Miguel Angel on the DT:
Here is a "happy camper" with his main means of transportation. Miguel Angel worked for many years in the Education project, receiving a salary that is more a gratuity for volunteer work than a real salary. He earns R.D. $4,000.00 pesos per month, just like the other teachers in the rural Catholic schools. You can take that number and divide it by 33 to have an idea of the dollar amount.
All expenses paid by the teacher:
To get an idea of the demands that are placed upon the teacher who earns this small amount, one may consider the fact that the salary does not include health benefits or retirement nor transportation costs. For Miguel Angel that last item has more impact than for the other teachers, as the El Toro school requires more gasoline than any of the others.
Lack of jobs in the area:
If the Paraíso area had more sources of employment, then the Church could never find people willing to drive up difficult mountain roads and teach for the small benefit that the program offers. The Church does not deliberately have such low salaries. They are the result of a strategic decision some seven years ago when the schools began: to finance the schools by a godfather system where the godparent sponsors an individual child, rather than a school. As the sponsored children moved away from the school or the sponsors retired from the program, the schools were left with many more children without godparent "sponsors" in the USA than children with sponsors. Thus the salaries had to reflect that stark economic reality.
A blessing:
The DT and interest free loan that comes with it are a huge blessing for Miguel Angel. The used motorcycle cost 76,000 pesos... a sum that he could never repay under normal loan conditons. The campesinos, teachers and agriculture extention workers all prefer the Yamaha DT 125 to the Honda 125 because of the two stroke motor. They say it has more power than the Honda. The Elko fund enables the Church to respond to the needs of the teachers and offer alternative forms of compensation that were unavailable only a few months ago. Thank you to all who shared with this parish and brought forward this tremendous blessing.
Yesterday:
Miguel Angel brought a youngster down from the mountains yesterday. He had a fight with another student and was losing blood from a knife wound. So the motorcycle serves as ambulance as well as his home vehicle to carry his wife and children. Given the huge rise in the price of gasoline and diesel fuel (it now costs more to fill the tank than go to the mechanic and have serious work done on a vehicle!) the motorcycle will remain the prefered choice for transportation among the "middle class" in the Dominican Republic.
