It was so refreshing to return to the nation that has stolen my heart. This is my third trip to this beautiful land. It is beautiful because of the people in it and the weather and joy in their culture makes it so attractive. Yet it is very sad for many of those folks.
On Tuesday afternoon we traveled about an hour outside of San Pedro de Macoris to the town of Hato Mayor. It is a small city that houses 200,000 people. One the outskirts of Hato Mayor is an impoverished village (barrio) called Chine(cheeneh). Chine was incredibly sad. We had to drive about 2 miles over dirty broken roads before we stopped in the middle of the barrio. What we saw was truly heartbreaking.
We saw poverty that took my breath away. Children played in squalor in their two room homes. There was one bed in the homes that sometimes housed up to seven people. There were no lights, no running water, no place for anything. They had very little food, very little in clothing and no money.
In one home we met a beautiful young girl that was just 15 and she was taking care of her one year old child. I couldn't help but think that if she just had an opportunity to live elsewhere she would have a different life. What could ever change her future? What about her daughter, how would she live the next 70 years? Is this all she would ever know?
Sadly she was not the youngest pregnant girl that we met. One girl we met was just 12 years old and had a child on the way. The question was asked, "why don't they stop having children?" It is a good question and here is the sad answer, they can't because they don't understand. They need to be educated and taught about birth control issues, but even if they were taught, how could they afford it?
Poverty is disgusting! Poverty is ugly too, but the people are so wonderful.
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