Monday, February 06, 2012

After a night of fragmented sleep due to the many ‘good-timers’ carousing until 4:30 a.m., Bea awoke to notice that our alarm had not gone off.  ‘Housekeeping’ replaced the batteries in our clock last night and reset the time to 9:10 a.m. instead of p.m.  We still managed to make 7 o’clock ‘meditation’ led by Cath.  We enjoyed a hearty breakfast and then were away to Esperanza (Spanish for ‘hope’).  This village was started in 2009 and now has over 220 houses, a church, a school, artisan shops, and a medical clinic. Our team of 23 people split into 3 groups – painters, diggers and block layers.  Just to clarify, yesterday I said that 22 people came here for week 2, but Vic (our industrious bookkeeper and go-to-guy) came down for week 1 as well.  He spent a lot of his time in the woodshop in Paradise village making window shutters and doors to be installed in Esperanza and a new village (Zion). After a sweaty morning of labour we glad to break for lunch.  John Huizinga, the Director of ‘Samaritan Foundation’ arrived to express thanks and tell us that he would like to see us finish one of the houses so that a family could be moved in on Saturday.  This means filling and leveling the base for a concrete floor and porch, mixing and pouring the concrete, putting on a wood and corrugated metal roof, and installing window shutters and doors.  A huge challenge since most of the work must be done in the next 2 days!!! 



Master Blocklayer (behind me)



After lunch of ham & cheese sandwiches, muffins, croissants and bananas we left for the Public Hospital in Puerto Plata.  Note:  We never consume all the lunch food provided by the resort, so it is discretely distributed to the neediest families in the village.  There we visited the children’s, adult’s and maternity wards to give our greetings and gift bags containing many items, including toiletries, washcloths and toys for the children.  We dispensed nearly 80 gift bags to patients and babies. 

Story Within a Story:

Before leaving Ontario, Bea had a very vivid dream about a baby that had been abandoned by its mother and was in a crib at the far end of the maternity ward.  Imagine her shock when we learned that there was indeed such a baby in that location. She had been brought in by a young couple who were giving her care and who hope to keep her.  It was a very touching (i.e. teary) encounter.  Bea was later found lingering in the maternity ward, rocking a newborn baby and giving its young mother some techniques in consoling a baby.

Two Happy Brothers

Bea's 'Dream Baby'