In the rural community of La Patilla, a Dominican boy catches a handful of clean, refreshing water from the new aqueduct system provided by Cross Catholic Outreach and the Diocese of San Juan de la Maguana.
Last month I visited the Maasai, a semi-nomadic tribe of herders in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley. The trip was like stepping back in time. Though only a two-hour drive from cosmopolitan Nairobi, Maasai society is largely untouched by modernity.
A Maasai woman cooling off in Ewuaso Kedong, Kenya, where Cross Catholic Outreach has been working with Fr. John Fortune of Yesu Empiris E Nkai Parish to provide water for this semi-nomadic community affected by the Horn of Africa drought.
I don’t need to tell you about the Black Friday mayhem of crazed shoppers, big bargains, long check-out lines, and subsequent buyer’s remorse (or in my case, a quiet day at home putting up Christmas decorations).
A drive through the city of Managua, Nicaragua, felt like traveling in circles as we passed building after building defaced with the spray-painted slogans, “Viva la Revolucion” and “Viva Daniel.” It was hard to say whether the signs were the result of grassroots activism or a public graffiti art initiative, displayed among an abundant supply of billboards, posters, and statues promoting President Daniel Ortega and his political party.
En route to a rural village in western Nicaragua, we pulled over to talk to a man and woman on a horse-drawn cart headed the same way. When you see these sorts of sights along the road in Latin America, you don’t think much of it… until you realize what they’re doing.