limpieza

Last Friday we had a community clean up, which is the first activity that has been put on by the 'gran comision', let by Jose Quezada. Starting around 8 a.m., Jose and different community members, mostly kids, started picking up trash. By the time I got there with some students that were working with us, around 9:30 a.m., they had already used up all the garbage bags they had. We ended up hauling two dump trucks full of trash out.

Our next challenge will be to educate people about how to better dispose of their trash. People mostly burn their trash, but that leaves all the non-burnable things along the roads (glass bottles, soles from shoes, tin cans).

The picture above shows one of the students that was working with us, myself, and Franddi picking up trash.

more lorena stove

Yesterday, saturday, we finally made some big progress in the Lorena stove. We just have one more step left!! Now that the base is finished and filled with dirt and stone, we were ready to actually start making the stove part. Here is how the procress went, more or less:


Cristian and Ramon mixed the red clay with sand and water, kind of like mixing cement

The mix was put on the base, inside of a wooden frame we'd built. It was added layer, by layer.

With each layer, we'd mix it with our fingers, and pound it with our fists, and then pat it with our palms. In this photo Mateo is helping. At one point we had about 4 kids crowded on one side helping us.

Then we'd put a piece of plastic over the clay, and pound it with a concrete block.

We got dirty, and today I feel like I've exfoliated my hands. Eugenio is the guy in the red shirt, who volunteered to teach us how to build the stove.

The finished product, for now. When it is dry, on Monday or Tuesday, we'll finish the stove by taking the wood off, digging out the tunnel where the firewood goes, and making the holes where the pots and chimney go.

La Gran Comision

We continue to have meetings, led by Jose Quezada. The goal is to bring together all the different associations that already exist and the community leaders to form a group that has enough vision and man-power to bring positive change to the community.

Today's meeting was the third one, and we identified who we want to invite to be a part a the group and which issues we want to tackle first. They decided that litter and people not paying their electric and water bills will be dealt with first.

As far as littering, we decided to have a community clean-up day on Friday. SI is going to send the Daihatsu dump-truck to haul the trash away with, and we're going to ask the school to send students to help us. We are asking all the associations to participate throughout the day. We also discussed the need to educate people about the need to keep the environment clean, but I'm not sure how we are going to go about doing that.

A community can receive electricity 24 hours a day only if the majority of people living there are paying their electric bill. Jose estimates that only about 25% of the houses in Los Higos are paying for their electricity. Electric bills have also gone up recently, and they suspect that the company is increasing the bills so that those who do pay will cover for those who don't.

The community has it's own water system that is ran by a committee of people from the community. They only charge $RD35 per month (a little over a dollar), but about 25 homes are not paying! Augustin (who is president of the water committee) has been threated with violence when he has gone to cut someone's water off (once I saw a man threaten him with a machete). In the meeting they came to the agreement that it's not enough for Augustin alone to warn those who aren't paying. Rather, a group of people need to approach those who don't pay.

They also want to start planning a preschool for Los Higos.

The coolest thing about these meetings is see how passionate everyone gets and watching Jose cooly take in what they say and direct their comments to keep us focused. At one point Ramon stood up and shook his fist raving that those of us who pay for electricity shouldn't have to pay for those who do not. Jose listened calmly and afterwards said, 'You are right. And that is why we are forming this commision..." and he continued on with the business of talking about the commission.

Jose continually brings up that we need to become Godly people of character, who don't just complain about the problems in the community. Rather, as believers, we have a responsability before God to act in ways that solve the problems and teach others to do the same. He said that the community is currently like a gold ring in a pig's nose. We have some real gems (like great people and a beautiful location), but we are not being careful with them.

church

Boy, I hadn't gone to a church service in Los Higos for a while (a couple months). The church continues to meet on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Lately, the newly baptized members have been preaching, and Carmen Luz gave the message for the first time on Saturday. (In the picture above, the church is praying for her before she begins). She talked about I Corinthians 13.

The Bible studies that we used to hold on Monday nights were cancelled to begin having cell groups (smaller groups that met in homes). But it seems that none of the cell groups are still meeting. But even with that setback, the church seems to be excited to grow and try new things. For this past month, the church has been fasting on different days and praying for Los Higos from different places in the community.