AllNationsInternational Blog

Study of Little Things

Volunteer Service in the DR

Yesterday I took a Canadian teacher to several communities. Frank is 41 years old and has been to the Dominican Republic many times. He comes three times a year, stays in the inclusive resorts. This year he decided to venture out and he said it has changed his life. He has started to see the other side of the Dominican Republic. Yesterday we went to visit poor families in the campo. We spoke to sugar cane workers, visited homes of poor women, spent a few minutes at Mustard Seed, and took pictures with school children. I learned a lot about Frank as I took him around. Frank was an orphan. Born to a mother too young to care for him and then adopted by wonderful people. Frank is grateful for his life and for the many people who love him. When he saw the poverty of people it did not cause him to feel sad or hopeless. He saw it as an opportunity to pay back the many people who have helped him. It is all part of the divine economy of love. Frank also saw the signs of hope in the communities where a small of amount of service and help have made a big difference in the lives of people. He saw that he too could do the same. Frank want to come back and teach teachers how to teach French and bring a suitcase of bi-lingual books that Canadian schools throw away when they get too old but could be used here. If you want to do big things, think small! Life lesson for the day.

One of our wonderful moments was seeing two children walking to school carrying their chairs. The school did not have enough chairs so the students bring them from home. We wondered how many North American students would do this without complaining.

Father Dale

Dominican Republic

Imagine this as your kitchen, and across from the side is the living and sleeping area. No refridgerator and sometimes the stove works, but the small orange blob next to it is the gas tank. It is out of gas, so the stove doesn’t work. They really need help. Good luck Caroline!

Dominican Republic

Let me explain, this is the outdoor bathroom and shower. See the hose around the garbage? Many houses use the same area. No privacy
Liz McKie

Dominican Republic

L to R: Liz Dove Missions, Antonio Integracion Juvenil, Sam Dove Missions, Ronald All Nations International, & Abdul All Nations International

Reaching out

The task of ending extreme poverty is a collective one–for you as well as for me. The end of poverty will require a global network of cooperation among people who have never met and who do not necessarily know one another.

Dominican Republic

Building sustainable projects

Volunteer Service in the DR

Today a woman came to me and was full of joy and sorrow. I had talked to her a couple of days ago and I told her ofthe plight of the Haitians in the Dominican Republic. It flew right over her head. THen yesterday she went to the border to hand out candy. She caused a riot. Children scratcher her and were stepping on one another. She saw the desperation. As the bus was ready to leave a hundred women gathered around begging for a dollar. One woman haunted her last night. She could not sleep. She know this child the woman was carrying was dying belcause of hunger. She thought of staying an extra day, paying a hundred extra dollars to return and give this woman twenty dollars. THen she thought of what we talked about a few days before. What good would it do to hand out money? The peoole will be hungry again in a few days. Why not return home, develop a program that is sustainable, and return and work with the people to give them skills and tools so they can help themselves. This was an AH HA moment for her. She understands what we and many others are trying to do here. Create programs, like mocrocredit projects that give people dignity. She will go home, talk to friends and together we will develop something through our program or another affilate group and create something that will have longterm effects…She made my day.

Father Dale

Nicaragua

Dewey Grantham (center, Co-Founder of All Nations International) with our friends in the city of Managua

Reasons for Hunger

Volunteer Service in the DR

It has been so interesting to follow the debate in the DOminican Republic over the UN report on hunger among children. Almost one out of three suffers some form of malnutrition. I suspect this is under reported because Haitians are usually not included in the census. Government officials over the last few days have blamed corruption for hunger. I suspect this is true because there are few controls on the export of food, especially rice, that is sold to the US for higher prices. Rice is acutally imported by the DR even though it grows enough to feed its people. The poor have to buy improted rice at much higher prices. The second reason cited by government officials is that there are too many Haitians in the DR. They eat too much and therefore there is not enough food. This is an outrageous claim that only a simpleton would suggest. Even if the government offical believes this theory, it should never be said because it exposes the underbelly of bogotry against Haitians in the DR who are here search for food. I know this is a clomplex problem, but to blame the most vulnerable and hungry for the problem of hunger is absurd.

Someone wrote to me yesterday asking if alcohol has much to do with hunger here in the DR. I said it did but this is a symptom of deeper and more systemic issues. People who are out of work may spend money on booze when it should be spent to feed their children. This is especially true of men. There is a high rate of delinquency among men taking responsibility for the children they produce. Women are left to fend for themselves. The local judge is hauling men into court and starting to make an impact. Under threat of jail and fines the judge is demanding that men step up to the plate and feed and clothe their children.

Father Dale

Second grade project

Volunteer Service in the DR

This is a second grade classroom. A second grade teacher in Quebec is hoping to have her class adopt this classroom and the children in it. There is no electricity, no running water, no bathrooms, but the children are there everyday to learn. I will keep you posted on the development of this international relationship. People do not have to do huge and grand scale projects to make a difference in this world. A small gesture of international friendship can have lifetime impact.

HIV/AIDS work

Volunteer Service in the DR

In our milk program and census work we have run across a number of mothers with HIV/AIDS. Many of them are mothers of infants one and two years old. Some of them are entering the stages of AIDS. This woman in the picture above I have talked to for a number of months. She is so hard, angry, and sad. But yesterday I saw somewhat of a breakthrough. For the first time I saw her smile. The day before she had a big argument with me. She wanted money of course. I told her no but that I would bring her pampers and medicine at 5 pm in the afternoon. She did not believe me as people on the street live day by day. There is no tommorrow. But I said to her that tommorrow is the future. If she would wait till tommorrow then I would give her what she and her child need. She walked away cursing me. Of course the next day a five in the afternoon after distributing medicine, milk, and pampers to other HIV/AIDS mothers I waited at the appointed location for this mother. She was not there. Nevertheless, I waited another 15 minutes and finally she showed up. She was so happy and ran up and hugged me. I could see there was a breakthrough in my relationship to her and I think it will have impact on the other mothers as well.

What is really sad is that the national health plan, such as it is in the Dominican Republic, does not cover HIV/AIDS care. While on the local level we may be impacting a few lives, on the national level, this problem needs to be addressed.

Father Dale

School

Volunteer Service in the DR

Old School. Can you believe that 175 kids were trying to learn here?

Ethiopia

Extraordinary Heroes

Volunteer Service in the DR

I love being around extraordinary people. A few weeks ago back in the States I met with one of my friends who has adopted six Haitian children, all of them have special challenges. Some are deaf and others are blind. But the key to compassion is a matter of perspective. My friend puts her focus on the abilities of these children and not their disabilities. She entered some of the children in a charity race. Two of them won medals. In speaking with the children I could see that they knew they were loved. I could see that they were learning to be heroes too through the lessons of this extraordinary mother. By being around her they were gaining lessons that will continue to transform them. In the same way, I love being around volunteers who visit here in the DR because they transform me through their extraordinary compassion for others.

Father Dale

What does “poor” look like

It is so easy for me to pick a photograph with pictures of naked children dirty with swollen bellies. Yes, physically we can see that the child is not recieving proper nutrition, medical attention and shelter/clothing. What is not so apparrent is the children who seem to look ok. I have had people comment on pictures saying “It doesn’t look that poor”. Is this a relative term? The affects of poverty of entire communities manifests itself in different ways. When there are pockets of poverty surrounded by prosperity, the feeling that developes is jealousy. That seems to be what I have experienced here in the states. The haves and the have not’s. In the Dominican, there is wealth (besides the obvious wealth of tourists) in the community, but it is escorted away to private areas of town where homes are together in gated communites and a social scene of fine dining, away from the local flavor. This is maybe 2% of the Dominican community that have money and with that money is the luxury of choices. The barrios and bateys we work in have no choices. There is little money. People fend for themselves but have found that working together gives them all a hand up. People, especially the children understand this. This is our answer. Giving a hand up instead of a hand out.

Liz McKie

Is this a dream?

Sometimes the things that I see here make me think I must be dreaming and I hope I wake up soon because this can’t be real! This is the beach barrio that Sam and I are working with. They call it Agua Negro for “black water” because between sewage running next to houses and down the streets, the river that runs into the ocean is black with garbage from upstream. This picture doesn’t even come close to how filthy the beaches are. Disease, drugs and crime are some of the worst I could have ever imagined. These neighborhoods are where all of our students are from. We are working with the entire family to help get a better perspective on the needs of the children.

I love this picture! It captures the wonderful feeling of comforting another, especially a child. He had fallen asleep in my arms and Sam woke him up by accident. I am so happy to be here!

Liz McKie

Orphans

The Orphan Train. Ever heard of it? Not many people have. It was so long ago in American history. Seems almost irrelevant being that most of the Orphans are now dead. Like my Grandmother Mary. I didn’t know her as well as I would have liked. I remember how much she loved us and what a joy it was to sleep at her house when we were in town to visit her. The beds were thick and old and you all rolled into the center. Usually three to a bed as I am from a family of seven children. You had to go in the closet with a pail at night to go to the bathroom, because they had an outhouse and it was usually to cold to go outside. Grandma didn’t know much about her past. She was in a New York orphanage until the age of 13. Every year during harvest time they would gather up the children who could work and send them across the

Midwest by train and stop at every farm town that needed free help. As a rule groups of children were gathered together and put under the charge of agents employed by the placing charity. The groups traveled to pre-planned destinations where local citizens had been told to expect the children. Upon arrival, the children were taken to “some big building” – an opera house, a church, or courthouse – where they were displayed before the curious citizenry who had turned out for the orphan train. Local families or “employers” chose who they wanted to take home, and the agents were supposed to ensure that the homes were suitable. Some youngsters found themselves in homes where they were treated as members of the families; some discovered that they were to be a new farmhand or housekeeper. Obviously, there were good experiences and bad. Some children and teenagers ran away from their new homes – especially when agents did not remove them from abusive environments.

My Grandma became a housemaid to a family that did not love her, but made sure she was well cared for. We were able to find out more information later about her parents, but the details are skewed and sketchy.What does this have to do with this picture? Most of the children on the orphan train had parents but could not keep them or they would be deported. Or they were too poor. This is the case here in the

Dominican Republic. The boys in this picture are my friends. They are orphans without a place to care for them. Some may have a parent, some just sleep where they can. This particular group takes a Gua Gua (transportation) over an hour to come to Puerto Plata to shine shoes and beg. They are sick, tired, scared, young, and lonely and treated like scum. But they stick together to help each other. They are all of some Haitian mix and will never have an opportunity to become ANYTHING but a discarded life with no hope. My Grandmother had an incredible love for children and although she married late (28 year’s old- unheard of at the time) she had 12 children and raised them during the depression. Through sticking it out and staying together when times are tough, we can make it through anything. I cry thinking of all of the pain my grandmother went through. I cry at these little ones knowing the pain and suffering each day brings. Even if I don’t have any money, somehow God gives me an opportunity to have fellowship and love with so many children here. The love of Christ. Only he knew how difficult severe suffering at the hands of others is like. And he loved them through it. He loved his persecutors’ through it. Wow.

Liz McKie

Songs about the Plantation System

Volunteer Service in the DR

The Batey is a plantation village. They are found in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba and a few other places in Latin America. Here in the Dominican Republic they are places where Haitians live a miserable existence. Some of the sugarcane bateys have diversified. Some of the people who live in these bateys work in the garbage dumps or do cement work, or other types of stoop labor. I love the painting of the Trash-pickers. These are the kind of people who today live is the bateys in the Dominican Republic, narginalized by their color, race, and economic status. As I have learned more and more Spanish I have begun to notice traces of political protest against this batey system that still exists in the Dominican Republic. I have begun to study the musical origins of this theme.

Johnny Ventura wrote a song, El Pique, in 1982 that launched a wave of songs attacking the abuse of Human Rights in the Bateys. This song was inspired by Willie Colon and Ruben Blades who collaborated on a politically acid song called “Plantación Adentro,”from their first album, Metiendo Mano. Though it’s concern is a coffee rather than a sugar plantation, the system is not much different. There are two aspects of the song that are relevant. First its deadly wit, exposes the hypocrisy of the entire system, as reflected in this verse:

se murio el indio Camilo por palo que daba el mayoral

que medico de turno dijo asi, “muerte por causa natural.”

¡claro! si despues de una tunda de palos, que se muera es normal

(Camilo the Indian died from the beating the overseer gave him, and the doctor on shift pronounced it, “death by natural causes.” Sure! after a rain of blows naturally one dies!)

So long as everything is in order and certified by a doctor on call, the official order of things holds; but of course the meaning of that “natural” death is open to interpretation; it is not legally a natural death.

Second, the song introduces a new motif that centers on the dichotomy between secrecy and revelation. Even without the kind of security that preserves the segregation of the batey, few people outside the industry can penetrate the boundaries erected by social prejudice, isolation and poverty.

Sombras son la gente, sombras son la gente

Plantación adentro camará, e’ donde se sabe la verdad,

e’ donde se aprende la verdad,

dentro del follaje, y de la espesura, donde todo viaje, lleva la amargura . . .

Camilo Manrique fallecio por golpes que daba el mayoral

y fue sepultado sin llorar, una cruz de palo y nada más.

(The people are but shadows . . . there’s a plantation inside there, that’s where the truth is known, that’s where the truth is learned, inside the foliage, past the thickets, where everyone passes, there is bitter grief . . . Camilo Manrique died from the blows of the overseer and was buried without tears, a cross made from sticks and nothing more.)

While the song is a lament for a murdered Indian peon, its genius consists in the way it builds its meaning around symbols of borders of the plantation, inside of which “the truth is learned”. The sticks that make up the cross serve to identify the grave. The fact that the sticks are of the very same material that killed the indian is an irony that would escape notice were it not for the narrator’s constant repetition of the word “palo” that both means “stick” and the blow dealt by a stick. The cross is a kind of “clue” to the crime scene that must be investigated and brought to light.

Johnny Ventura was undoubted ly influenced by Plantation song of Colon and Blades and he applied it to the sugarcane batey life. Ventura’s “El Pique,” marks the historical period in which popular songs about the batey, recorded for public distribution, became politicized and began to demand something more than individual redemption. Since that decade, the clamor for reform has grown more strident, the indignation bolder, and debates more common as well as more urgent. These songs deeply inform us about the religious concepts of right, wrong and the individual’s moral relation to society and post-enlightenment notions of human rights and political activism as a means of redemption.

Welcome to Richard

Volunteer Service in the DR

Second graders welcomed Richard Jaffe of New York as he visited project sites yesterday. Marta worked with the kids in the morning and they learned a wecome song and wrote welcome signs. We thank Linda for helping Marta yesterday. Linda volunteered to help in the classroom. She is here from Canada for five weeks. What a wonderful way to spend part of a vacation. Also, Rich was deeply moved by the experience as often happens every week with volunteers and visitors who pass through here. They see a part of Dominican life that is not always beautiful but within this work among the poor with are able to plant seeds of hope. Combining our efforts by networking with other NGOs we are able to see a comprehensive web of development begin to occur. I was thinking as I took RIch around that this could easily be a Moses project. The people of the Exodus story were the poor of Egypt. People who were abused, looked down upon, suffering under the curse of slavery. We are doing the same here in the DR with people who are enslaved by poverty, bigotry, and oppression. Are we setting them free? Not all but a symbolic few. A small light in a dark universe.

Father Dale

Suffering

There can be much suffering in life. Everyone has some point in which a burden becomes too heavy, and as a result are thrown into suffering. How we deal with suffering can have a huge impact on our happiness. It can be hard to let people “in”. In the same respect, it is hard to know how to help someone who is in pain.

This is one of my favorite pictures. One of our volunteers took it. Is this boy suffering? Certainly by my standard he could be. I have nice clothes, a beautiful place to live and I have good hygene (or so I am told). To me, this boy could use all three of these things. But lack of material things does not constitute suffering. I think the better question would be “is he happy?”. He very well could be. I wouldn’t know this if I don’t take the time to find out. This is where true mission work comes into play. For example, my neighbor may look perfectly taken care of and be suffering a great deal. A loss of a loved one or perhaps loneliness and isolation have taken hold. Am I willing to extend a hand and find out? Mission work is about reaching out, showing compassion and not trying to solve peoples problems for them. Just to be present. To connect. To carry another’s burden. To understand that burden, you only need to know the language of love.

Liz McKie

Serving rather than Helping

Volunteer Service in the DR

Jordan and Nicole are two terrific young people from Minnesota. I do not know how anyone could be completely discouraged about the state of youth in America. Of course there are problems but when two people like this show up in the DR and want to serve others then it becomes apparent that there is hope in this world, not just for the poor, but for civilization in general.

We interacted with volunteers from Texas, a group of college youth from the Houston area, who are working in a batey. Another group of High School youth are building new classrooms in Ascension Village.

One of the things that I notice about volunteers who are really connecting and doing good work are those who are serving rather than helping. This is an important distinction. People who help are actually making the problem worse because of a subtle arrogance that is passed on through helping. When you help, you are saying that you know better than the object of your help. It creates dependencies emotionally and spiritually. When a person serves another, there is a peer to peer relation. There is dignity in the exchange. People who serve are as willing to learn and receive as they are to give and teach. I saw this spirit of service in Nicole and Jordan yesterday. It is a beautiful thing.

Father Dale

Thanks to Shelly

Volunteer Service in the DR

Shelly and David

Shelly is from Colorado and she has written to us and asked if she could help one child. Of course! But first we visited people in the barrios and interviewed children who due to poverty do not have access to education. Shelly and a few of us took one child to visit a public school. Later we purchased a school uniform for him. David was so happy. He understood that Shelly was helping him to go to school and he said, “Shelly is my school mother.” It was beautiful to see this connection between strangers who are becoming partners in a better future. We so appreciate the attitude of Shelly. If each person who came here helped one child it could dramatically improve the future of the island. To do big things you have to think small.

Shelly will return in November and she will visit David in his school.

A short Journey to Ethiopia

I just came back from a three weeks trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The city has changed so much. It has been five years since my last visit. The weather was beautiful. The street was crowded with cars, donkeys and people. I was happy to be home.

After a few days of enjoying family and friends, I started to drive around the city and reality started to hit me. Yes, it is great I see so many new buildings, malls, shopping centers, bars and coffee shops but the poverty is very hard to ignore. The city is crowded with beggars and mostly with young children.

Everyday Ethiopian children face being a victim of child traffickers. Most of the children come from the country side to the city looking for work to support their family. The spread of HIV has forced many children to be the provider of the family since most have lost one or both parents. The children come to the city with a promise of getting a job by a broker but usually end up being sold or abandoned on the street if they are not able to do the job. The females are promised a job as a maid or a baby sitter but sometimes are forced to be prostitutes.

It was so sad to see these children living in poverty and deprived of their basic human rights. Something must be done. These children have little hope. The government is trying to help but it is not enough. Since I have been back all I think about are the kids. They are the future but not if they are not taken care off!!!

Heiwi Tadesse

Nicaragua

Slave Children on the Island

Volunteer Service in the DR

Slavery has existed for thousands of years and, by some estimates, there are more slaves today than ever before.

Onise, a child slave, visits a street vendor to buy fruits and vegetables for the family she lives with. Buying food is just one of this eight-year-old’s many chores.

E. Benjamin Skinner’s book, “A Crime So Monstrous,” inspired ABC News’ “Nightline” investigation, “How To Buy a Child in Ten Hours”.
One of the most prominent anti-slavery groups in the world today is called Free The Slaves. As the group explains on its Web site, “Free the Slaves was formed in response to Dr. Kevin Bales’ groundbreaking book, ‘Disposable People.’” Bales is the researcher who estimated that 27 million slaves exist on the planet today, more than at any other time in human history.