Rainbow Families Foundation Newsletter - June 2003

June 2003

Jacobo has been suffering a lot of pain. He does not have money to go to the doctor. He thinks it might be kidney stones since he has had problems with this before. Janny is also having pains in her stomach and was to go to the doctor yesterday. Yaneris has a cronic problem with constipation and cries when she is uncomfortable. Janny was to take her to Puerto Plata to the doctor by moto concho and then by public car. Penelope and Margaret have their constant colds, which they call gripe. A cousin of Jacobo was in a car accident Saturday night. Both his legs were broken. The girl in the car was killed. She was not wearing a seat belt. Saturday night the locals were celebrating the baseball win against Puerto Rico. When Grimaldy and I passed through Santiago on our way home from Santo Domingo the motorcycles and cars were pulling large tin cans and large pieces of metal to make noise and celebrate. It was funny but very crazy and dangerous since many times the metal would break off and fly through the street. They are crazy here with the baseball teams. Anyway, I suspect Jacobo cousin was participating in this celebration since it was said he was drinking. Unfortunately the girl was family to Grimaldy and the Polanco family had to go to her funeral on Sunday. Grimaldy and his family are doing fine. Corina still suffers with back pain and the family is concerned Andres is losing his memory. When I arrive at Corina and Andres house and the granddaughters are there they start to chant my name until after I get in the house. They are crazy for me. Corina s dogs come to greet me when I arrive. Josue Silverio from Compassion International is in the last stage of his scholarship approval process to Georgetown University. He is very excited for the opportunity but having a lot of anxiety because he has an interview on Friday. Fortunately his friend Ramon is applying and has a good chance of scholarship as well so they may go together. A team of doctors, dentists, eye doctors, nurses and volunteers were here a couple weeks ago. They brought medical supplies and examined patients in Monte Llano, Mozovi, Carroballo and then in Puerto Plata. The dentists could only pull teeth since they did not have any other equipment. Grimaldy, Josue, Jacobo and Grimaldy girlfriend Kenia translated for the ones who did not speak spanish. They all spoke about my work here and the team wanted to meet me. Finally I got an afternoon free to meet them in Mozovi. A priest travels with them. I was sick with gripe and they gave me antibiotics for 10 days and I have finished with the medicine. A family came on vacation from Minnesota and brought a lot of donations for Jose Antonio and his family. They also brought equipment, pants and sneakers for my baseball teams and a lot of school supplies. I wanted to deliver the school supplies to a school in Arroyo de Leche near where Jose Antonio lives. The 4x4 truck got stuck in the mud as we tried to cross the river. We tried for about 2 hours to get the truck out then the family and I walked a long way back to Jacobo house. A bit later one of the locals came to tell us the truck was out of the mud but I refused to continue since it was late, very dark and we had to cross 2 more rivers and I did not want to take a chance to get stuck again. We had so much rain for many days but I did not think this large 4 x 4 would have a probelm. So . . . we took the donations to Mozovi school at 8AM the next morning since the family had to fly at noon. They were excited for the adventure.