Health Promoters and Stealth Chickens

I knew I had to visit Doña Carmen, the health promoter in my town, mostly because I hadn’t visited her house yet, but also because she was supposed to come to my class on Wednesday to do the handwashing workshop.  I went over there to find her banging a stake for her cow into the ground with a giant rock.  She was sweet and invited me inside to sit.  I asked her if she was ready for tomorrow and she looked confused.  I asked if she was coming to give the handwashing workshop with my kids on Wednesday and she was surprised it was already going to be the first of the month.  I wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t come to remind her, and it wasn’t even my work, it was hers, I had just offered her a group of people to do it with.  She said she would be there, and I asked her to come at 11:45 a.m. and I would be ready for her. 

          

  I also managed to get a survey done with her, and she had lots of interesting things to say in response to some of my theme ideas. I think she may know the community better than anyone, so I did a separate interview with her.  She also told me that she would be willing to help me do house visits, which was exciting as well.  She asked me to stay for lunch, but I told her Celina thought I was having lunch there.  I was mostly remembering that the last time I ate something she cooked I was vomiting and other things for days.  

I was really pleased with myself for getting over my reluctance and just going over there.  I felt like I’d done everything I needed to do, and could spend the rest of the day getting ready for English class, among other things. 

That afternoon, a miracle took place, and we got our water back.  It had been about two weeks and I needed to wash my hair and refill my water bucket in my room with boiled drinking water.  Watching that parasite infested, dirty water burst from our spout was about enough to make me cry.  I was so happppppyyyy!  I don’t think you can ever appreciate water until you don’t have it for a long time. 

I spent the afternoon refilling my water bucket with water I boiled in my hot pot while I reentered all my survey data on Excel.  Natalia had done a couple surveys incompletely and I had started entering data before I realized she’d forgotten a lot of information.  I then got one of them back, completed from her and started entering the data because I forgot I had already half entered it.  Then my data was all messed up, so I had to do it all over again. 

I got to wash my hair, which felt amazing.  I have this towel especially made for heads after you shower.  My sister in law gave it to me a couple Christmases ago, and I used it every time I showered in college.  I decided to bring it to Perú for some strange reason, and I’m SO glad I did.  Given that we don’t have water all that frequently, I’m often forced to wash my hair out of a bucket, and having a little towel perfect for just my hair when that’s all I wash, is so convenient!  My host mom laughs at me every time, and I always feel ridiculous, because when she looks at me I realize how ridiculous a luxury it is to have a towel for just your head.  However, I love it so much that I spit out the guilt and just relish the perfect convenience of it!

the stealth chicken. 

The other exciting thing that happened was that as I was working at the table in the larger room that mine is divided from, a chicken came in.  I tried to chase it out, but it ran into my room.  I tried to get it out of my room but it ran under my bed and hid in the corner and I couldn’t scare it out.  I eventually took the map case my mom sent me a poster in and poked it out.  It went squawking out my room.  Sometimes I really do feel like I live in a zoo.