May 25, 2011

Buenas Amigos y Familia! 

Your letters and emails in response to the blogs are fabulous - and giving me motivation to keep writing and keep sharing.  I am delighted to see that they are somewhat entertaining enough to keep your attention.  Thanks for all the support.  For all those buried in a snowdrift right now, I am hesitant to report that it is about 85 degrees in Monte Sinai today (according to my trusty internal thermometer)...  The rains have started.  Night times are loud with the rain pounding on our metal roof.  I wake me up a couple times a night from the pounding.  This is surprising, considering the honks of the water trucks don´t even make me flinch in my sleep.

The last part of January, into March has been absolutely overwhelming for me.  The first month in Ecuador was a Honeymoon period - everything was new and exciting.  From there I moved into a period of frustration with the language and my job...maybe a bit of homesickness. The Holidays kept me busy as I started to get accustomed to life here and finding my niche in the community.  I was starting to find my feet, feeling a part of Monte Sinai and feeling like I knew tiny bit of what was going on around me.  Right now, the harsh realities are poverty are hitting me hard as Monte Sinai and my job are undergoing a few changes.

The day after New Years, my housemates and I woke up to some very active streets outside of our house.  There were in the streets loaded with house-building materials.  The stores were nearly cleaned out of food, no bread left in the bakeries, and people upon people walking in the streets.

We soon learned from Bolivar (local store owner) that president Correa had denounced Marco Solis and all the "owners" of the invasion communities in Guayaquil.  They had been trafficking land, or selling government land to private owners without permission from the government.  Correa put a large price tag on the heads of all the land traffickers, who fled the scene overnight.  Rumor has it they are hiding in Germany...  Anyone who had bought land from Marco Solis could keep their land and their house.  All other land went to the government.  Naturally, the news spread like wildfire, and people started rushing to Mount Sinai to claim all the unclaimed land, throw up a house real quickly, and claim that they had bought the land from Marco Solis.  People started "squatting" on land plots (guarding it so others could not take it over), others stole already-standing houses.  The rest built flimsy cane and tarp structures to claim the land when the military came to take a census.  Today, a month later, people are still building.  The streets have quieted down considerably, and we are still waiting for the military census.  In some areas, the government is knocking down cane structures, claiming the territory back for the government.  There are occasional tire-burning protests in the surrounding communities as the government moves in.  Marco Solis and his comrades are nowhere to be seen.

My housemates and I have had considerable conversations about this transition to government control.  We are experiencing this transition from Western, developed country ideals and by no means understand the situation around us.  But from our conversations with neighbors about invasion neighborhood history, this transition had to happen sometime.  In many ways, this is a good transition for the community.  The government now has to recognize Monte Sinai as part of the city and provide the basic public services.  (Electricity, water, security force, and trash removal).  But with massive amounts of people, comes crime, drugs, gangs, and violence.  Don´t worry parents - this comes a few years down the road.  But for our neighbors, it is a great concern.

Without a basic infrastructure - schools, libraries, soccer fields, kids are left to walk the streets and find other activities to occupy their time.

Right now, it seems to be a race against the clock...  If the neighborhoods don´t form strong communities, security systems, and alternative options for their kids, the streets could become very dangerous very quickly.

With the turn of the new year, my job changed considerably.  They revised the health program at Hogar de Cristo and decided that we have too many eggs in one basket - that is too many small projects running and not enough hands to keep track of them all.  I agree 100%...but unfortunately it is the projects of the volunteer that get cut first.  So yes, the HIV talks are no more.  Verónica is very disappointed.  I had put a ton of time and effort into developing that program and learning the HIV-Spanish lingo.  We had finally gotten to the point of having measurable results and educating a good handful of people.  I ended up with a lot of time at the beginning of January to figure out where I want to focus my efforts for the rest of the year.  This gave me quite a bit of time in the neighborhood, and I rather fell in to the position of social worker in Monte Sinai.  Veronica is delighted - this is a great opportunity for us to develop some sort of protocol and list of contacts for families in dire situations.  I am also delighted, yet emotionally drained after my first 2 months of attempting to fulfill this position.  I have had the privilege to working with two cases during these months- both of which have profoundly affected my experience here in Ecuador.

Celinda is a 25 year old neighbor of Consuelo who lives with a mental disability (undiagnosed) in the midst of an extremely alcoholic and abusive household.  She lives with her single mother, younger brother (23 yrs) and 2 nieces in a chain house, barely elevated from the mud puddles underneath.

Her sister (Mariana) lives two houses down with 5 kids and dysfunctional husband.  The sister is an alcoholic as well and extremely abusive to her five kids.  Jenn has been working with this family to get the kids into the shelter - as they are left to the street, without school and many times without food.  On a couple of occasions, I have walked into Consuelo's house to find the five kids and the mother seated silently at the table with plates of chicken and rice sitting in front of them.  Consuelo and her kids are quick to sit me in a chair and serve me the same.  All the while, Consuelo does not have funds to send her kids to school.

At the beginning of January, Consuelo and a couple neighbor ladies began to notice that Celinda could be pregnant.  A visit to the hospital soon after showed 32 weeks of pregnancy and that Celinda would need a caesarian section.  Breaking this news to a family that already goes at least one day a week without eating was extremely hard.  A pregnancy means another mouth to feed, several trips to the doctor, and medical expenses.

We continued with minimal prenatal care throughout January, until Celinda gave birth to a baby girl on February 1st, 6 to 8 weeks premature.  (Each doctor came to a different conclusion as to how far along Celinda was with each ultrasound).  The baby was born extremely malnourished and rushed to the incubator soon after birth.  Celinda was diagnosed with active Tuberculosis in the hospital along with a heart murmur.  Despite her sickness, they sent Celinda home to recover

3 days after her caesarian section, keeping the baby for another 10 days.

Celinda and baby have now been home together for 3 weeks.  We found funds from Hogar de Cristo to buy milk, diapers, and vitamins for the baby.  I took my boss from Hogar de Cristo to visit her last week, and we found the baby extremely weak and malnourished still.  It turns out Celinda has been caring for the baby with the help of Jaqueline, a

12 year-old niece.  The grandma leaves the house everyday for work, unable to oversee the care of this child.  Concerned for the health of Celinda and baby, I took them by bus (yes, a 2-kilogram baby on a public bus...) to one of the Hogar de Cristo sub-centers.  The doctor told us that Celinda needs to be admitted to the infectious disease hospital for her respiratory infection and heart condition.  I took Celinda back home and broke the news to her mother.  Sending Celinda to the hospital is not an option for them.  There would be no one to care for the baby, the house, or the kids.

For a week, Veronica and I have been bustling around Hogar de Cristo trying to figure out options for this family.  The situation is nearly impossible.  The women (mother and sister of Celinda) are the only ones who work in this household.  They both travel 1.5 hours into the city every day to clean houses, making just enough money for transportation and to feed 7 kids, plus Celinda, the baby, and themselves.  Sometimes various men will show up, eat the food, drink away the money, and then leave for long periods of time.  Celinda has undertaken the role of house-sitter and care-taker of the 7 grandchildren than hang around the house.  Without her, the women cannot work, and the family does not eat.  Poverty hurts.

We have found a few resources that could save the situation.  Hogar de Cristo partners with a church in New Jersey who provides funds for people in need.  They have offered a monthly $200 to buy milk and diapers.  We also found a foundation in Guayaquil for malnourished kids.  They could take the baby for 3 weeks and nurse her back to health - if the family will let us take the baby.  The Hogar volunteers have been incredibly supportive in offering a hand with this case.  We may form a rotating schedule to have people stay with Celinda in the hospital for her treatment.  The only thing missing is the trust and support of the grandmother.  If we can get all these working parts together, we may be able to move forward with treatment.

It is difficult for me to write about the second case, as I know I cannot explain everything.  Juan Carlos was our neighbor, living across the street from San Felipe in a cane house from Hogar de Cristo.  Juan lived alone with a mental disability, depending heavily on his neighbors for care.  He wandered the streets daily, collecting plastic bottles for recycling, kicking around the soccer ball with the kids, and grabbing a bite to eat here and there from the local store owners.  Although he was 35 years old, Juan had the spirit of a five-year-old -always coming up to me to shake my hand with a smile and to ask me where I was going.  If I was going to mass, he would come with.  He loved to be a part of the crowd, participating in the songs and never failing to smile the entire way through.

At the beginning of January, Juan was found in the street with convulsions.  A couple of neighbors rushed him to the Hospital del Guayaquil where they admitted him to the neurology unit.  Here he stayed for over a month.  My housemates and I found him in the hospital five days after being admitted.  He had not been bathed, did not have clean diapers, and had not received any diagnostic tests to progress with a diagnosis.  They had stopped the seizures, but since he did not have a family member with him they just let him lay there.

This was a hard lesson for my housemates and I to learn – medicine in Ecuador is a completely different ballgame than the system in the US.

The hospital provides only basic medical care.  The doctors rotate through the patient rooms in the morning, write out all the prescriptions for medication, write a small update in the patient records, and order tests.  It is then up to the family member to buy the medication, buy supplies for the tests, wheel the patient in their bed to and from the tests, remind the nurses to give the pills, bathe the patient, and feed the patient.  The following day, a different doctor will rotate through and read the small update from the day before and make his/her own assessments.  If the tests from the day before were not carried out, they order it again and move on.

With no luck in finding Juan´s family, my housemates and I "adopted"

him.  It was truly a pleasure to visit Juan every day in the hospital.

 We all learned the in´s and out´s of the hospital quickly.  When not chasing down doctors and nurses for tests, we tried to keep a smile on Juan´s face with coloring books and singing.  Maria Juana, Madre Nuri, and Fr. John joined us on several different occasions to pass time with Juan.

Two weeks after being admitted to the hospital, we finally ran into Juan's sister, Fanny.  Juan was absolutely delighted to see her.  She helped us piece together Juan's story.  Had had been lost from his family for almost two years.  Juan had an adventurous spirit and often wandered out of the house, jumped on the bus, and went where ever the bus took him.  This was not the first time that Juan was lost from his

family for an extended period of time.   The longest period of time

was four years, lost from age 10 to age 14.  No one knows where he was, who took care of him, or what experiences he had during this time.  We did, however, put on our detective hats to figure out bits and pieces about his last two years.  Through talking to neighbors and friends, it seems Juan lived with an extremely abusive man outside of Mt. Sinai for several months before his neighbors rescued him and gave him a home in Mt. Sinai.  A little over a year, he livd alone in Mt.

Sinai.  Juan was extremely blessed to end up in the community that he did.  Maria Juana and Martha fed him, Danny and his kids walked with him in the street, the kids played soccer with him.  The nuns at San Felipe organized a bingo for Juan to pay for medications - we raised $130, which covered expenses for about 10 days.

After Juan's sister came, his health worsened considerably.  His HIV tests came back positive.  We suspected he had a serious case of AIDS as he suffered from several severe secondary infections.  These infections soon took over Juan's system, and after 6 weeks in the hospital he passed away.  It was time for him to pass onto the next world and rest.  He had suffered in many facets in his life from physical, mental, and most likely sexual abuse.  After being so sick and scared during his time in the hospital, passing from this world must have been an incredible relief for him.

Juan´s presence in Mount Sinai is greatly missed.  He was always a friendly face in the street open for a visit.  The community formed around him when he got sick. Everyone asked about him, many donated money for medication, and offered to visit him in the hospital.  Fr.

John said a mass in Juan´s name to celebrate his life, followed by a reception with cola and crackers where the family members could meet the community who had taken care of him.  It was a beautiful reunion between the two sides of Juan´s life who unfortunately never came together until he passed away.  My only hope is that he knew how much his community and his family loved him.  He greatly impacted many lives, including my own.

Well, it is now May 7.  Four months after I started this blog...  So much more has happened - I will have to turn around a start a whole new blog to give updates!  My work with Celinda continues (The baby weighs 5.2 Kg!!!).  She gets stronger every day.  We are still in contact with Fanny and Juan´s family who are looking into moving Juan´s house to a new location.

I heard that spring has hatched in the States.  I hope all is well where you are. And as my Grandpa always tells me, keep your plow in the ground and hand on the throttle.

Happy New Year!

January 3, 2011

Hola Todos! 

It has not hit me yet that we are in a new year – people here say “Feliz año viejo” (trsn. Happy

Old Year) half the time and “Feliz año nuevo” (trns. Happy New Year”) the other half of the time.  I am still trying to figure out which one I am supposed to be happy about.  The past year was probably the most challenging, yet adventurous and fulfilling year of my life so far.  I have a feeling this next year will be similar.  

Considering that I have not updated my blog since before Thanksgiving, here are a few highlights from the past few months… 

In the middle of November, Carlos and Alexis (supervisors of the community organizing office at Hogar de Cristo) asked me for help with a medical brigade.  We had 8 days to pull together a location for 500 patients, 21 doctors and 15 dentists.  Veronica (my boss) wanted nothing to do with the brigade, considering the disorganization and short notice.  I figured that if the doctors were willing to come, we might as well piece some sort of brigade together.  Maybe a few people would get to visit a doctor that normally would not have the opportunity.  Two days before the scheduled date, we finally found a location for the brigade (up until this time, I was convinced it was not going to happen).  It was amazing to see the community members pull together and take time out to clean the school, rearrange desks to form small exam rooms, hang sheets for curtains, squeeze 300 oranges for refreshments, and form a ticket system to organize the  500 patients expected to attend. 

From my North American perspective, the brigade was a train wreck.  Every detail that we had forgotten became blatantly obvious in the first 15 minutes of the event.  Our ticket system turned into a mass of demanding mothers pushing their children at the doctors (which turned out to be medical students).  The doctor´s didn´t have pens to write prescriptions, and dental patients had nowhere to spit, but on the classroom floors.  Details aside, I was taken back by how little the doctors actually did.  Of course, everyone wants the quick fix to their running nose and cough, so the doctors literally sat at the tables, handing out antibiotics for every sniffle and complaint.  I did not see one physical exam – not even eye contact between the doctors and the patients.  The dentists pulled teeth from patients sitting in plastic chairs, with pools of spit and blood on the classroom floors.  For lack of finding a place to make myself useful during this mess, I resorted to visiting with the patients (many of which I knew), holding babies, and handing out orange juice.  By 2 in the afternoon, the doctors had handed out all the antibiotics, packed up and took off. 

 I left the brigade with a huge rock in my stomach – wondering if we had done more harm than good.  Alexis and Carlos, on the other hand, left that day delighted at the work they had done.  They had successfully arranged for the doctors and patients to be in the same spot at the same time.  That was their job – and according to them, it went well….but I still left the brigade wondering if we did more harm than good.  People here are desperate for health care.  In desperate situations, anything goes.  Sanitation, regulations, and quality of care are the first to go.  We are feeding the mentality that antibiotics and medication are the quick fix to illness.  There are no records from that day, no referrals for the more serious cases, and no education for prevention for the patients.  What a missed opportunity! 

The beginning of December was soaked up by preparations for La Tercera Casa Abierta – Promoción de Salud.  Every December, Hogar has an open house, in honor of AIDS awareness month.  We invited Fundación Vihda and REDIMA (to large HIV organizations) to offer presentations and free HIV testing for anyone interested.  We invited over 600 people (including 3 high schools, residents of Mt. Sinai, and all the women enrolled in the micro loan program from Hogar).  Unfortunately, the principal of our biggest high school (300 students) let the kids out of class 2 hours early, but forgot to tell the kids to come to the talk … Later in the day, about 400 people came to the talk, so it was not a lost cause.  But, a huge missed opportunity for these kids and another example of the disorganization within these institutions. 

In Monte Sinai, December was a busy month for us.  Marita and Jeff decided to have a Christmas choir at Santa Teresa (one of our three churches), and I helped Marita organize a Christmas play.  The time spent practicing for these performances, along with singing Christmas carols with the kids at the San Felipe school, and participating in a Latin American Christmas tradition called Las Posadas made my advent season incredibly special this year.  We had three masses in Monte Sinai for Christmas.  At San Felipe, our six-member children´s choir performed the Christmas songs - complete with actions that they choreographed themselves.  For the Christmas play, we wrapped them in sheets, put angel wings on some and crowns on others.  They performed a captivating rendition of Jesus´ birth.  At San Felipe, several Josephs’ and Marys’ made an appearance, who also sat in the life-size manger during mass.  After each mass, we celebrated with food (rice and chicken) and of course cola, and moved on to the next mass. 

It was really good for me to celebrate Christmas without snow, Christmas lights, hot chocolate, and vast amounts of Christmas cookies.   I have spent my last four years of Advent cramming for finals in the library, relying on these material goods for my warm, fuzzy Christmas feeling. This year, there was almost nothing about my environment to get me into the Christmas mood.  That’s not exactly true… I did listen to the “Christmas Doo-Wop Party” while transplanting the watermelons in the garden (in shorts and a t-shirt) to get into the mood.  And, we did hang garland on our empty curtain hangers…  But needless to say, these preparations were nothing compared to my usual.  (My family can attest to my love for Christmas cookies and decorations).  The simplicity allowed me the time and space to focus hard on what Advent means to me – and how special Christmas can be without the fluff. 

The poverty in our community was not covered up by Christmas lights and caroling.  If anything, it became more apparent to me during the holidays.  It was well known which families may not have Christmas dinner or be able travel to see their families during this special time.  I was blown away by the concern people showed for others – the nuns, and a couple of our closest friends put a huge amount of time and thought into making the holiday special for those who would go without a Christmas dinner, or a special treat for the kids.  A couple of mom’s put on a neighborhood celebration for the kids on the 23^rd – with food, games, candy, clowns, and all.  Sylvia, from Santa Teresa, put tireless hours into decorating the church, preparing a meal for after Christmas mass, and organizing the kids for our performances.  Seeing the smiles on everyone’s faces during Christmas mass made my season complete. 

For the 25th, all the volunteers met at Sister Annie´s house (the director of Damien House - one of the Duran work sites).  Sister Annie prepared a huge Italian meal, complete with Eggplant Parmesan and Spaghetti.  From here, we all slept in Duran and took off early the next morning for vacation in the southern Sierra mountain range of Ecuador.  I am not sure how I got selected as the trip-organizer... I tend to travel without a plan.  My travel-buddies realized this soon after we got off the bus in Loja - after an hour walk trying to find our hostel.  It was only $4 dollars a night! - Complete with warm water and heavy blankets for sleeping.  After a long night in saggy beds, we woke up the next morning and jumped into a taxi to take us to the nearby Podocarpus National Park.  This park is famous for its cloud forest, which harbors the most ecosystems in one small area in the world.  Some friendly Germans picked us up at the entrance of the park and took us to the trail head, from where you can hike through various types of cloud forest.  The map advertised a 3 hour hike, looking relatively flat and easy to follow.  Three hours later, we were still hiking straight up a mountain peering over a canopy of forests and a vast landscape of mountains.  The entire loop took 5 hours to complete.  With our eyes full and stomachs beyond empty, we returned to Loja and caught our bus to Vilcabamba.

Vilcabamba is advertised as a quiet hippie town, full of foreigners (mostly Europeans) and tons of hiking, biking, and horseback riding opportunities.  Aaron, Kipp, Brenden, and I took advantage of all the mountaineering sports, starting our first day with a hike to a huge waterfall, nestled in the mountains.  Our second day, we rented bikes from "El Chino", and biked up the river with our lunches.  We spent quite a bit of time walking up the river, climbing rocks, drinking the water, and taking pictures.  The water in Vilcabamba is all fresh spring water - those who drink it are said to have longer lives. Our last day in Vilcabamba was the highlight for us all.  We scheduled a 4 hour trail ride with Holger Horses - a carefree mountain man from just outside of town.  Holger had a wild pack of horses.  We jumped on with little instruction and climbed the mountains once again, up to Holger´s farm which is situated on the side of a mountain.  Their farm was completely sustainable, with over 300 chickens, 4 cows, and a donkey for hauling water from the valley below.  His family fed us home-grown bananas and coffee and walked us up to the peak of the mountain to see all of Vilcabamba.  Mom- if I don´t come home next year, you will probably find me at Holger´s house giving trail rides and eating bananas...

With plans to catch a night bus back to Guayaquil from Loja, we decided to grab something to eat at the only place that sells cuy (the traditional coastal cuisine of roasted guinea pig) in Vilcabamba.  It was an interesting restaurant experience to say the least.  They serve the cuy oven-roasted sprawled out on a platter, all body parts intact.   To wash the cuy down, the owner of the restaurant treated us to his specialty drink, called snake juice. 

**Grandma, you may want to stop reading here... 

Snake juice is a cane liquor, in which one puts a large yellow and black coral snake in a large jar that sits by the cash register.  After 8-24 days of soaking, the alcohol is ready to serve - with a lot lime and salt.  Needless to say, we were lucky we could see straight enough to catch our buses to Loja and Guayaquil after filling ourselves with guinea pig and snake juice.  ‘Ya only live once,’ right?

**Grandma, start again here.

We returned to Mt. Sinai just in time to bring in the New Year.  Arriving home at 8:30 in the morning, the five of us took a quick nap and baked a huge batch of banana bread to distribute to our neighbors for the holidays.  We had a blast stopping by everyone´s house, drinking some cola at each, eating a mango here and some pan de pasqua (Christmas bread) there.  To the Spanish speakers out there, do not be confused.  Yes, Pascua does mean Easter, but pan de pascua is only eaten at Christmas.  Nobody seems to have an explanation for this tradition.  We ate turkey with avocado and custard at Consuelo´s house and ended at Marianna´s house for the midnight celebrations. 

Ecuadorians do not take the New Year lightly.  Each family buys a monegote (Piñata-like figure stuffed with fireworks) and lights it on fire at midnight.  We could hear explosions all over Mt. Sinai, as the streets were lined with bonfires.  Marianna treated us to chicken, rice, and hot chocolate at one in the morning for our first meal of the New Year.  We spent the next hour learning about the Ecuadorian customs for the New Year.  Here are a few that I found especially entertaining...  Ecuadorians pick 12 New Year´s resolutions.  If you want to keep these resolutions for the entire year, you need to eat a grape for each one, while wearing yellow underwear.  (I guess you need to plan ahead so they are clean for the New Year).  If you are planning to leave the country in the next year, you have to pack your suitcase on the night of the 31st and as the clock strikes midnight, sprint around the block.  This will give you safe travels on your journey outside the country.  Finally, if you are planning on traveling inside the country, the same exercise around the kitchen table will suffice.  I suppose wearing yellow underwear would not hurt if you so desired.  Stuffed full of holiday food, we left Marianna´s at 2 AM, played Foosball for an hour in the street, and crashed into bed at three in the morning.  The rest is history. 

So, here we are in 2011.  I am forever grateful for the opportunities that passed in 2010 - especially for my family and friends that have supported me all along the way.  If this New Year is anything like the past year, we are in for yet another adventure.  Who knows where this year will take us!?