La Vega

After leaving the La Mosca barrio, we are hot, tired, hungry, and emotionally fragile. But our day has only just begun. We drive out of Santiago to La Vega. I'm not sure how far away this is, but it seemed like a very long drive. We stop once to fill the car with gas, and José gets back in the driver's seat with a bottle of El Presidente beer. He grins, takes a swig, and we are back on the road.

We pass a few open shed-like buildings with a large gathering of men inside and motorcycles parked all around. José tells us this is the "fighting of the roosters." When we tell him what we call that in America, he spends the next few miles working on his pronunciation of "cock fight."

Soon we pull up at an open community pavilion just off a dusty road on a beautiful mountainside. A local Rotary community club has gathered there to tell us about their projects and to feed us a snack. Ladies beautifully present crackers and cheese on a lace tablecloth and offer Pepsi and homemade passionfruit juice. After a small meeting and the exchange of Rotary greetings and banners, we hike down the hill to visit homes that have received the HydrAid water filters.

The path is steep and rocky, the homes modest and neat. Three different families proudly show us the large blue plastic filters standing in their kitchens. One is an older couple, with pots of bright flowers outside the entrance to their tiny thatched-roof house. They allow Rotary leaders to inspect the filter, assuring that all parts are in working order. The husband tells us that before the filter was installed, he had a constant sick stomach and skin problems. Now he is in great health and we are charmed by the sparkle in his eye. The wife says they use the filtered water for drinking and bathing. She leads us to her outdoor cooking fire, where she has prepared fried yuca root for us to enjoy.

Another house, extremely dark and small, and dirtier than the others, is home to a family with two children. These kids have a sad look on their faces unlike the happy kids of La Mosca. Inside, the family gathers for a photo around their filter, which is pouring water out at a fast rate into a large container. Dingy laundry hangs on a string in the front yard, cages hold ducks that provide eggs used for income, and a rickety outhouse looks strangely picturesque under a leaning palm tree. Again, we walk away painfully aware of our own excess.