Visiting the escualitas

On Tuesday we visited the little schools attached to Rafaela Herrera. They are in the villages around Urbaite. Tilgue is en route from Santa Domingo, so Allan collected me to meet José there.

The teachers all gathered offering us refreshment, it was s warm welcome and some teachers I had met before. We gave them a selection of stationery, glue and cleaning equipment, brooms, mops, paper, glue, marker pens, all basic stuff. They were thrilled and all thanked me very warmly, but I had to apologise that it felt like something small. They said , it was something very grand to them. And knowing that I have them in mind and am looking out for them obviously gives them comfort.

Next en route was Sintiope, just before Urbaite. This is another small school and again the teachers gathered to receive their small gift.

Here they mentioned their need for a speaker and costumes for their cultural activities, so important here!

Next was Las Pilas, a village, past Marvin's house, near the clinic of Doctor Sandra. There was another meeting flowed by much talk, invitations, coffee and biscuits,  bags of fruit and sharing of their challenges.

Allan's mother works here and had shared many of her concerns. Afterwards they brought out the printer for checking and mentioned the laptop. They showed us some speakers in bad repair. These are going to be collected together for  checking; however the Headteacher is clear that he will help where there is evidence the school will care for the equipment. 

One of the teachers then took me to the preschool classrooms, very sad by our standards, with old furniture, no storage and grubby toys. Unfortunately some of my boxes of toys still seem to be in the warehouse in the UK, but I'm sure they'll arrive as a nice surprise some time.

However worst for me was to see the state of the services. The school tank had no tap, so children had to bring bottled water to school, and the toilets were locked up as they didn't function and the others were full. Sounded dreadful for everyone.

In the afternoon, after a late lunch with Marvin, we opened the boxes. Here we found much more stationery which will be stored for later use. There are sufficient biros to give a box to the secondary school. There is also clothing which we must sort for distribution, and some toys for the preschool classes. And when I got home I realised we had forgotten to take a box of blankets back for the clinic! Each task seems to lead to another one to add to the list!

On the return journey we tried to get money out in Altagracia but it seems the only ATM is now in Moyagalpa, a very strange situation when the tourists are starting to trickle back now governments have changed their advice. So Wednesday after a trip to Santa Teresa, we go to Moyagalpa. But we can also get an estimate for the office materials at the same time.