monthly clinic. In addition to holding free clinics for general health concerns, Banelino has instituted a robust vaccination program in all of the bateys. This vaccination program has dramatically reduced the incidence of measles in these communities, as well as a host of other IDs. I'll get more pictures up in a later post of the free clinics.

Afternoon shower in the banana fields.

Another pic of the packaging center

Dominicanos vs. Gringos baseball game. Guess who won this one.

This is a picture from the Jaramillo batey behind the banana factory. This tree must be pushing 100 years old. Beautiful.

As you can see, the housing in the bateys is pretty miserable. I'm sorry I could not get pictures of people in these, I will try to get more next week. Most of the bateys that we work with are inhabited exclusively by Haitians, who are often willing to work for much lower pay than Dominicans, at the cost of living in horrific poverty. I will describe in greater detail my feelings and thoughts about the bateys, but I am just beginning to understand how these people live. My emotions certainly run the gamut- shock, dismay, and sadness at the physical conditions of their existence, contrasted by laughter, happiness, and hope when I am within the presence of these people. They live in such poverty, yet are so thankful for the work we are doing, so happy that we are there. In the face of such profound material destitution, I see in them an incredible richness of spirit. It's certainly made me reconsider what exactly poverty is, and who is really poor in this world.
One note about photographs- some Haitians are extremely superstitious, and believe that when a photograph is taken of them, you are stealing part of their soul. Thus I am a little cautious to begin taking photographs of the people until I get to know them a little better.
And how will I get to know them better? By learning Haitian Creole, of course. I've already picked up many phrases, and I hope to be conversational by October. I certainly get enough interaction with Haitians in the bateys, on average 8 hours a week, so that I have plenty of opportunities to learn it. They love teaching it too.
Again, another public health sign that has been put up next to the latrine in Jaramillo. The problem with this sign? It's in Spanish. All the families in this communities are Haitians. The vast majority of them speak no Spanish, which can be a pain when we try to deliver health care there, because no one at Banelino speaks good Creole (this gives me another good reason to get good at Creole). There is usually 1 or 2 good Spanish speakers in each village, who are almost invariable the community health workers that Banelino has trained.

I'll get some more posts up soon. I have a bunch of odds and ends that I've written down, and I have about 4 posts pending right now, but I just haven't had the time to finish them.