AllNationsInternational Blog

University Students and Spider Scientist Teach in the Barrio

Professor Greta Binford from Lewis and Clark University in Portland Oregon has brought a couple of students and a husband and wife teach who have worked for National Geographic to document the collection of spiders in the Dominican Republic. Professor Binford taught the children about the importance of spiders and science. She inspired the children to think about science as a future for themselves.

Professor Binfords has been featured on National Public Radio and prestigious scholarly journals. The media has sometimes referred to her as the real spiderwoman. In her lab in Portland Oregan she has collected thousands of spiders from around the world. Her staff sequences the DNA of the toxins in the hope that such information may hold cures and medicines for the future. It is such an honor to have a noted scholar and genuinely compassionate person.

Father Dale

Dominican writer complains of being harassed

Santo Domingo.– Writer Carlos Agramonte, author of a novel denouncing the existence of slavery on Dominican sugar plantations, said he will leave the country due to constant harassment since the work was published.

Agramonte, a professor of engineering at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, told the press he will leave the country next week. He announced the decision after complaining that “El sacerdote ingles” (The English Priest) had been removed from bookstores and unknown individuals were seeking to intimidate him.

In a letter sent to Dominican Attorney General Radhames Jimenez, Agramonte said that while heading home at night on March 3 he was pursued by unknown assailants trying to kill him. That incident, according to the writer, was one of several threats he has received.

He highlighted that a friend who is a high-ranking military officer advised him to leave the country for a while, saying his life is in danger. Published in January, “El sacerdote ingles” intertwines the fictional tale of doomed love between a Haitian female doctor and the scion of a Dominican sugar dynasty with the real-life story of Anglo-Spanish missionary priest Christopher Hartley and his defense of impoverished sugar-cane cutters.

Photos from the Dominican Republic

AIDS/HIV awareness

Dr. Luis Ernesto Feliz Baez, director of the National Department for the Control of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (DIGECITTS), is concerned that young Dominicans are not knowledgeable about AIDS/HIV. He quotes a Program for the Education of Sexual Effects (PEAS) survey that reveals that 42% believe that HIV is transmitted through mosquito bites, 20% believe it could be transmitted by using public bathrooms and 22% didn’t know the answer. The survey found that 28% of 7th and 8th graders have been solicited for sex while 23% of these reported that an adult had asked them for sex. The study included 40 schools and 1,800 students in 9 regions.

Playa Oeste, Jose Manuel’s house

Playa Oeste, the beautiful west beach

What is it like living here? (Dominican Republic)

There are many moments I think Oh my gosh, what have I done? Then, I am so grateful to have this opportunity. I finally feel like I am becoming the person God has called me to be. I am not saying it has been easy-far from it. But there are so many moments when I hug an old person who is 100 years old and they don’t want to let me go, or hang out with some of the street boys and share a coke and lot’s of smiles. Just little things, like every morning around 9am this herd of cows passes by my front gate on my little dirt road. Fr. Becker could not believe it the first time he saw it. He ran out and took pictures. Then around 9:30 there are two little boys who ride down the hill (we live on the corner) bareback on this cool looking horse and I wonder where the heck are they going? And of course, there is all of these beautiful flowers everywhere. We live half way up a mountain and it is beautiful. By 10 we are either at a meeting or in a barrio talking to families of the street boys. By noon we are usually feeding someone, having wonderful fellowship and some laughs.

Then the afternoon hits and I am spent. Oh,the HEAT, it can really take a toll on you. So then, you are totally wiped out and have to lay down for about two hours. You can’t sleep, you just lay there and sweat. Then you get up and do chores. Man, for having very little in this house, every chore takes up so much of your day. The floors have to be mopped about three to four times a day because the wind blows dirt from the field next to us in the windows and Bella goes in and out and our lawn is covered in black dirt that the landlord just dumped on the grass one day when we were not home. Unbelievable, the way Dominicans think. The black dirt goes down before the sod!? Any way, Bella has to be hosed down about 5 times a day and you have to hose down the front of the house because she tracks dirt everywhere. It’s a new fun game for her. Now, I just finished about the floors. Would you like to hear how we have to do laundry here? You wouldn’t believe it so we will save it for another time. I am being overly dramatic of course.

Every day is a bit different and another opportunity to help atleast one person. Mother Theresa said “you can’t feed the whole world so just start by feeding one” or something like that. I try to keep that in mind while I am here.

I would like to invite you to come here and walk with us in this ministry! There are so many opportunities here for you to let the poor know you care. Being here is much more important than sending things. Human touch and connecting face to face are the most powerful things you can give.

Liz McKie