Pictures!

(Left to right) Dan from Duenas, Ellen from Duenas, and Thea from San Mateo, (and the hand of Ashlee). Thea is in Youth Development but she's super awesome and likes to hang out with the other super awesome Health folks.

Zach, another trainee that lives in Duenas with Sarita, showing off his awesome shirt he bought today.
Here is a view of the park in Parramos.
Here are some los militares in Antigua during el dia de mercado (market day). No idea why they were all around today. And yes, they are carrying assault rifles. (AK-74s for those concerned).
Jim and Emily, another married couple. We were hanging out in Antigua today, celebrating the end of our first charlas.

(from left to right) Jane, Ellen, and Ashlee. Jane and Ashlee are the other two people in my training group in Parramos and Ellen lives in Duenas with Sarita.
Here is my courtyard in my house
Here is my bathroom
Here is a view of the campo next to where Ashlee (another trainee in my group) lives
Another view of the campo
Here is the catholic church in my town.

That is all for now! You won't hear from me until after Field-Based Training, when we can show you all of the sweet pictures of the latrines and hand-washing stations.

Hasta La Primero Domingo (Until Next Sunday)!

Delicious Irony

So guess who's getting over a nasty case of food poisoning? And who got food poisoning two hours after writing this post. Guess I had it coming! Hahaha. I'm much better now and I'm in Antigua but it was a miserable 8 hours of shooting liquid out of every available orifice! Guess I won't be eating street food again.

-Mat

Another Week Down, Part 2

Since I never get a chance to write during the week I have to make up for it on the weekend and I always give a double dose of bloggy goodness. Guatemala is such a beautiful and tranquil place (despite the bombas). The paciencia of the people is amazing. People are much more understanding when you make mistakes and are always, always kind. Even though I am a stranger everyone I have met has been so welcoming and open. They are eager to extend hospitality sometimes going so far out of their way to accommodate me that I feel badly. When I feel my lowest, when I can not speak or understand any Spanish, I am always reminded by the wonderful people to take a minute and realize that this is not the land of immediate gratification. Love your mistakes. Take more time to learn from them. Poco a poco. How refreshing.

The relationship to time is so different too. And I love it. Tiempo es vida (time is life). What a fabulous phrase. Even though I know that I have a long way to go in learning Spanish and more about this country and its people, I don’t feel nervous or scared about it coming in time any more. It is a relief to let go of that anxiety. Something clicked for me and I realized that I actually can not flip a switch and be fluent or comfortable here. I am going to struggle daily and that is ok, maybe even good. I can take this time to get to know the people and form relationships. I am not necessarily ready to call this place home, but it is starting to feel more natural. People are getting used to seeing me walking around Duenas, I know a couple of the tienda owners, and I can even take part in a little local “chisme” or gossip with the women in the Puesto. And now that I am better able to understand what people are saying, I am starting to get used to the sense of humor. Thank goodness too. I thought I was going to go crazy not being able to joke around with people.

Sunday is Antigua day. Some friends of ours are meeting there tomorrow for lunch, hanging out in the park, and drinking espresso from Café Condessa. It is hard to swallow that instant stuff. Speaking of instant….. My family grows coffee in their backyard which they then sell to coffee fincas. But they drink instant. I can not figure it out. They export all the good stuff. Well obviously they make money off of it but still. For my family, it is literally in their backyard. I bought some Guatemalan coffee and have been brewing my own. The instant just does not do it for me in the mornings. Go figure. And if I need to wake up and speak in a language that I am not fluent in, I need a serious kick start. Hell, I can barely speak English before my morning cup of joe.

Oh I forgot to mention that I went to this awesome organic macadamia nut finca. Deliciousness all around. You get a complimentary taste of the nuts and chocolates and you get to test the oil and cream. We want to go back for the macadamia nut pancakes! Anything else happen this week? I guess Mat will have to update you all soon. I know that I am certainly not getting enough fat or something because I have already tightened my belt one whole notch. Mat looks like he has lost some weight too. I really miss Indian food. Kumar, I am thinking of you right now as I crave your taste-tacular Palak Paneer!!!

-Sarah

Another week down

Another week down and this one flew by! It was the first of many busy weeks. Next week will be pretty crazy too. Earlier in the blog, I talked about how the main focus of our program will be education through informal education, or giving “charlas.” This week we had to practice putting one together but we could at least present this one in English. I gave mine on trash (which I will talk more about later) and Mat gave a charla on hygiene habits. However, I did hit a little snag in the road when at the turn of Wednesday (literally at midnight) I awoke with the sudden urge to dispel of all of my bodily fluids from any way possible. I had my first encounter with food poisoning. It was about 11 hours of hell which made preparing an awesome charla difficult, however it was in front of my peers who definitely understood!

Friday was a big day too. My group is already giving charlas in Spanish in Duenas. On Wednesday, my sick day, my group learned how to vaccinate dogs and then gave a little charla in the Puesto de Salud on nutrition. It went well even with the shaky Spanish and if it didn’t, everyone had a good laugh at the gringos. And that brings us to Friday when we ran all around the Duenas area. We went into the Aldea Rosario (an Aldea is a small town or towns that are near a bigger city or town) to watch one of our health promotoras give a charla. We arrived after driving in the back of a pickup for 20 minutes up the mountain and gathered in a family home where about 10 or 12 women and some of their children joined us. There home served as a passageway between the river and the street so random people would venture through the house, including two vacas or cows. Yep those vacas walked straight through the charla. It was fabulous. We were pretty high up and there were some of the most beautiful flowers that I have ever seen. The people of Rosario were incredibly generous and gave us tons of peaches and pears which were delicious. At one point, a little girl asked me to come over to her, so I did. She said, “can I have some pisto (money) gringa?” Ooops. Sorry little Chiquita, but I am a volunteer and no tengo pisto.

Later that day, we were scheduled to give a charla to some young people (edades 17-21) about HIV/AIDS. Here was the catch. It was in the Catholic Church. AND we could not say the word contraception or condom. Hmmm. A bit of a predicament. We were not supposed to say anything about sex either but we went ahead and gave a disclaimer before hand and did it anyway. How can you give a talk on the transmission of HIV/AIDS with out discussing unprotected sex? When it came to the prevention part, we stressed abstinence (gulp, sweat), fidelity, and education. Literally minutes before the charla began our health promoter explicitly told us not to say condom even though we had obviously planned to talk about protection. The charla was even opened with a 10 minute long prayer. It went well and our Spanish skills were hilarious after a 12 hour day of nonstop Spanish but we did and that is what counts. Next week we have to give an official charla. Mine is going to be on hygiene habits at the local library with about 30 kids. I’m not too nervous because this whole country is so patient and forgiving. I do have to start from scratch in terms of material since I did my charla on trash before. Games and activities!!! Mucho!

-Sarah

Comadrona Drama (Also, THREE WEEKS DOWN)

Hello! This is Mat checking in.... I finally got some time to myself today and I'll get some tomorrow, too! Puchica! Update: This week was crazy. In my town, we have a Puesto de Salud that doesn't have any Health Promoters - the people that give the charlas to the communities. Therefore, we have to work with comadronas, and they are essentially unpaid midwives. They work very hard and don't have much time for what we are doing right now. Many of them work and live in the rural aldeas (communities) and it is very hard for them to make it to our meetings on time or even at all because of other demands placed on them.

So, we had a charla planned at the school at 9:00 AM on Friday. The comadrona was a no-show so we had to get the doctor to do it. We had another one planned at 2:00 and that fell through as the comadrona dipped as soon as she showed up, so our technical director ended up giving a charla to the students of the school in Parramos. It was a simple and effective demonstration of how to make a portable liquid soap dispenser. Pretty nifty, actually. Anyways, he told us that our town is the 20% that doesn't work the way it should. PLAN B! We need to talk to our rural health technician first, but we're planning on giving a group charla to the teachers in the school about a topic they want. We want to work solely with the teachers because they seem to want to learn and be given charlas. I am incredibly relieved to be giving a group charla given my current language skills. However, it does mean that this week is going to be incredibly stressful. So send me some positive energy or prayer or whatever you can to make me not stress out.

In other news, it's our anniversary on Monday so I'll be going to Sarah's town after language classes to hang out and spend some time celebrating our nontraditional wedding, haha. Sarah got food poisoning on Tuesday-Wednesday night, the day before she was supposed to give her charla. She is fine now and that is why I can say it was almost hilariously ironic because the night before (the freaking night before!) she told me she would be the one with the iron stomach who could eat the street food and never get sick. Oh, the delicious (and then not-so-delicious) irony. To be honest my stomach is bugging me a bit right now so I should hold my tongue, just in case...

My family is great and loves to help me talk, especially Don Andres. I'm still just squeaking by - maybe in a year I'll actually be able to understand what everyone is saying.... My time is almost up at the internet cafe. Farewell and so long!

¡Puchica!

And now here is a little something about all of the charms of the country. In the last post I mentioned the Chuchos or street dogs. In Santa Lucia, where the PC offices and training center is located, there are tons of chuchos. In San Miguel Duenas, there really are not too many. In Antigua, the chuchos are pretty well fed. Mat and I made a chucho friend the other day. One followed us from the central park in Antigua all of the way to the bus terminal and then waited with us while we waited for camionetas. Most of them steer clear of people. If they don’t or act aggressively, don’t be afraid to swing a stick at them. They are pretty scared of sticks because they have all probably suffered some pretty severe beatings by them. The attitude is definitely different here even toward pets. There is not a humane society or Animal Cops the TV show. However, the street dogs can be dangerous and if you are a runner it is highly recommended that you run with a stick just to scare them off. There actually is a rabies problem. Don’t worry, we receive three pre-exposure shots and then get the double shot treatment post-exposure. So we are safe.

I know you all want to know about all of the awesome illness that we may be experiencing in the next two years. Now, I have a cast iron stomach so I bet I will be the one so avoid the horrible cases of diarrhea. However, I bet I might end up with a little (or actually very long) problem with intestinal worms. At least, they don’t make you sick. One day you might just pass one or the nurses might find an egg in one of our mid-service poop samples. I really hope you all can handle the poop talk. We trainees have fully adjusted. In my program alone (of 15 or16), half have had “problems.” We have oh so many fun things to look forward to getting!

Okay so I have talked about the camionetas but in case I skipped a description of them or the experience, here it is. So they are yellow school buses from the US that have been sent here for transportation. However, they get spiffy paint jobs with sassy names like “Princesita.” It is a pretty cheap way to get around and always good for a bit of excitement. There is a driver and a helper (ayudante) that takes the money once everyone gets settled in. And by settled in I mean packed in tighter than a can of sardines. One ride in a full camioneta and an American will get over their right to space. Last week I was climbing into the back of a rather packed camioneta when, zoom, it took off. My friend Ellen and I were holding on the back of the bus for our dear lives. Turns out you don’t actually have to be in the bus to catch a ride. And remember the ride is through some curvaceous roads at a top speed. You always hold on or else you may find your self on the floor or in another persons lap. The PC told us that sometimes the drivers drink on the job so if you think they are drunk get off. But I am not sure how to tell if they are since in my opinion it is all reckless driving. Plus it is hard to tell when you are clinging to life on the back of the bus.

http://photos.igougo.com/images/p114444-Coban-Chicken_bus.jpg

Guatemala is beautiful though! Sometimes I can hardly believe this is where I am living for the next two years. I live in the middle of three volcanos! Gorgeous. When we get our sites, the health volunteers will all be in the northwestern part of the country, the altiplano, where there are mostly indigenous people. Hopefully Mat and I don’t end up anywhere too cold. I can’t wait to see the Maya ruins or the black sands on the Pacific. Pictures will be posted, por supuesto!

Rural Home Preventative Health

Mat and I are in the program called Rural Home Preventative Health. The other portion of trainees is in Youth Development. With all of my experience with youth, I’m not sure what I am doing in health, but here I am so here I go! What is RHPH you all may be wondering? Well, in the past a program similar to ours was called Appropriate Technologies where there was a focus on the construction of latrines, wells, safe wood burning stoves, water deposits, cement floors, water filtration systems, etc. However, with the drop in the value of the dollar and many NGOs interests in only investing in water projects, there has been a cash flow problem. On top of that, building these systems does not translate in their being used. There seems to be a problem with making sure people know how and can afford the upkeep on the things built. Or a problem with other organizations has been never teaching the people how to use the systems in the first place.

We are the pilot program for RHPH so we all will be learning as we go including all the PC people in charge. Basically the focus is on Education. We use the “Charla” method which are informal discussions with members of the community on health related issues that are affecting the area. We evaluate what those problems are by talking with the people about what they believe to be the problems. Then the Charlas work to introduce them to new methods or hygiene practices. Only a small amount of energy goes toward construction or there may be none at all in the end. The hope is that we could even train others to continue the education process once we leave. It is a different approach to development than most models. It actually seems sustainable, and by that I mean the people may be more likely to continue the work and work beyond what we were doing well after the PC volunteer leaves. We use the people, institutions, and creativity of the community instead of bringing in outside “help.”

They tell us we need lots of patience, flexibily, and enthusiasm. We are working within a different culture where waiting for people to show up to our Charlas which could then last for a long time may be in store. Our trainers say that the first six months to a year is when we will be gaining the Confianza of the community. We need to establish that we are there to help in any way possible. So basically we get out there and start talking. Volunteer to help out with holiday celebrations, help a farmer get his seeds in the ground, or teach classes at the local school. Do any and everything to get out there.

So for the training, we are working at either a Centro or Puesto de Salud (Centros are bigger and have doctors where Puestos do not). Mat and I both have Puestos. Then we work with Health Promoters who are usually volunteers (so unpaid) who take time from their source of income or families to do the work. Mine are all women (4-6). All of them give injections, take out pointy objects that people have been stabbed by, and other things that sound like nursing. Actually we may be doing that too. And we can start by giving rabies shots to dogs in the street. So we will actually be training promoters as training and volunteers on how to give Charlas. Hopefully in turn they can train more people, who will train more people, who will train more people….

That is a bit about our work. Hopefully that clears things up. I know Mat and I were pretty confused about what we would be doing here. Now we have a general idea but since it is a new program it is all likely to change once we are “in-site.”

Missing Familiarity

Hey everyone, this is Mat... One week down! I can´t speak for Sarah but I´ve got a nasty case of the culture shock and I´m really missing stupid familiar sights, sounds, and smells that I´d find back in the USA. I have to keep telling myself it´s only one week! everything else is really good, host families are great, and i take warm bucket baths (which are actually pretty nice)!

more to come!