"oh yea, well I've been to town 10 times!"

Los Higos is a farming town way out in the campo. It's a 20 minute drive from the main road in Jarabacoa. The first half of the drive is a road that was last paved before I was born and the second half is not paved and so steep that it's impassable if it's raining. If Jarabacoa is 10 years behind the US in technology, Los Higos is 10 years behind Jarabacoa. Many of the adults have never seen a computer. Some teenage girls were arguing the other day when one smirked "oh yea, well I've been to town over 10 times!" Many of the other girls had only left their 3-mile world in the campo 2 0r 3 times in their entire life.

Despite their limited knowledge of the outside world, or perhaps because of it, it's a wonderful place. It's quiet. It's peaceful. It gives new meaning to living in community. I don't think I've ever been somewhere that was so co-dependent.

SI has worked in Los Higos for 5 years and it's been a great success. We have a social work site (similar to what Caroline does in El Callejon) and a pre-school. There is also a church that was started by a Dominican man who is former SI staff.

I'm starting MiBanco #3 in this community. The group has been formed and we're going through the pre-loan training program now. The women do a variety of things, one makes dulce de leche, another casabe (a flatbread made fro yucca), one raises pigs and another goats.

Pray that it gets off to a good start!


A view from the top. While the drive to Los Higos is rough, the views are amazing.


This is a casabe factory. Los Higos is known for casabe. This factory was built so that the women could work together to mass produce it but is no longer in use due to inter-community bickering. The yucca (similar to a potato) is dried out and then grind up into a pulp. This pulp is molded into a flatbread and then cooked over a fire.


The fabric of our lives. I had never seen it in it's natural state before.


Kathy came down on a womens' retreat and worked with me during my first week in Los Higos.


We had 42 women come to the interest meeting.