Dale's posts

Today, Peggy and I tagged along with Ray and Nils to San Antonio, which is south of Cristo Ray. It is large, fairly prosperous village with a medical clinic, with a Cuban Doctor, a village counsel, a water board and a women’s group. The women’s group is the force behind the establishment of a preschool which prepares the children for learning English. From what we saw that day it was a high quality program with a teacher and aide. They teach 2 sessions, morning and afternoon, in both groups they have 47 children. The only oddity is that the village is 90% Mopan Maya, however only 2 of the children in the preschool program are Maya. The water situation in San Antonio is in flux. Like much of Belize during the dry season they have a shortage of water and their usual source of water has dried up.
The government is preparing to take water from the river pump it into a tank, treat it with chlorine and supply the pipe line which is already in place.
I visited Octavia Waight nursing home with Ray and Nils, that morning. They were very enthusiastic about the possibility of a point of service, like our Appalachian systems, Living Waters System. The engineering and planning need to be done by Dan and Chuck when they visit Thursday.
Wednesday
Today Peggy Chuck, Ashley, and I saw Armenia, St Margaret’s and King’s Children’s Home. We stopped in Armenia to leave a message for Odelia and Filberta and leave the scale with a new battery. We also visited the school in Armenia and talked with the principle Mr. Uck. We had hoped to take a water sample from a tap in Armenia, but this is the dry season and there was no water in the tap. We were impressed with the school. Peggy is blogging about that encounter.
In St. Margaret’s we had an interesting encounter at the school. We talked with both the principle and vice principle. The vice principle was on the water board in Armenia in 2008! The principle feels that the water is not good at the tap at the school. St. Margaret’s suffers from the same problem we encountered everywhere, the water supply is not reliable during the dry season. The principle says that they dismiss school for several weeks during the dry season because the school does not have water. We took water samples and promised to tell him the results. He says that the government tests the water and he never gets the results. The school has 350 students, who come from St Margaret’s (about 750) and the surrounding area.
Our next stop was King’s Children’s Home. It is still in the same place. They are trying to build a volunteer house for people to stay in while they are helping to build the new home. The plans are to have enough room for 44-45 children. They have added cistern tanks which they use to run the washing machines. It has effectively reduced their utility bill. The home looked much as it had when we saw it in 2008. Their need for support remains constant.
Thursday
Today was the day to visit Octavia Waight. The consensus was that Octavia Waight is a good candidate for a water system. Others will blog about the details. I am still impressed with the care given the patients. It is truly a place you could put your parents.
Our next visit was to Cornerstone, which has many programs, AIDS/HIV education and outreach program, a feeding program for children and disabled/elderly adults and others. We rode along as they delivered meals and observed the children come for lunch. The level of poverty is grim and some of the situations are discouraging. They delivered dry food supplies (beans, rice, powdered milk, and what ever else had been donated) to a woman who has HIV. She lives with her 5 children and her partner, who gave her HIV and also beats her. We visited a single mother who is caring for her 11 year old mentally retarded daughter who has stomach cancer. The mother goes to the market every week and takes some vegetables she has grown . She then buys 2 concrete blocks to build a room for her daughter. I hesitate to describe their current living circumstances. Unfortunately, I doubt the daughter will live long enough to live in the room. What appalled me above all else, was this child had no pain relief.