Journal Entry 1: Sunday July 12th, 2009

After a long day of traveling my mind still seems to be entirely overfilled with thoughts, ideas and responses to what i have seen thus far. I never thought that i would have the opportunity to witness the extremity of poverty as i did today on our 4 hour bus ride to Barahona from Santo Domingo. I watched as we passed towns of people who were living in buildings no american would even step foot into. I dont think i can even call them houses. 90% of the construction is only halfway finished then left either to live in as is or abandoned. We passed two of the Bateys (villages where haitians live) today, and i could not believe my eyes. The people were walking around in water as it had rained, but only slightly. The living conditions of the people here is what you will never know until you witness it. They have nothing but family, hope, life and their greatest measure of faith. They praise God, but yet they have nothing. Kathy told me some families go days without food. In the Bateys there is no running water, no sewage system in the houses, so you can only imagine that they live in a barely useful shelter in which has no floor, but the bare mud. These children constantly have parasites that eat away at their insides, and this is more than common. Everything i have witnessed seems unconceivable to me, i thought i knew what it would be like to witness poverty, but i dont think anything prepared me for the small insight i saw today whilst traveling. 

Tomorrow i will be traveling to the office in the morning to meet with all the COTN staff. It seems they have some ideas of things they need me to build as just designing a school and building it right now is difficult due to the lack of funding for teachers. The idea of a clinic or a camp was mentioned, but i am excited to hear of more details. The camp idea excites me more than the original proposal due to the fact that this would be a larger scale multi-functional project which is exactly what they need here and what really needs to be designed. I will know more tomorrow though! Everyone is sleeping now so lights need to be turned off! Until tomorrow, my heart is pounding, i cannot wait! 

Adios!