Just a Typical Morning

It was a typical morning in Santo Domingo.  I drove to the car park without incident and walked to the Notary Office.  This was now my third attempt to obtain a document for my daughters.  The first time they took copies of their ID cards.  The second time they said they needed their birth certificates (plainly ridiculous as the ID cards are produced from the birth certificates).  This  time they wanted a certificate I do not owe the country money.  In the end I managed to obtain the document I needed.  

Next job was doing a test about dengue.  This is obligatory this year in the long process of renewing the annual health centre permit.  I did the test but will have to go back  another day to get the result as there was no one around qualified to mark a multiple choice test (!!)

The queue in the bank was out the door, but thankfully moved fairly quickly, so I thought I was still going to get home in good time for lunch, when I discovered a car had parked in the car park blocking me and the journalist next to me in.  We had to sit and wait until the owner returned.  There was simply no way out until then, no matter how much we protested to the car park attendent.  

Now running late, I was none the less driving carefully through the busy town traffic when I heard a sickening thud next to me.  I was horrified to see the yellow taxi in the lane next to me had knocked down a middle aged woman.  As the traffic ground to a halt the woman stood up apparantly unharmed and stumbled off into the crowds.  As I glimpsed her face and manner it was obviously she had learning difficulties.  Shaken, but relieved no harm seemed to have been done I continued home, driving past the local schizophrenic man who lurched towards me wildly gesticulating to thin air.  

Our farm seemed pleasantly calm after the chaotic morning, despite the gobbling turkey and clucking chickens.  That´s Santo Domingo for you!

The Wonders of Work.

Maria came to see me in the health centre suffering from gastritis and helicobacter infection.  She needed to take a course of medicine three times a day for a week. I sent her away with the medication and was surprised when she came back a week later not much better. 

"Well, to be honest with you Doctor, you told me to take the medicines after meals.  When I have had something to eat I have taken the medicine, but often I do not have any food to eat, so then I did not take the medicine." 

I was just treating a symptom.  The real problem was lack of food, which in turn was due to a lack of work. 

Here in Ecuador there are still many people who if they do not work, will not eat.  People around us work in the fields cultivating bananas, manioc and maize.  Some days they have work.  Some days they do not.  If  they are fully employed they may earn $65 a week.  Many have six children or more to buy food for.  I doo not know how they make the moeny stretch to buy their rice, eggs and tuna fish.  I know they do not have any money left to buy clothes.  People never go on holiday in their lifetime.  People work every  day they can.  Even those in full time employment have only 2 weeks annual leave and many choose to work those as well. 

If I am honest I have been known to moan about having to go to work on a Monday morning.  Sometimes I have taken having a job and an income for granted, or viewed work as a necessary evil: something to be endured so that holidays and weekends can be enjoyed.  Meeting women like Maria has changed that.   

Maria is a single mother of six children.  She can only find work washing clothes which pays very badly.  She relies on the benevolence of her neighbours to survive.  She would love to have a full time, permanent job: it is an impossible dream. She does not have the education to secure one.  Every job that comes her way is a precious gift, which means there will be food on the table that night for her children.

I am so thankful to have work: work I love and enjoy.  Work which means I can help others as I gain an income to raise my children.  It is a gift from God.