Fish Bones (or, Things Are More Complicated Than You MIght Think)

During each of the years 2010, 2011, and 2012 I endured at least four weeks with very little sleep.  The heat was impossible here in the Caribbean, and what you can work with during the day is not the same as what you can sleep with at night.  I would pass the nights going from my bed – where the mattress and pillows seemed to be radiating heat – to the cooler floor, where my 40+-year-old bones couldn't take the pain.  I racked my brain, thinking of what I could do.  The fan (when the electricity worked, which thankfully was more often than not) cooled the parts of my body that were exposed.  But I couldn't sleep in my birthday suit since my bed is right next to a large window that other residents walk by.  I enlisted the help of friends, but we couldn't figure out a way to cover the windows adequately while still allowing air in.

I kept fantasizing about ice, but the refrigerator at my pension's lodgings was frequently on the fritz, and ice was, well, a hot commodity (heh-heh).  However, at the end of last year we bought a dorm-style refrigerator for our office.  It has a teeny freezer, and this summer my co-workers started freezing drinking water in bags to take home to their families.  I bought a small cooler and started taking a small block of ice to my room every night.

Passing the block of ice over me turned out to be a little wet – which is not as cooling in a humid climate as it would be in Arizona.  So I splurged on Amazon.com and ordered ice packs.  However, they wouldn't actually freeze in our dinky little freezer in just one day.  So since my pension had recently bought a new refrigerator I put them in its freezer. 

Ouch!  I wrapped the ice packs in a plastic bag (the freezer isn't so clean) and the first day I went to get them I grabbed the wrong bag – it had fish bones in it!  Bleeding only slightly, I found and retrieved the right bag.  But the cold packs were only barely cold, and definitely not frozen.  “Oh, yes,” said an employee of the pension, “The freezer doesn't really work anymore.”

So I'm back to a block of ice in a bag in my cooler.  But it actually works like a charm!  I put my burning feet on the block of ice every time I get too hot during the night.  Problem solved, with only a few hiccups (and three years) along the way.

Stories of change in Miniere

My last post was about some of the fun we had while traveling to Miniere.   Below you'll see just four of the amazing stories of transformation that we heard -- definitely worth a little mud on my shoes! 

Jaudner Altidor, community health evangelist since 2009

What I would like to say about CHE, about myself – well, I didn't start right away. The CHEs used to come to my house to talk with me about cleanliness and about spiritual things. They talked about cleanliness, and we saw that some of the things we were doing weren't right. We changed those things. We realized that if they came to give us advice about cleanliness – well, we could see that it was because they wanted to help us. It wasn't really that difficult to change.

The biggest change we made was with regard to latrines. Where we were living it wasn't all that easy to dig a hole because we have a lot of rock. And when it rained the hole got messed up. But we knew we had to dig a hole anyway, and so we did.

CHE has brought a lot of change to the community. When I was a child I used to see pigs running all over the street [Translator's note:  pigs excrete parasites which children then pick up through their bare feet.  CHE encourages people to keep their pigs penned away from where children are playing.] People didn't drink clean water. (I'm 20-years-old right now.)

The most important change for us was spiritually. You see, we weren't used to praying, we weren't used to going to church often. Prayer heals people. Prayer is communication with God. If you have a problem, God can help you. You communicate with God. When people pray they aren't worried.  When I go to church I find a lot of principles that are in the Bible and I learn a lot. This allows me to feel that I am growing closer to God so that when Jesus comes back I will be ready for his kingdom.

(c) copyright Jaudner Altidor. Used with author's permission.

 

Madame Onorise Deravine, community health evangelist

I went to the bank and a woman asked me to write my name. I didn't know how to and I was really embarrassed. But thanks to CHE I started going to school, even if I'm already an old woman. Now I can write my name. I'm 73-years-old.
 

I accepted Christ one year and one month ago, and I was baptized. I used to go to the vodou priest's house. I have six children that died. I went to the feet of the saints [paintings of saints in some Catholic churches] but my children were still sick. Then they invited a man to preach to us. He confessed what he used to do to people when he was a vodou priest – he confessed that he took their money and sometimes didn't do anything for them. I stopped following the vodou priests and accepted Christ.

Now when I have money I buy farm animals or I buy food. . . I've become younger, too – I used to be stressed, and any little bit of money I had I would save it to then take it to the vodou priest. I didn't have enough to eat. Now I have security.

There are also a lot of people who are clean – it's CHE that has made them clean.  Thank you.

(c) copyright Madame Onorise Deravine. Used with author's permission.

Philisma Joseph, secretary, CHE committee

What CHE has done is opened our eyes. There are so many things we now do. When other NGOs come they can tell. Our community, the environment – everywhere you look it is clean. This is due to the efforts of the groups that work in the community. We go to people's houses. When you have knowledge you don't get sick so easily.

When you boil water, if you look away for a little bit, dirt or trash can get in the water. SODIS [solar disinfection, a method of making water safe to drink] is the best water. It's the reason why we aren't sick anymore.

We have seen that the CHE movement has taught us so many things that we didn't know, but now we know.

We talk with people who don't yet know God. With the brochure, “Steps to Peace With God,” you see that that there is a separation between us and God. Sin makes it so that we cannot get close to God. We are rebellious, but God keeps telling us to come to him.

When things are clean, it's better for everyone. You don't have problems when you live in a clean environment.

(c) copyright Philisma Joseph. Used with author's permission.

Tertilia Alexis,community health evangelist

CHE has done a lot for me. Everyone used to be involved with CHE but I wasn't. And I had fevers now and then. My husband got fevers sometimes, too. Sometimes we went to the hospital. Once they gave my husband a medication that he had to take for six months. We had taken him to the hospital because his fever was so high that he cried out. Everyone thought he'd died. But right before you get saved is when there is the most darkness. At the hospital they told me to boil water and put it in clean containers.

I am Catholic, and I thought that CHE wasn't for Catholics. [Then I found out it was for everyone, and] I started with CHE in 2010.

When I started with CHE, they taught me what to do to prevent different diseases. Since I've been with CHE I haven't had a fever. My husband hasn't had a fever, and neither have I. Now we do SODIS [solar disinfection, a free process to make water safe to drink by using the sun's UV rays], we don't boil water anymore – for that you always needed [to buy] charcoal or wood.

(c) copyright Tertilia Alexis. Used with author's permission.

A special thanks to the organization World Challenge for sponsoring our travels to get these stories!