Saturday, January 26, 2013

Capoeira


Last Sunday, Caminante teamed up with Hotel Zapata's first "GIVE.SWEAT" weekend. For their final activity the guests and their awesome trainer Gerren Liles invited the NiƱos Trabajadores for an afternoon of Capoeira and BBQ!

Gerren & Rob explaining the history of Capoeira
Warming Up & practicing watching your partner!
Push Ups in the sand are challenging!

Capoeira is a form of martial arts created by Brazillian slaves to prepare for battle against their slave owners. To keep their owners from realizing what they were doing the Brazillian slaves practiced with very determined and precise dance like movements. They also practiced in circles while singing songs so that everyone could watch and train together. 

Rob and Gerren demonstrating Capoeira kicks.
So focused!
While my immediate thought was, oh no, teaching a group of very active boys martial arts is not going to go over well... the boys did amazing and Capoeira required them to really focus and make slow precise movements!  
Playing Games during the BBQ! 
Rob getting his late afternoon work out in...
The boys, Zapata and Caminante staff, and the GIVE.SWEAT participants had an amazing afternoon together and rewarded themselves afterwards with a delicious BBQ! Dancing and adult beverages were enjoyed by all (after the boys went home, of course) after a GIVE.SWEAT afternoon on the sunny beach!

GIVE.SWEAT Team & Ninos Trabajadores
Grill Master
A special thanks to Hotel Zapata, Cristina Marques Hendel and Rob Zapata for making it a great activity!

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Child Stunting - Millennium Development Goals


In the months leading up to and beginning 2013, many organizations are rethinking strategies for addressing the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs]. The MDGs were originally written to be accomplished by 2015, a date that is very quickly approaching.

Caminante is a partner organization of UNICEF and Church World Services, two organizations that are working diligently to see that the MDGs are met. Both have recently posted articles pointing to the importance of child health and nutrition security in the achievement of all other goals. A “new” term is filling the discussion around the MDGs, stunting. A UNICEF press release defines the trend, “Stunting occurs when a child is deprived of critical nutrition elements at any time during his or her mother’s pregnancy right up to their second birthday.  It causes permanent, irreversible damage to a child’s development and greatly reduces his or her capacity to learn in school, or earn a decent living as an adult, perpetuating the cycle of poverty” (April, 2012). Nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life is critical.

Maternal health is an MDG incredibly important to this new focus. Even before a child is born, malnutrition and poor care of a pregnant mother can jump start the stunting process. Caminante is making excellent strides in this area by accompanying teen mothers to doctor’s appointments and covering medical bills for said appointments and the necessary vitamins. This program ensures that teen mothers receive the medical attention and psychological support throughout their pregnancy, things they may not receive elsewhere. The psychological support and friendships continue after the baby’s birth. Caminante and its staff regularly receive visits from mothers and their newborns. In addition, Caminante regularly holds classes for teens and families about preventing teen pregnancy and promoting talking about sex with your children.

Mothers Class
“If we don’t ensure that our children get nutritious food, especially during the first 1000 days of their life – which also means that we need to ensure to take good care of pregnant and lactating mothers -- then we will not be to able to claim that we’re truly doing enough to give all the children of this world the chance they deserve to live out their lives in happiness and to their full potential” (CWS, December, 2012).

Stunting and child nutrition directly affects nearly every MDG and the global community’s capacity to reach the MDGs in 2015. A good education, overall health, prevention of HIV/Aids, and overcoming cycled poverty are all significantly less achievable for a child with malnutrition and stunted growth in the first 1,000 days of life.

President Obama, in a recent speech, stated, “This is our first task, caring for our children. It's our first job. If we don't get that right, we don't get anything right. That's how, as a society, we will be judged” (Newton Vigil, December, 2012). While he was speaking about the physical safety of US children in schools, his statement goes so much further. Taking care of children is essential to their and our future as a global community.

Sources

Monday, January 14, 2013

Home Makeover - Dominican Edition!


As you will probably remember, my house experienced a not so pleasant change a month ago. Post fire the paint in my house was a very ugly shade of yellow, brown, and black! Over the weekend the apartment received a fresh paint job and an all over deep clean! 

Enjoy, I know I am!

Scraping off old paint.
Everything is cement here so the paint bubbles where water has seeped into the cement.
Also, the heat from the fire caused extra bubbling!
Before and after all in one...
& lots of brush work to do on the trim!
Painting the ceiling was a lot harder than I expected
& took way more paint than we anticipated!
 New & Improved:

This wall had the worst damage as the fan was here when it caught on fire!
My newly painted, cleaned, & arranged living room!
A very special thank you to Julio for helping me paint and clean all weekend!

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

El Choco National Park

On a long weekend trip up to Cabarete, I had the exciting experience of touring El Choco National Park... while I am pretty sure we got scammed on the way in, the tour was worth it! There are very few rules in the Dominican when touring caves, in fact the only 2 were: watch you head and don't touch the tip of the stalagmites. If you like caves, and have ever felt confined on a US cave tour by the jeep or path you were limited to, visit the DR. We could explore the cave as we wished, touch anything, and take all the pictures we wanted! 

Hiking into the park with our Canadian friends, Yve and Loni, our tour guide,
and our two unofficial tour guides we picked up on the road outside the park.
Before the cave we got to tour a very small portion of the 77 square km park. We learned about many of the fruits, vegetables, and medicinal plants in the DR and several very interesting uses and home remedies! Unfortunately  its not harvest season for anything here so there were no avocados or mangoes to snack on, though we did try some fresh almonds! Fun fact: you can eat the inside (nut) and the outside (fruit) of the almond.

Coco grows out of the trunk, who knew!
El Choco National Park use to have a restaurant and bar in the middle of the park. While I am sure it wasn't great for the plants and animals, it would have been an unique restaurant to enjoy! We played a little pretend instead!

Bartenders Loni and Julio
The restaurant's old kitchen! Completely made of stone!
A pool outside that leads into the caves;
divers discovered that the caves were all connected in the 90s.
Next we headed down into two caves, in the first we were able to swim in a freezing pool of fresh water. The water was about 15 feet deep and you could see the bottom with a flashlight, but the water and the cave were VERY dark. Yve swam into a opening into the next cave... but the girls were a little too scared of the dark for that!

The Canadians thought the water was refreshing, I found it freezing... which led to the refusal of the Dominican boys to get into the water!

Very steep and narrow steps in and out of the cave!

The second cave was a gem of stalagmites and stalactites. Our guide said there are many stories to go along with the shapes... he encouraged imagination of new legends! He also showed us how you can make songs and melodies by "playing" the stalagmites.

View into the 2nd cave.
"Woman"
"A family"

As we went down into the first cave there was a "stage" looking area. Our guide said that in the 80s a Voodoo group set up this area for a celebration and religious ceremony. Voodoo is not widespead in the Dominican but it has become more popular through the migration of Haitians into the DR. Voodoo in Haiti and the Dominican is an adaptation of ancient African religion that was brought here in Columbus' era by captured slaves.
The Queen's viewing chair.
The Stage.