My name is Maricia. I am the mother of Danicia who is in the medika mamba program at RHFH. I was born and raised in the village of Lamy and still live there now. There is not much to do in Lamy. There are 2 schools, one is a government run school and the other is in the Nazarene Church. There are 2 churches in the area a Catholic church and the Nazarene Church. I have 4 children but three of them live with me. My first child lives with his father. So I have 2 boys and 2 girls.

My house fell down during the earthquake. I did not have money to fix it. I was sad. I had some family that had this house they were not using. They had moved to the Dominican Republic. They said my family could stay there. It is a 2 room home made of rocks, sticks and clay. It is covered with a tin roof. I am happy that I have a place to stay with my children, but would like to have a house of my own one day.

I do not have a job but do have some land. On this land we plant watermelons, beans, bananas and corn. This is what we do to live. We take these crops and sell them in the open markets around us. Sometimes a good crop can feed us for many months. We do not have running water in our village. There is a small source that comes out of the side of the mountain that we get water from. It is difficult to get to it. One beautiful thing about our village is that it is up high on a mountain top. From our village you can see the ocean.