On Saturday morning - New Year's Day - we were taken to an area called "Tin City". It runs for miles along the river and is home for the "poorest of the poor". The river is prone to flooding so you can imagine what happens to these homes when they get heavy rains. The homes here are literally constructed of posts pounded into the ground and then covered with scrap pieces of corrugated "tin". There is no running water and the river is used as a latrine. You can understand why you cannot drink the water in the Dominican Republic.
Most of the residents in the community we are serving came from "Tin City". Their current living conditions are a great improvement over where they started, but far below anything we would accept in the United States. The sad realization is the people in nearby Haiti would love to live in "Tin City" as it would be a step up from their current conditions. There are still over a million people in Haiti living in tents.
The things we take for granted in the U.S. like trash removal, are not available in the Dominican Republic
You see trash everywhere, which also contributes to a high disease rate
If you look closely in this picture, there is a piece of pvc pipe attached to the roof line of this home.
It acts as a drain pipe of sort, running into two plastic buckets on the ground.
This is this home's source of drinking water.
After returning from "Tin City" we gathered in the new Community Center to await the Bishop.
Dominican Bishop Nicanor Pena Rodriquez spoke the missionaries and thanked us for all we have done to help this community. He told us that this mission project is being used the example to many other outside groups interested in helping in the Dominican.
Father Bob Stec and Bishop Rodrigues ready to dedicate the new statue
Father Stec, Bishop Rodrigues and Father Turner with a plaque that will be hung on the statue
All of the clothing that was donated in Cleveland for the mission was sorted, sized and laid out for the community to view and choose. There were rooms full of shoes, clothing and personal hygiene items.
Each community family was given an appointment time and about ten minutes to "shop".
Personal hygiene items are very expensive and a luxury to the families living in the mission community.
Families gather outside the school waiting for their appointed time to "shop" for clothing. All of the donated items are given free to the community.
We continued to work on the dry wall for the medical offices and school offices on Saturday. Ladders were at a premium so we used whatever to reach those "high spots"
Some of my volunteer helpers on the drywall crew!
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