LA MULA

This was a great week.  If you want to just see pictures and movies click:  HERE

This has been a most exciting week as we traveled around to different water projects with Bill and Sue Whitney, Short Term Specialist over water projects, visiting from Salt Lake.
 

  Wallace is riding a Mule (Spanish = Mula) in the little town of Monte Bonito where we are considering a water project.

This is one of a few water sources that come from a pipe a distance upstream from the community.  Sometimes there is water in the hose and sometimes not.

 

The water in the river is not potable.  Most people have to walk several blocks to these points. 

If water is not available in the pipe, they walk to a pond below the village, which is right next to where they do the laundry.

Being downhill, it collects runoff from latrines, animal pens and filth.  They desperately need a new water source.

Wallace conversed with the old man in the upper left of this picture.  He is standing in front his house.  He is 77, has a deformed hand and wrist resulting from a machete accident, has severe cataracts and cannot see out of one eye.  No-one has running water inside their home.  Every family has their own latrine.

This week was the conclusion of one our humanitarian projects in Sabana Grande de Boya.  We provided a computer, printer and projector that a non-profit organization ODDH needed to conduct a Business Development course.  These were the graduating students at our closing ceremony.  We really feel good about this project

We traveled to Parra, a little community up in the hills above San Jose de Ocoa to visit a proposed water project.  In the process we visited with Whalincon Mateo and his family who live in a little tiny humble home and presented his wife with a blackboard and chalk she wanted to teach a pre-school class in her home and a handcrank sewing machine that the Whitneys brought from the US.

They are a wonderful family.  Whalincon is the most positive person we have ever met.  They are happy and doing the best they can with what they have.

Notice how sister Mateo has tried to decorate her humble home.  Frankly, we don’t think that we have seen a happier family in the richest home in America.

The drive to the Mateo home in Parra is up a steep road and across a river.  It had rained recently so the river was higher than normal.  At one point you have to pass within 12 inches of a steep vertical drop off.  The Whitney’s would not stay in the vehicle the first time we crossed even though Wallace wasn’t that nervous having crossed it twice before in the past and knowing that trucks and other vehicles frequently pass that way.

We spent a little time touring the Colonial Zone in Santo Domingo while the Whitneys were here.

These buildings were built 500 years ago.

Friday and Saturday we traveled to Puerto Plata and did a little touring and swimming in the ocean before we had our water meetings there.

The following picture was taken at a non-profit Ambulance organization.  The Presidents little boys run the emergency radios.  The Stake President in the area is considering doing a humanitarian project for them.

Hurricane Sandy passed through the area this week dropping well over 12 inches of rain, knocking down trees and power poles. 

Though we don’t feel much closer on any of the water projects, it was a fun and interesting week.