We are again feet dry,
On Sunday, September 12, 2010, I’m pleased to say we all made it home without a hiccup. As I’ve been delinquent in my posting as of late, if you’ll indulge me for a moment, I’ll bring you up to speed on our latest mission.
Several months back, we were contacted by a truly remarkable woman in El Salvador, an American working at the US Embassy, one who spends much of her free time volunteering at a local orphanage on the outskirts of the capital.
When Patricia emailed us, she explained at length the difficulties she was having in trying to find computers for some orphanage children to train on. She forwarded a copy of a recent grant proposal she’d written with her husband Paul, also an embassy staffer, outlining both the desperate need and measurable outcome one could expect should an award be made. She wasn’t asking for much, just three or four computers, something to give the children a fighting chance at a brighter future.
By our second phone call, it was clear to me that Patricia was one of us, which is to say; she shares our vision and passion for serving the most vulnerable of God’s children. I tried not let on too early she had us hooked, but after a quick trip down in July to survey the orphanage and confirm the need, we committed to a plan of action.
On September 5th, we flew into San Salvador, all of our primary team but one, to include James, Gavin and myself. Patricia and Paul met us at the airport, and once we had cleared customs with all our gear, a nervous moment I must admit considering the volume and value of supplies we were bringing in, we headed off by truck to the orphanage in San Jacinto.
After an hour long truck ride, we arrived at the orphanage and were mustered in through the gates, past an armed national police officer, one of the three who protect the orphanage compound twenty-four hours a day.
It took us the better part of the afternoon to get settled, much of that time spent walking through the areas and projects we were to accomplish, taking measurements and drawing diagrams, listening attentively to the Sister Rosa as she explained one issue after another. We made a quick trip to the supermarket to buy a week’s worth of groceries, and then Patricia and Paul took us out to dinner to sample some pupusas, the national dish of El Salvadorian, very similar to a tortilla but filled with cheeses and bacon.
The following morning, Patricia and Paul met us again, and we set off to one store after another, to include two lumberyards, two hardware stores, and a slew of lesser businesses. Half way through our procurement process, James and Gavin left with the orphanage truck and the lumber, and by the time I returned with lunch, they were already making the first cuts on the plywood for the computer desks. From that point on, it was pretty much full speed ahead till the end of the week.
We accomplished most of what we intended to, the only mission failure being my own, in that I was unable to get the Internet connected to the computers in the lab. I trace the failure back to my initial survey, where having observed a broadband router in the orphanage office, I asked about the Internet connection they had, and was told it was a cable modem. I assumed they knew what they were talking about, and as we learn, assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.
When on day four I tried repeatedly to connect the computers to the Internet with no success, and it was then that I followed the cat5 trail, finding they didn’t have cable, but dialup. Dialup that was already partitioned out four times, leaving no bandwidth for the lab. I don’t wish to belabor the point, but I hope some poor soul will feel my pain, and help me find a funding solution to the problem, as we now need an additional $39 a month for twelve months to get the Internet connected to the lab.
While we were able to ship down and pre-stage half the computers, we carried the rest down with us in checked baggage. We needed to build the actual computer tables, and this task fell to James, a master carpenter being just one of his many talents.
In the weeks prior to deployment, James had sketched out the table design and even built a prototype, not leaving anything to chance. We knew the design had to incorporate a number of factors, to include size, function and durability, but James took it a step further. He designed the desks to be constructed primarily from one sheet of plywood for cost savings, and without fasteners, so they could be easily taken apart and moved if needed.
While on the subject, I need to take a moment to acknowledge the deep support we received from our Local Lowes Home Improvement Store. Lowes has been with us from the very beginning, giving us deeply discounted prices on all our tools and mission supplies, making it possible for us to do what we do.
James and Gavin built six of the computer tables, and with the help of some Marines from the U.S. Embassy security detachment who came by to work with us one afternoon, we painted them blue and white, the national colors of El. Salvador.
When the computer desks reached the final build stages, our team turned its attention to some of the other projects on the list.
We built a series of four foot cubbies for the toddler dorms, three to be precise, each four foot square with enough room to afford the children a space of their own to put shoes, clothes and towels. Before our cubbies, shoes and clothing items were just piled on two tables in the dorm, commingled and confusing for the caregivers.
I was especially happy to finish this project, for upon our arrival, most of the children were apparently suffering from an outbreak of Impetigo, with open sores on many of their faces. Given the close proximity in which they live, the ability to isolate their personal hygiene items from one another would prove to be quite important.
We also built a new safety gate for the playroom in the baby wing, a slide in and out wood slat design to keep the crawlers contained. I have to laugh when I think back to the instillation, as our carpenters appeared dumfounded when initially it wouldn’t fit. A few playful accusations of malfeasance bounced back and forth, measurements of the gate were checked and rechecked, only to find the wall wasn’t square. In this case, the plaster narrowed in the middle of wall by nearly half an inch.
We completed another special task in the baby wing, and this included the installation of colorful name plates on the baby cribs. On my earlier visit, I had been asked by the caregivers if we could come up with a way to mark each of the baby’s cribs with their names, to assist staff in preparing schedules and feeding.
I took on the task, never realizing for a second just how special it would end up. Returning home the first time, I posted details and specifics of our needs on a City of Tallahassee employee bulletin board, and was contacted by a sweet woman who works for the City. We began exchanging emails and phone calls, and before long she, with the help of her church, Tallahassee Heights United Methodist Church, had begun a collection for many of the needed baby items. She also informed me that their Sunday School Class would be willing to take on the crib plate task, and we coordinated the logistics of it.
Kim, the manager of our local Utrecht Art Supplies Store in Tallahassee came to our aid, donating all the plates, paint and brushes for the children to use, and the end product was nothing short of magical. All bore the child’s name, and was further decorated in bright colors cheerful scenes.
I barrowed one of the visiting Marines, and she attached the plates as the babies looked on and smiled as if it were Christmas. One child, a physically disabled boy of seven who lives in the baby wing do to his level of care required, grinned widely and bestowed a big hug to the Marine after she attached his name plate. Julio then spent quite a bit of time lying on his side in his crib, reaching through the slats so he could hold and stare at his name plate.
One of the projects that wasn’t on the radar was a request that came to us directly from the physical therapists at the orphanage. They asked that we construct a small ramp and stairs, one that could be used by their disabled children to develop coordination skills in a more controlled environment. We hadn’t allocated or purchased lumber for this, but James was able to use the scraps from our other projects to build a fabulous and portable device.
The final build was an audio visual table, the main platform for our cinema project. While the Nuns prized the computer lab, I must admit the cinema project was probably the biggest hit for the children. We had carried down a high quality digital projector, paired it with a home theater system, and a cinema was born.
On the evening before our departure, we opened the doors of the cinema, with a showing of a Dora the Explorer DVD in Spanish, broadcast to an energetic crowd of little kids who squealed in excitement to Dora’s every move. Given the expense, we didn’t think the cinema would happen, but a generous donation by a local businessman, CDS Manufacturing owner Clayton Sembler, made the dream a reality.
The system was purchased with components to allow multiuse, and another donated laptop was staged with it to facilitate its use for training classes. Once we sort out the Internet connection, the cinema will have the added capability of going live and receiving broadcasts of online training classes from anywhere in the world.
