I spent the day today over at the base finishing some media assignments and getting all the equipment ready for when the next team comes on the 25th. After digging though the tangled mess of cords, cables, camera bags, and a million other odds and ends in the media file cabinets, I finally decided to tackle the one job I've been avoiding for months: organizing the media supplies!
So today I was matching cameras, batteries, and cords; dumping all the loose miniDV tapes in one box; putting computer and camera paper info packets in one place; checking to see if all our cords, batteries, etc. actually work; putting blank cds together and blank dvds together; etc, etc.... I even found a rain poncho, an old film camera, and a packet of powdered fruit drink burried in those drawers. The depressing thing is that, while my two little file cabinet drawers look great, there's still a huge tub of old cameras, info, cords, and batteries out in the office that needs going through. I'll get to it one of these days...
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Now for last week: brace yourselves for a long post because I'm going to tell you a story (and if you skip to the end, you'll miss something cool, lol!).
I think I mentioned in a previous post that we're making a short video for the up-and-coming micro finance site (to be in El Callejon, and managed by Ryan). The micro finance site will offer small loans to women who want to start their own small businesses and support their families. Because everything is so relationship-based in this culture, the whole loan process is quite different than in the States; the women will take out loans in groups of five or more and there's a kind of "social collateral." It's too much to explain here, but the whole process really is neat!
Anyway, the purpose of the video is to motivate and inspire the women who live in El Callejon to start their own small businesses. Besides offering small loans, SI's micro finance site will do some kind of financial counseling/coaching/mentoring to build relationships as well as teach the women how to handle money. So, last week I went to Santiago a couple of days with Ryan to film some meetings and interviews at Esperanza (Hope), which is a micro finance organization there that he's been interning with for the past couple of months. It rained Wednesday, but Thursday we had gorgeous sunshine! (I say gorgeous because it had been raining almost nonstop for 6 days before that. The water in town is actually turned off because after it rains like that the water is terribly muddy and no one wants to bring that into their house through their pipes! We've been without water at our house for quite a few days now and our cistern is practically empty. I took my shower at the base this morning.) The sunshine that day made even the barrios of Santiago look pretty (except where they had junk piled everywhere, lol). I could have kicked myself for forgetting my camera that day because, with the brightly colored houses and adorable kids running here and there, I saw so many photo-worthy scenes!
That afternoon the Esperanza director in Santiago, Helen, and the Esperanza pastor, Rafael, had a meeting with a new loan group in a community outside the city, and Ryan and I followed them in Ryan and Caroline's vehicle. After the meeting we interviewed a woman at her little fruit stand and got some Dominican coffee before heading back.
Those darn Dominican roads! They're terrible on your vehicle! We hadn't gotten too far before the CRV suddenly started making a terrible grinding sound; something was rubbing hard. We got to the side of the road and hopped out to see what was wrong. Ok, so I'm car-illiterate, so this is what happened in a nutshell: the part that connects the tire-base-thing to the axle-thing has this ring inbetween the two that allows the tire to turn right and left (in my understanding). That ring snapped, something slipped down and started digging into the metal tire rim, peeling off thin metal strips when the tire rolled (The entire wheel itself was just fine and perfectly usable--the rim was just scraped.). Hence the grinding sound. So, basically the front tire was still connected to the CRV, but it was "off" at the connection--it couldn't support any weight and roll at the same time. The weight would be pushing down on the inside edge of the rim. At least I think that's what happened. I could point out the problem for you on another vehicle, but describing it on paper is hard because I don't know what all those parts are called. I'm not sure I got it right anyway.
Anyway, Ryan called Helen and Rafael who had been ahead of us and they turned around and came back. Rafael called a mechanic friend of his, so the only thing we could do was to sit and wait for him. I think we sat there a couple of hours. When he did arrive, it was kind of amusing: he came in a old white car with...a screwdriver, pliers, and a mallet. To make a long story short, he ended up buying some wire from a little shop down the street, jacking the CRV up, and tying the connecting pieces together to keep them from slipping just enough so that we could hopefully get the vehicle to the mechanic shop that wasn't too far away, he said. Since neither Ryan nor I had enough money with us to afford a tow truck (or for repairs, for that matter) this was our only option.
Now for the cool part: while we were standing by the CRV, waiting for Rafael and the mechanic to come back with the wire, Ryan looked down and saw a 1000-peso bill lying in the gutter! (Before you get too excited by all the zeros, you should know that's only around $30. But repairs are rediculously cheap here.) Ryan checked with Rafael and the mechanic to see if there were missing any money (since they had both climbed under the vehicle at one point or another) but they both said no. When Ryan told them what he found, Rafael just laughed his big, booming laugh and threw his hands in the air, "Dios es bueno!" (God is good!). Ha, we'd been standing around by the vehicle for a couple of hours and hadn't seen the money; we must have stepped over it several times! Maybe God had it materialize out of thin air....lol!
Helen and Rafael soon had to leave in Helen's truck again, and the three of us had to get Ryan and Caroline's CRV to the mechanic shop before it closed at 6 (I think it was 4:30 or 5 at this point). When the mechanic had our vehicle "ready," we hopped in and SLOWLY and CAREFULLY started following him down the road.
We actually got a couple of miles before the wires snapped and the thing slipped again. The mechanic jacked the CRV up again, replaced the wires, and we were off...for maybe a mile. The wires snapped again, and again he replaced them. The third time this happend we broke down in town...in the middle of an intersection. People were blaring their horns like crazy and there was no way we could fix it right there, so Ryan just winced and slowly drove the grinding vehicle to the side of the road.
By this time it was getting close to 6:00, it was getting dark, and patience was wearing very thin! Ryan told the mechanic this wire just wasn't going to work and the mechanic left (we thought) to go get a tow truck. Obviously we weren't going to be getting the car fixed that night, so Ryan figured we would probably have to leave the car in Santiago at a friend's house overnight. We called Lowell (the SI director) to tell him what was going on, ask his advice, and ask if he could send someone to pick us up--once we figured out where the heck in Santiago we were. Lowell and his wife Cheryl, it turned out were already in Santiago shopping with some new staff members, so he said they could take us back to Jarabacoa with them, if we could get to where they were (they had the huge SI van and a trailer, which are not easy things to manuver around in in Santiago!).
In the meantime: the mechanic returned...not with a towtruck, but with a chain to replace the wires and also an assistant. We were HIGHLY skeptical and asked about the towtruck, but the guy said it would take a towtruck at least an hour to get there and we were not far at all from the mechanic shop now, not to mention it would cost a lot. Whatever. We tried the chain. Culturally sensitive, and all. After going a ways and turning one corner the thing slipped again. More grinding, poor CRV! By now Ryan just about had it. "This is nuts!" he said.
We hopped out again. More animated discussion with the mechanic . Ryan insisted on a tow truck. The mechanic insisted that the mechanic shop was literally right around the corner and that it would be silly to wait an hour for a tow truck to pull us 100 yards. (Hey, he actually was a really nice guy and trying to be helpful, but he obviously was used to working on old klunkers that are barely holding together anyway and can take grinding and all that--not on vehicles like Ryan and Caroline's CRV. He was doing the best he knew how, I guess.) "Patience!" he insisted, and he and his assistant readjusted the chain and we crept on once more. Thankfully, this time he was right--his shop was just right around the corner and we actually made it. The connection-thing didn't slip again until we were inside the lot!
As we pulled into the mechanic shop lot, we both breathed a sigh of relief! And this lot was surrounded by a high fence so we didn't feel so nervous about leaving it here; besides, as Ryan pointed out, the CRV isn't going anywhere and he would welcome anyone to try to steal it, lol! I was also relieved--no pun intended--because there was a bathroom at the shop; it was outside and covered by a flimsy piece of paneling and the toilet had no actual seat (just the ceramic part--and not like I was actually going to touch the dirty thing anyway!) but I didn't care because I'd had to go since noon and it was now 6:45! I was just surprised and thankful that they had real toilet paper!
SSOOO: to sum up, we eventually took a taxi to meet up with Lowell and Cheryl and the two new staff members Josh and Vicki at a certain store and then rode with them back to Jarabacoa. They also had some snacks and leftover Chinese food in the van, which we split between us. I was dropped off at my house in Jarabacoa around 8:00, but wow did it feel much later! Whew, what a day, lol! Because I had been spending so much time at home at home studying lately, I have to admit I thought this day was kind of fun because it was so unusual! Yeah, I know, it's easy for me to say that when it's not MY vehicle to pay for...
Anyway, there's your long story!
