Development at its finest

We all imagine how the things we donate to humanity change lives. And yes, they change lives, sometimes in ways we can never imagine. So my parents were so incredibly kind and brought down so many things to help my community. Thanks to Callie for the new books, small children come over to my house all the time and sit on my porch and read, some are just starting to learn. My favorite are the two little girls who no matter how hard I try to explain it, they always ask why the dogs in the book "Big Dog, Little Dog" walk on two legs and wear T shirts and drive cars and tell me that the ones here just walk on 4 legs. The concept of "an imagination world" is a little hard. Thanks to all the nurses and doctors in the Emergency room at Island Hospital, my community now has two copies of a medical book called "Where there is no doctor" to use as reference when people get sick and don't have enough money to leave the community to see a doctor. And there are now some medical supplies available. And thanks to those who donated the toothbrushes and floss. 50 kids came to a little health presentation that my mom and I gave and learned about general health care (hand washing, diarrea, fevers and toothcare). Due to increased amounts of sugar in the diet, there are a lot of little rotting teeth in the mouths of these kids here. At least that is my theory. Another wise elder in the community says that it must be the sugar and the change in diet from good foods from the farm to processed foods (sound familiar?) but is also caused by the lack of tooth care. And when they say tooth care, they mean that when you loose a tooth, you must wrap it up in a special leaf of a special tree and dig it in a little whole at the roots, so that your teeth and the tree will grow strong (for those of you who have read Life of PI, it might bring to mind some images). This of course led to me telling the story of the tooth fairy which they thought was absolutely absurd! After the presentation, each child went home with their toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss, so proud and excited. And sending these children off, I imagined all the great uses they might find for floss, like fishing, or tying sticks together, hoping that maybe some of them would try it out to the benefit of their little teeth. Two days later, I was visiting a house and a little kid came running up to me, so excited to see me, shouting my name, with the biggest grin on his face, showing all those little rotten teeth, and around his neck, he had created the most fabulous medallion from the neon green floss box. He had creatively used all the floss except the last two feet in those first two days and with the remaining piece, he created a necklace of champions, tied nicely around his neck. So we brought joy into their lives and maybe a little bit of improvement to their health. Little by little the word is. A young man just told me a nice little saying for that. Poco a poco, una vieja gacha come un coco, meaning, little by little an old woman with no teeth can eat a coconut.