Bits and Peaces: LATRINES GALORE!

Work has recently taken off and I am a super busy bee. This is wonderful because it keeps me from twiddling my thumbs, I get to feel productive instead of castigating myself constantly for my lack of productivity (that was in part my fault, but also the fault of the work culture and disinterest in health promotion), and it helps the time fly by, getting me closer and closer to my visit home. Having a kind of deadline has been helpful in getting me out there and pushing forward with everything. I think I'm just going to to need to make up firm deadlines for the future. It's hard when you get lost sometimes in the "oh my god I have more than another year of this" kind of thinking...

So what exactly am I up to right now?

Healthy Schools - I am working on a healthy schools project as a secondary activity for quite awhile. I originally was just teaching the teachers at the school once a month with the hope that they would replicate my "charlas" or "lessons" and do them in the classroom with their own kids. I suppose I was being a little too optimistic with that approach, so I started teaching them about the common health issues the kids had from the year before that I got of a statistics sheet from our health post, and started teaching charlas to the kids at the school. I've taught two at this point with the students from the 3rd-6th grade. One was about self-esteem and values, and the most recent one that I gave was about waste management, the difference between organic and inorganic trash, and the importance of taking care of the environment. Coming up, I have a charla on oral hygiene, and I just bought 81 toothbrushes this morning for all the students in the school. Peace Corps doesn't really encourage volunteers to use their money like that, and it was originally going to be part of a bigger project where I was going to ask for money from the municipality, but the other things we planned on buying kind of fell through due to the fact that the Director and I can't agree on how we should provide safe drinking water to the kids, and the only land they have for a vegetable garden is over their septic system. So. After teaching this kids and seeing rotting teeth in most of their smiles, I decided that putting 10% of my monthly stipend into toothbrushes was a good use of my money. The school is going to make it obligatory that each kid brushes their teeth at school at least once during the day. We haven't figured out the timing, but I suppose each class could have their own. At the very least, that means that each kid will be brushing their teeth once a day, even if they don't at home.

Pasos Adelante - The sexual health class I've been teaching at the high school in Cabracancha has finally finished. I've been teaching since MAY, and it was only supposed to take 24 weeks. With all the strikes we had with no school, it has taken much longer than originally planned. However, they've finally finished and I have been working on planning their graduation ceremony for them. The DISA, or head of health care and health posts in the entire district of Chota has offered to give us money to buy them tshirts, which I'm really excited about. Karen, the obstetriz I've been working with, who is also a good friend of mine, has helped a lot in pulling together the planning for the graduation. We wrote "oficios" to representatives of a bunch of different health related organizations in Chota as well as the Alcalde to invite them to come to our graduation. All of my students are currently planning their own sexual health sessions to teach in the school to their peers the morning of their graduation. They are in groups of two or three and will be teaching each of the five grades about either self-esteem, teen pregnancy, STIs, HIV/AIDS, or how to use a condom. I'm super proud of them and can't wait to watch them teach their first charlas.

Last Wednesday I had them all take the post-test, which was identical to their pre-test. The pre-tests were horrific. I remember thinking, "Good lord I have my work cut out for me." I just finished grading their post-tests and half my kids got 100%, and the other half missed just one part of one question. SO proud of them and so pleased to see that they did learn something.

Step two to the Pasos Adelante project is for them to start teaching what they learned to their peers in school. I know a bunch of them are really excited about it. Two of them that I brought to the Pasos Adelante Conference a month or two ago actually dragged me into the Director's office in an attempt to organize their classes. I was so impressed with their eagerness. I'm hoping they will help me to train a new group of youth health promoters as well. I think they will. Other than that, we're just going to put on health promotional events and I'll have more people to work with! I'm really really excited with how this has all worked out.

Healthy Homes Project - I have finally started moving forward on my first BIG project. When I first arrived in site, the volunteer I was replacing told me that everyone had latrines and cook stoves and I didn't have many options for work other than that. For most of my service I've been sort of stumped on what to do. My boss came to visit all of us in August and she suggested that I do a "maintenance" project, so instead of constructing new latrines or cook stoves, I see what has fallen apart and replace that, for example if the chimney for the stove broke, I could replace it...that sort of thing. As a program, we are all supposed to focus on mothers with children under 3 and pregnant women. I got a list of about 30 moms who have kids under 3 who are high risk for chronic malnutrition and a list of pregnant women. I've spent the last month and some change walking ALL OVER my mountain visiting the houses of these moms, and doing an initial survey with them to see what their knowledge base is, and what their stoves or latrines are lacking. Turns out, the majority don't have latrines, or if they do, they are in desperate need of some help. Most of the stoves are ok, but many need new chimneys. I'm now doing a project that is a little bit bigger than I would like because I started under the impression that everyone had latrines. Ah well.

The way it works: I have about 30 moms. They are going to come to meetings once or twice a month to learn about a new topic. I'm also going to give them homework to improve things in their home, like to have a place where all their toothbrushes and toothpaste are in the same place, or to prepare their land to plant a vegetable garden, that kind of thing. Twice a month, they are each going to receive a house visit (one from me, one from a health post worker...god willing). In each visit, we will check for the changes I asked for in their "homework", and check their learning from the educative session that I gave. If they all attend the sessions without fail and complete their house visits, at the end of the project, I will construct (hopefully with help from a local NGO), their new latrines and do the maintenance that their cook stoves need. I'm also going to be giving them seeds for a vegetable garden and a kind of bucket to keep their boiled water in.

It feels good to get going on something big in my town because most people don't know about my work in Cabracancha and think I'm just hanging out in Chota. It's been weird with some moms, I'll go to visit, I know they are home, and they just pretend not to be home. A couple moms have flat out said that they aren't interested, which doesn't make any sense to me...but I've got a good list of moms at this point. It's a lot of work and I'm really worried about getting funding for it. I'm going to ask the municipality but if that doesn't work out, I'm going to have to apply for an outside grant, which is always way messier and makes most people crazy.

I thought I would share with you some of my favorite latrine pictures from my house visits. These are the moms who DO have latrines and will be getting new ones...there are plenty of moms who do not have latrines who will also be getting new ones..