Genesis co-op goes to Costa Rica!

The Genesis co-op is back from another international training! Last week the entire co-op went to Costa Rica and spent the week in technical training with an industrial engineer who has 25 years of experience producing cotton yarn.

The training focused on the opening and carding process (the first part of yarn production) and went through what happens to the cotton fiber in each machine as well as getting very technical – for example, if your yarn has a defect every 10 cm, h0w do you figure out which cylinder in the machine to check first to find the problem?

During the time in Costa Rica we made a visit to the folks that knit and dye the organic cloth, and also were able to visit a working acrylic yarn factory and a closed-down cotton yarn factory. At the cotton spinning plant we were able to see and touch the machines that we’d heard about, look at all the different functions and cylinders and pinions and see the machines and ducts in their places in the factory. The factory was the same size as the Genesis building, and so it was easy for everyone to see how machinery like that would fit in their building. When the co-op went to El Salvador, the factory was so huge and so modern, that it was a little hard to imagine being able to reach for that kind of goal. On the other hand, the factory in Costa Rica helped the group to ground itself by seeing a factory that feels attainable.

Although they had to get passports and visas to travel to Costa Rica, the Genesis folks took this last trip in stride. They were relaxed during the trip and felt less anxious about leaving their families. In the training, Pablo was the first to answer the mechanical questions every time. Natalia related what she was learning with her experience working in one of Nicaragua’s yarn plants in the 1980s. Jamileth applied what she’s learning in her Sunday mechanics class, and put on her work shirt as soon as we walked in the factory so she could get into the machinery. Geovanny, who is studying accounting, was the first to come up with the solution to the mathematical equations for working out quality control. Janneth walked around the plant pointing to the machinery and explaining its function to other co-op members. Overall Genesis took advantage of the trainings, and they came back energized and ready to get to work.

Now that the Genesis co-op is back home, they are concentrating on finishing their bathrooms and break room and evicting from their building the doves that have taken up residence in the rafters with the hope of being able to get opening and carding machinery within the next few months, pending funding, of course. -- Becca

We DO own our land!

This week we had some GREAT news! We received notification that Yelba Carvajal's attempt to annul our legitimate title and register her false title to our land have been denied! (Remember in February 2008 when she began trying to steal our land?)

This is one of two false titles she used to try to claim ownership of our Center (with our house, offices & volunteer dorm) and the Industrial Park (where the Genesis co-op, the cotton gin and the sewing co-op are all located). Now that her attempt to register our land as her own has failed, we are no longer in danger of getting the ground stolen out from under us!

WOO HOO!

This has been a long fight, but we've counted on important support during the process thanks to more than 1,000 emails you, our supporters, sent to the First Lady Rosario Murillo in a matter of days! Thank you so much for all your support!

We are still waiting notification about her attempt to register her false title on the Industrial Park. Stay tuned to start celebrating when we finally receive that notice! -- Becca

A Clinic Organized...

Organizational skills elude me…almost completely! In the 90’s I read a book on housekeeping entitled Sidetracked Home Executives…and I bought the index cards and the file holder…then wrote all the tasks and how long it took to complete them…and that was it. I was perpetually sidetracked! But…

My friend, Nora…she is an organizational whiz and a retired physician’s assistant. She and Becky, a pediatrician, came and gave three weeks to our bodega (our large clinic storage room)! They sorted and sifted and cleaned and blustered about what we had! They kindly taught me what all we had since I have no medical background.

Volunteers put on masks and moved instruments we would never use to an unused room. And we gave it all away! Some of it was golden for hospitals and some, not so much…but it went to the government clinic and hospital to be shared and used.

Nora and Becky labeled the medicines and supplies so we could restock easily. Becky pointed out the medicines we would never use, so there was no need to keep them. We decided what date was too dated and weeded out those medicines as well. What remained was the World’s 8^th Wonder to my eyes! AND…

A shot in the arm to do some more organizing…

Danelia organized the pharmacy and labeled it all! It looks great and so, so easy to pull those random, not-used-much medicines.

With the help of the delegation from Lopez Island we went through the second building and separated out equipment we could realistically use in the clinic. We saved potty chairs, Depends, walkers and wheelchairs for the infirm to give to our elderly patients. We kept a reasonable amount of crutches and “pieces parts” to fix machinery that we do use in the clinic…THEN…

We gave stuff away again!

The clinic staff…our Nicaraguan staff…are *Just. Like. Us*….in that we are all terrible pack rats. So, Danelia would say, “What about this thing? We might use it in the future?”

“If we need it THEN we will ask for it again, until then someone else can use it.”

It is wonderful. I feel energized instead of heavy about needing to go through stuff. We could – would – never have done it on our own. We needed volunteers with skills none of us had. -- Kathleen

"Anyone" can learn...does that mean me?

From a purely egotistical standpoint, it’s been good for me. Since I spend most of my time fretting about the next step for the Genesis co-op and writing grant proposals that are never accepted, I’ve found the last few weeks entirely refreshing. Together with Pat and our volunteer coordinator Liz, I’ve been working with a wonderful Cuban ophthalmologist to learn to do eye checks and hand out glasses to patients.For several years we’ve been working to get an eye correction program up and running at the Nueva Vida Clinic. We received bits and pieces of donated medicines and glasses, and then a year ago we received a grant to purchase a hand-held autorefractor which would allow us to do fast eye checks and give us the flexibility of doing them not only in our clinic, but in places like El Porvenir where people have such need and no access to eye correction.

 
Through the Cuban doctor, we set up a program last year where optometry students spent one morning a week doing their practicum in our clinic. That worked pretty well, considering that students the world over – and here I’ll insert the Southern phrase bless their hearts – are not known for excelling at follow-through. Although we had hoped to continue with a new group of students this spring, that just hasn’t materialized, and in order to keep the program going, we decided to take the ophthalmologist up on his suggestion that “anyone” could be taught to do this.

 
So far, Pat, Liz and I have managed to grasp the concept of myopic vs. hyperoptic, spherical vs. cylindrical and have learned that presbyopia is a condition that sets in after the age of 40 that has nothing to do with an irrational fear of Presbyterians. More importantly, we get to play with fun stuff: we can now use a lensometer to check the prescription on glasses, a retinoscope to check eyes for cataracts, the autorefractor to get a starting place on a prescription, and a phoropter to fine tune the prescription. I think I speak for us all when I say we’re feeling pretty good about our ability to catch on to new things.

 
Of course it’s totally another matter when you’ve got living breathing patients in front of you! (I think that must be why they call it “practicing” medicine!) Last week we went live: in the first 2 days we saw 15 patients all from the Genesis co-op (better to practice on folks you already know) and since then we’ve seen another 15 “real” patients. One of my first was an older man who insisted that every new lens I tried out on the phoropter was better than the last. For about ten minutes I’d say “Which is better, one or two?” And he would say “Two” every time, even while I moved from -3.75 right up to +4.00. I’ll admit I was sweating it…what do you do in that case? Since we are working with donated glasses and can’t find anyone’s exact prescription anyway, I started trying on glasses. And with those he was absolutely unequivocal – he left with the thickest pair of specs I’ve ever seen, and thrilled right down to his toes!

 
We’ve managed to work out a system of who does what, and Pat is doing a noble job of organizing our donated glasses so we cut the searching time down. We’ve found a table that is the right size for Liz to prop her arm on to get a good reading with the autorefractor without having to physically hold her patients still. We’ve found a picture chart that works better for folks who can’t read, and once we get the phoropter oiled so that the lenses don’t stick and the swing arm doesn’t whap patients across the head anymore, I think we’ll be in business!

 
Of course our prescriptions aren’t exact – and I’m relieved that the ophthalmologist tells us that much of the eye correction process is purely subjective– but it is very satisfying to take a break from fretting one morning a week and go to the clinic where I am told a problem, can do some tests, and can hand someone a pair of glasses that will help them. -- Becca

Unplug

We live in an era of unprecedented technological advancements. When we moved here in 1994 we didn’t have any kind of phone for four years. Now almost everyone we know here has cell phones, which is good…families can communicate, work places can call when a staff member doesn’t show up, and family members in other countries can call their loved ones.*

I am a little intimated by all the technology around but I do not yearn for the “good old” days when everyone just had a land line and there were no microchips. I love being in touch with my family anytime I want through email and the “magic” phone that operates through internet. I do not want to return to air letters that take a month to get back to family and friends. But….

There are many times that I feel that instead of technology enhancing our humanity, it is becoming our god.

We work more hours to have what we feel we MUST have in the newest, the fastest, the most memory. We stay plugged in…or text non-stop with our “friends” on Facebook, My Space or just the phone. We seem obsessed as a Developed World society.

But are we losing ourselves? Do we avoid the pain through typing insignificant froo frah constantly and never look up from the screen to see the people around you? Technology has given us a way to block the people around us on the subways, the sidewalks, and even our home. We do not have to see the homeless if we are texting. We do not have to hear the cries of sadness of the broken hearted when we have constant music in our ears. We do not have to interact with our loved ones if we just text a phrase every two minutes. We do not have to see the poor.

We need to stop…unplug…become that person that was created to interact with others, help others, and love others. After all, can you see Moses facing Yahweh with an iPod plugged in, or Jesus texting “brb” to his followers before going to the wilderness, or even Thoreau taking a walk through the woods on a Wii? -- Kathleen

*Cell phones here can receive calls even if there is no time on it. You can put as little as $1 on your phone.

**Note: In the photo volunteer Tyson is just pretending to talk on his cell phone while picking coffee up at El Porvenir, although his phone did have coverage up there!