Potters For Peace

The chairwomen of a sister organization to Filter Pure - Potters for Peace - is staying with us. She has been our main source of information in understanding the organization, their mission, and vision for this area and in other countries. She lives in Nicaragua. There her and her husband work for Potters for Peace, and their daughter - a peace corps graduate, teaches in a local school.

She has made the trip to the Dominican Republic, to show solidarity with Filter Pure. Although they use a variation of the same ancient technology, their missions are the same. Providing clean water in local communities that need access to clean water.

The technology both organizations use, is as old as the shards of pottery found in the remains of ancient civilizations, with one minor addition: Colloidal Silver.

The filters made by Filter Pure are cone-shaped. Layers of clay sandwich a layer of charcoal. both are soaked in colloidal silver. The clay and charcoal filter-out 90 percent or more, of what needs to be removed from the water. The colloidal silver is a natural anti-bacterial, that removes micro-bacteria, that would not be filtered by the pores in the clay and charcoal.

We are very excited about the mission of the organization we are working with, and are excited about what we will learn and what we might accomplish in our time here. As they are preparing to fill in order for 1500 filters that are shipping to Haiti, we are helping with the layout of the factory. We are helping to "optimize their work flow" as we might say back at Carnegie Mellon.

Yucca, pottery, and lessons in Dominican hospitality

Upon arriving at what would be our home for the duration of our stay, we recieved our first meal with-in 10 minutes. We were all getting ourselves acclimated to our new surroundings and our host invited us to the table, which was set with Yuccca: a potato-like leggume, that is difficult to describe, but served with most meals that we eat.

We were relativley surprised with the luxury in which we were staying. We were prepared for much harsher conditions. Though the family that we are stay with has made every effort to welcome us into there home. Although different from what most of us are used to living in America, we are very comfortable.

Elaina, our host mother, is the sister of the owner of the filter factory. Her daughter Claudia and her niece Mellisa also live with her. I'm sure that our presence has impacted their lives grealy, by making everything much more difficult. They have however shown no signs of frustration.

Claudia is 25. She attended medical school, and is about to start her residency. Sher is, for the most part away at work, but when home she works with ther mother keeping us all well fed. Mellisa is one of the happiest girls I have ever met. Shy, but sparingly willing to practice the english she is learning at schoool; I belive she is in the 7th grade.

We are very lucky to have ended up staying with the family that we are!

Planes, trucks, and old Dominican Women

It was a great pleasure to meet Carolina's mother. She was not only a great help greeting us at the airport, but she made us feel safe and was a connection to home, while we were in a foreign country. I think most of us were surprised when arriving in Santos Domingo. Being the capital of the D.R. Santos Domingo we thought would be relatively free of the signs of poverty: dirty streets, stray dogs, etc. however the nicest area of town surrounded the presidential palace.

The next morning, we left early to the bus station. The hotel organized a transportation to the bus station, and after bartering (unsuccessfully) our taxi driver semi-safely delivered us in plenty of time for us to make the bus. The bus trip was nice. We traveled with mostly locals, who may have been shocked to see a group of gringos traveling to Santiago. We found that we were at a great disadvantage not having a fluent language speaker on the trip. When the bus rolled to a stop in Santiago, it took us a good 10 minutes to find out we were in the right spot.

We grabbed our bags off the buss and in poor Spanish asked the first person we saw, if this was in deed Santiago. The person answered "you must be the Carnegie Mellon students." After a brief bathroom break, we tossed our bags on the back of a flat bed, and jumped up to join them. We rode through the down town of Santiago, as somewhat of a spectacle. Happy to be close to our destination we responded to most honks of horns, and flashing lights with a smile, a wave, and a possibly incomprehensible "hello."

We turned off the main road, and arrived at our new dwellings. Unaware of where we were going we were pleasantly surprised when we stopped in front of the home of Elaina - our host Senora.