Evening in Santiago

Leaping into the world of Ruben and,his family on the tiny farm nestled about 20 minutes from the town of Santiago in DR. Email works, after a fashion, but most of the life and pace could easily be centuries ago. Today we went with Ruben to visit many of the poorest families on his route, passing out good words, notebooks, where needed some money for food. But my interest is getting away from the charitable model and more to development. How to help people become self sufficient and independent. Many of the folks who are surviving are dependent on money from relatives in the US. A $30 a month or so contribution goes a long way.
Enjoying the time and opportunity to spend with Ruben, his good nature an humor is a delight, he is unfazed by all the poverty and laziness, unfazed by the hopelessness of the task, and still there is a part that is very optimistic. Today, helping with the chicken coup, a little bit, Grace is a real trooper working with the wheel barrow and helping to lay the floor down. She is a real sweet spirit with the younger girls, drawing and teaching them math, and English. It is good to see her thrive in this environment, though it is a brief moment in a poor country it is important for her to get a taste of this. I wish more affluent children from the USA can see this and immerse themselves.
I am appreciating this stepping back into a very slow pace, a bit hard since I am use to a very intense pace of creativity. One of the things you see is that for many life is reduced to the basic survival, there is little of the creative world, it is reduced to if you eat or not, sometimes the choices are very bleak and limited. The farming is marginal, even in this relatively lush paradise. There is a chronic shortage of water and the land is of a poor quality for farming.
Today Zoe and I spent time with Ruben, exploring possibilities for economic activities, and how to move forward with the proposed chicken and egg project. Which comes first?Also, spent over an hour with Ruben teaching him basic health and herbal medicine care. This will be exciting to get the Appleseed project off the ground and to do a version of this here.
Still keeping my hand into the work of the play production. I am enjoying our all too brief visit to Ruben's family. This evening playing guitar, singing with the girls. Thoroughly enjoying the delicious and simple food, and most of all the company.