Celebration!

Marvin from Batey 7, son of Marleny and Guillermo,
both members of the CHE work in Batey 7.

On July 5, a group of 25 of us had a real day at the beach. It was a day of sun and fun, sharing food, bathing in the turquoise Caribbean sea, riding waves and rinsing off in the cold streams flowing down the forest-covered Bahoruco mountains.

It may seem odd to start off a new blog site about Jenny and my new work talking about a day at the beach, but July 5th was a celebration, and celebration is a key part of our work. It is easy to forget that.

What were we celebrating? We were celebrating the work of the Community Health Evangelism committee of Batey 7 (see, for example, Batey 7: Health Screening). We recently did an inventory of all the work they have done over the last four years and all of us were surprised at how long the list was.  We kind of ran out of room on our 18" X 24" newsprint. The most recent activities included:

a) Visiting all 300 homes in the community to share ideas for improving hygiene and nutrition in the homes so that the children might suffer less from parasites and anemia (January-April)

b) Holding three workshops for the mothers of  thirty children selected based on the results of the health screening held in 2016 (May and June)

c) Hosting a group of  8 youth from the New Wilmington Summer Service Program, leading them in exploring the community and teaching them about Batey 7's history.

and

d) Sending three community members to participate in a workshop training for CHE facilitators (August).

Nothing anywhere happens without meetings, and the Batey 7 committee held their fair share between January and August.

But let's get back to the beach.

Note: not pictured here, maybe because she was dodging the camera, is Altagracia, the president of the Batey 7 CHE committee. Altagracia has been the heart and soul of everything the group has done over the last two years. When we asked one of the committee members why they had decided to work with CHE, their response was, "Because Altagracia is relentless."

Juan Noel (far right) jogging down to the water. This was during the second half of our beach day, at Quemaito beach (18.1217486,-71.0709965). We spent the first half a San Rafael, but the waves were too big for most of the group. Leo and I rode them for a while until the ride came to go to Quemaito. (San Rafael is 18.0282609,-71.138717)

Yulisa (left) with her daughter, taking Keila and Annika into the water at Quemaito. Keila and Annika and I were the only
ones who did not bring food, so the rest of the group took responsibility for feeding us. I ate twice, but I think Keila and
Annika may have been on their third or fourth helpings.

Annika and Keila swimming and swimming and swimming.

Juan Noel (Left), Eduardo and Simena posing on the beach.. Eduardo and Simena are two of the three "Bateyeros" who participated in the CHE Training of Trainers (or Facilitators) in August in Santiago  with Flor de Leon and her training team.

Lina, demonstrating her flying abilities.

(Left to Right) Lina, Marleny, sister of Marleny (behind) and Juan Noel. Marleny "fired" me as the driver for the day, because when we participated in an exchange with Jaquimeyes, she said I drove too fast on the curves. So I let her husband, Guillermo drive our Nissan pickup.

Guillermos, Marleny's husband and designated driver for the day. As we were zipping
along at the end of the day, headed back to Batey 7, Marleny "fired" Guillermo, too.

The list of projects the Batey 7 CHE committee has carried out over the last three
or four years. We'll try to explain the "A's", "B's" and "C's" in a future post.