i never thought i would get so excited about a toilet. milagros sorta laughed at me when she told me that not today but soon my toilet will flush. ah the things that excite me these days.

today was one of those days that frustrated me. like made me pray (okay...more like yell under my breath) "why God?"

came home this morning from the walking track and all i wanted was a shower. unfortunately i found out we were dry again. money has been tighter around here. the note now is parents don't worry i'm fine on money, but when money's tight around you it leads to more frustrations. and then my shower stopped working again. so i resorted to a bucket shower with water that had some dead bugs floating in it. all i wanted was the comfort of home at which point i felt somewhat guilty for wanting this. anyways, an update is the guy just came and fixed my shower and will fix my toilet.

anyways, after that we went downtown to pick up a package my mom had sent a couple of weeks ago. we walked a little ways until we found the post office. they then told us we needed to go somewhere else. as we walked we passed a big open room with people rolling cigars (interesting). anyways, we got to a gated area. told a guard with a big gun what we wanted. we went to a building, and were handed visitor badges, found a woman who took us into a little room with a bunch of packages in it, a bunch of paperwork was filled out and i was handed my package, we were then taken into another room where they opened my package and wrote down everything that was in it. this part was entertaining.....the people trying to figure out what the purrell, etc was was really entertaining. anyways, we finally had the package. we then headed into romana were i'd been put in contact with a clinic run by docs from columbia university by the missionaries form cincinnati. we got into romana and had lunch and then headed out to find the clinic. we took a car/bus thing and got out and then started walking up a hill. we get up a hill and are tired and find that we are at the wrong branch of the foundattion. so we walk back down the hill....as we're walking we pass a huge house that has something like five cars inside it's gates....we joked about how we should go knock on their door and tell them they didn't need five cars....all we needed was one, could we have it. at that milagros told me that sometimes she asks God why some have so much and others so little. anyways, we got down the hill and started stopping car/bus things to see if they went to where we needed. we finally found one and got there. to meet a little old nun who told us that no one was there and we shouldn't wait because she wasn't sure when she was coming. as we were about to leave the woman we needed came in. the clinic was interesting. there were lots of people. from what i could understand in the afternoons they work with prostitutes, so there were a lot of women there. also, i think that we got free tests and maybe some help for medications set up for some of our patients, so that was really exciting news. anyways, we got in a guagua to head home. the bus started to smoke and everyone very quickly got out....the driver fixed it and we finally got home and now it's starting to rain.

good news is i've discovered during my time at home i'll be in canton, cincinnati, philadelphia, washington dc, and chicago. i'm going to washington for the presidents emergency aids relief fund workshop for new initiative partners. it will be really intersting to learn about how to get money, etc. in philly i'm going to visit my boss and the dominican community there, a health center and also go to a conference at eastern university for the christian community health fellowship (www.cchf.org). in chicago i'm attending a course on community development by john perkins and wayne gordon at lawndale community church. all of these things are exciting. that and i'll be seeing all of you. well, that's the excitement around these parts.