Tuesday, October 30, 2012

traje tradicional

Disclaimer: this post is kind of moody brooding and a bit of a downer, but don't worry then it gets more positive

This week during house visits to Ayaque (the community where Diamond and I are going to do our Healthy Homes project) I met a 13 year old pregnant girl. I was with an obstetriz from the Health post; in Peru an obstetriz an entirely different profession than nurse or physician with a focus in women's health. Since I have been visit Ayaque weekly for about a month now I know my way around fairly well and an obstetriz named Luz asked me to help her visit the homes of the pregnant women in the community.
Luz read me the names of the women we were going to visit and there was a name I didn't recognize. I asked a local woman and found out she was the daughter of one of the moms I know from my project. We went up to her house and it turned out I had seen this girl around before. I was blindsided when the Luz asked her how old she was and the girl turned out to be 13. My little sister Jessie is 13. When I was a 13 year old I had acne, braces, I didn't know how to fix my hair or how to dress, I spent most of my time avoiding this one kid who bullied me and reading Meg Cabot books. I remember being terrified of boys. At middle school 'fun nights' my friends and I would dance in a tight circle so that we didn't have to deal with the embarrassment of interacting with the opposite sex. This 13 year old is 8 months pregnant.
The department (or state) where I live is called Cajamarca has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in Peru. The obstetriz Luz took the opportunity to try to remind and scare the girl to ensure that she would come down to the health center to give birth. I was torn, because I knew that Luz meant to scare her for her own good and yet I couldn't help but see her as a terrified 13 year old. I felt like it was a situation beyond my Spanish level so I just stayed out of the conversation.
It was one of those encounters that makes me feel very sad and at the same time very lucky. I am so lucky that I got to be a kid for as long as I was able to be one. I feel sad that there is nothing I can do to help girls like that girl. I thought coming into Peace Corps that I would be able to make some impact here, but now it feels like I would be lucky if I reached just a person or two. The problems are just too big, but if I can help the women in Ayaque feel like they have a little more control over their lives I would feel very proud of myself.
Okay, there were fun things that happened too! I tried to make pizza for the first time with this new host family. Rosa (my host mom here in Tacabamba) has asked me plenty of times to teach her how to cook American food. What is American food exactly? Burgers, they're from Germany I think. Pizza is from Italy. I really didn't know what was distinctly American, but pizza is very un-Peruvian so we picked that. I thought that Rosa and I would cook together and it would be a nice bonding moment for us. What actually happened is that I bought the ingredients and cooked by myself. Rosa was out. She asked me to wait for her, but then she didn't show up.

Perhaps it wasn't the best time to do some weird food experiments, but I figured I'm a health volunteer so what better opportunity to show my host family how good vegetables can be. I made the pizza sauce with carrots and peppers in it and I thought it was delicious. So while I was cooking the pizza little Sergio (my 12 year old host bro) was around the house with a couple of his friends. I lured them away from their video games with some popcorn that I made and we hung out while the pizza cooked. First we ate popcorn and danced around to Gangnam Style or as the Peruvians call it the 'horsey dance'. Then we played Pass the Pigs and Go Fish.
Big Sergio (my host dad) even played Pass the Pigs with us and I think it was one of the first times I have seen him laugh. So I missed the bonding time with Rosa, but I felt pretty proud of myself for being such a good sister.

Thanks for reading. Chau for now!
Kb

here's a picture of Laura and I in our traditional outfits.


Sunday, October 21, 2012

feels like I'm finally getting to work!


Since the last time I posted I have been doing a lot of baseline house visits. The goal is to visit the homes of all the participating families just to evaluate how their home is now and their level of knowledge in various preventative health topics. I check out the family's kitchen, the latrine, ask questions about how to prevent diarrhea, and what are 2 signs of malnutrition, etc. I am so lucky to have such an active community health promoter in Ayaque where we are working.

Florencia is an energetic 62 year old woman who is a volunteer community health promoter for Ayaque. On my first day of house visits she met me in a pair of flip flops, a long braid hanging out from under her baseball cap, and while we walked she was rolling thread into a ball. By around noon I was ready to be done for the day. I had climbed up the mountain to get to Ayaque and then Florencia and I climbed another peak to get to some of the farther houses. I would catch my self panting, sweating profusely, and stumbling in the loose rocks on the upward path, while Florencia effortlessly made her way in flip flops. Florencia kept me working until about 3:30 in the afternoon and I didn't make it back down to Tacabamba until at least 5pm.


We both wear the same kind of campo skirts, we both have our hair in braids mine blond and hers white, and we both wear our caps during visits. I really enjoy the company of Florencia she is a kind and hard working woman. I am so lucky to have someone who is willing to show me around the community, because the homes are so far apart. She also knows where the meanest dogs live and she has much better aim than I did when we had to throw rocks at them. Sometimes I like to remember how horrified I was when I first got here at seeing people throwing rocks at dogs or hitting them with sticks. Now, I'm the first one to grab a hand full of rocks. When I lived in San Juan a couple dogs bit me, but it was rainy season so they bit into my rubber boots (also a pig bit me once, they can be really mean).

Each time Diamond and I hike up to Ayaque it gets easier. I still get tired and sweaty, but now my body aches less. Maybe it's the altitude change or maybe I'm just out of shape, but by the third switch back Diamond and I usually stop talking to focus on heavy breathing and sweating off all our sunscreen. When we make it to the top we split up to go visit our various houses. We split the community in half so we could each form our own groups of moms to work with.
I try to carry at least a liter of water ever time, because Ayaque does not have a water system. Women and children have to haul water from ponds or creeks around their community-so I try not to ask for water as it is such a precious commodity. Despite Ayaque being such a poor community the families are incredibly generous. Often women invite me food. Here inviting someone food is a sign of respect and in some circumstances it is expected. I am always hoping not to get invited, because once you are invited it is rude not to finish your plate.
I bought myself a sling shot at the market. Apparently it strikes the Peruvians as very funny that I want to learn how to use a sling shot. I'm not sure if it is because I am a gringa, a female, or an adult. Sling shots are generally used by little boys, but the dogs in Ayaque are really mean and I think it would be useful to learn how to defend myself. I've been getting lessons from my host brother and from little boys in Ayaque sometimes when I'm up there.

The big budget meeting that the municipality was supposed to have this week; that I marked in my calendar 2 months ago as the day when we would find out if we got funding for the latrines project, never happened. When Diamond and I went to the municipality to excitedly ask if we had received funding they told us that they had forgotten about the meeting and it would be rescheduled for the next week. I was so angry, but not as surprised as I might have been when I first got here. I guess if the local government was really efficient and projects were happening here than they wouldn't need Peace Corps volunteers.
This week Laura's sex Ed classes started up again and I tagged along. Mostly I walked around the class rooms and tried to quiet students down or wake kids up. This last class in her project is about contraceptives and abstinence. She teaches the kids about abstinence and the various forms of contraceptives that are available at the Health post here; condoms, birth control pills, and birth control shots. At the end of the class Laura does a condom demonstration with a carved wooden dildo from the Health Center. I know that in public school in Ann Arbor we had sex Ed in 5th grade, one year in middle school, and in 10th grade I had another health class. I liked to help with an activity at the end of class where the kids read little dialogs with a negative attitude or pressure to have sex followed by a comeback response. Since a large portion of the population in Peru is Catholic we like to let the kids know that the Pope has fairly recently proclaimed that condom use is acceptable if Catholics are using them to protect themselves from HIV. Although there's not a whole lot of HIV in rural northern Peru there is a ton of teenage pregnancy, but if kids can justify using condoms during their sac religious premarital sex all the better, right?!

I included some pictures from the Peru 16 Despedida (goodbye) fiesta. My group is Peru 18 and the 16ers arrived in Peru exactly one year before my training group. They are starting to finish up with their service which is super exciting. For the party I tried to put together some homemade karaoke. I thought if I found the YouTube karaoke versions of music I could rip the music and videos with words so that we could have English karaoke songs. I probably spent about 6 hours downloading music and searching for good versions of the songs without lyrics. One of the restaurants the volunteers frequent agreed to put 2 cases of beer in the fridge for us and let us use the sound system for the karaoke (Peruvians usually drink their beer room temperature, gag). As it turned out the sound system at the restaurant was a little outdated and would not get along with any one's ipods, mp3 players, or my USB. So my karaoke was a total flop. It didn't matter though we still had a great time.


Thanks for reading!  Chau for now.
kb


Ellie and I being silly at the Despedida party-Ellie asked me to pick her up and carry her


Sunday morning breakfast with our 16ers.  Diamond designed a t-shirt for the occasion, a couple of us are wearing it in the pic.

reaping the spoils of the 16ers departure: loads of pads and tampons!!!  I dealt them out like cards so we would all get our equal share-thanks Kelsey for sharing

with our regional coordinator Jose


gringos on the dance floor!!! 

Monday, October 8, 2012

health promoters, grocery store visits, and 12 year old host brothers


It's been getting pretty busy around here since the last time I posted. Last weekend was the first ever Pasos Adelante Congress in Chota. Pasos Adelante is a series of classes written by Peace Corps volunteers for teaching youth various life skills. The course covers topics from; leadership, decision making, self esteem, sexuality, good communication, HIV/AIDs, STIs, how to use contraception, to basic anatomy of human sexual organs. The conference was planned for kids that had finished the Pasos class and had interest in continuing work with their Peace Corps volunteer as a youth health promoter.
Laura; the Peru 16er whose site Diamond and I have invaded with our site change, did a gigantic Pasos Adelante project with the entire student body of the high school in Tacabamba. The municipality and health post came together to agree that the class was a great idea. They came together long enough to see the project started and then left Laura to teach the 500+ students on her own. When Diamond and I got here in July Laura let us help out with some of the classes. It was super helpful to feel useful and to get out of the house when I first moved sites. I really appreciated getting to do the classes.
So all three of us invited 2 kids each to go with us for the weekend long conference in Chota way back in the first week of September. And last week; the week of the conference, we were scrambling to find our kids. Part of the problem was that teachers have been on a nation-wide strike since that first week of September, also there was the town party so kids flaked out on bringing back their permission slips for that time too, and finally people flake out because that's how things operate here. Since teachers are on indefinite strike lots of families just up and left town for impromptu vacations. Laura lost her two kids that way, I lost one of mine, and also I just couldn't get a hold of the other girl I invited.
***It blew my mind the idea that people could just up and leave the way they did. I still can't kick my American way of seeing the world. I understand more of how Peruvians see the world, but just think about living in a reality where you don't have to clock in and out of work. Here your 'job' is whenever you want to show up and whenever you want to leave. People work in the fields, or open a store in the front of their house, or drive a mototaxi when they need cash. It is so different here and it still gets to me sometimes.***
The kid I lost to an impromptu vacation was my 15 year old host sister Yossi. I invited her, because I want to get to know her better. Also admittedly I wanted to suck up a little to my new host family. She was excited until one morning I went downstairs for breakfast and my host mom Rosa told me that big Sergio, little Sergio, and Yossi had left on a vacation to go visit big Sergio's family. I asked about when they would come back and she said she didn't know. So 2 days before the event I was frantically scrambling to find more kids to bring. I thought it would be more difficult to get parents to agree to let me; someone they don't know at all, take their kids for 3 days 2 nights of this health promoter conference in Chota 2 hours away from Tacabamba. It turned out not to be such a big deal to get parents to sign those permission slips.
In the end we scraped together a good sized group of kids and we made to the conference. The event was so much fun. It was kind of like being a summer camp counselor for a weekend, except that the kids were attending lectures that we put on instead of doing arts and crafts, archery, and canoeing. It was a really great bonding moment for us volunteers, but also for the teens. At the end of the camp the kids from the various sites where volunteers live were signing each others notebooks like yearbooks. It was really sweet and I am really excited to work with our group from Tacabamba.
After the conference Jennifer and I went down to Cajamarca to meet up with a friend of ours from our Peru 18 training group. Christina called me and said 'I need a vacation, I bought a bus ticket to Cajamarca,' about 3 weeks ago. I was excited to see her, drink boxed wine, and go to the grocery store. Going to the grocery store is a really exciting activity for us volunteers-we know it's kind of pathetic, but just walking around is kind of like being in America, ha! Ellie came down to meet us and we got to watch American football while eating real cheddar cheese.
Also we went to the Inca Baths. The Inca Baths are the most famous tourist attraction around Cajamarca. Mom and I visited them when she was here in May, but we just looked. This time we got in the water and it was really fun. Outside are the giant stone baths full of those bright colored bacteria/fungus that grows in hot springs. There are also several long buildings filled with small rooms with tiled bath tubs. For just 6 soles we had a hot tub room for ourselves. The faucet let in boiling hot water from the natural hot springs. And for the group of us it was heaven. I don't think I have taken a bath since I was in the states. I have a cold shower in my new site, before I had stand in one bucket and pour water over my head from another bucket, and whenever I stay in a hostel I get a hot shower. A real bath though, I don't think I have seen a bathtub in Peru.
On Wednesday I went with my regional coordinator Jose, Alonso (his title is Program Specialist and he is pretty much my favorite person from the Lima office), and Barbara (the third year volunteer who lives in Chota and did all the planning and organizing for the awesome Pasos conference) on a site development visit. The next group of health volunteers arrived in mid-September to Lima, just like how I did last year. So right now Peace Corps is finalizing the sites where these new guys will live/work. It was really interesting to see the process of site development. We made a meeting with the mayor (who flaked out and never showed up), with the health post (they were a lovely group of people all very excited to have an extra person to help with health promotion), and visited 2 potential host families.
On Saturday Diamond and I gave a training class for the local community health promoters. In each of the surrounding communities there are supposed to be at least 2 health promoters. These people volunteer to serve as a point of contact for their neighbors when they have health questions. The health post uses these community health promoters to help them gather information and do door to door promotion. Even though we had to plan the class from this super boring manual from the Ministry of Health the class was still pretty fun. This months topic was child health. We reviewed nutrition, hygiene, domestic violence, how to prevent accidents (please store your machete out of reach of your two year old,), and danger signs (which symptoms are bad enough you better take your kid to the health post). I think most of it was pretty common sense and therefore a little boring for the promoters. However I learned some good new vocabulary words and got to test a carrot cake recipe on the class.

When I got back from the health promoter class I was tired and just wanted to sit around in my room not speaking in Spanish. My host brother Sergio had other plans. He really wanted to eat a pineapple that I brought back with me from Cajamarca. My friend Christina gave it to me to bring back, since she lugged it all the way from her department and we never got around to eating it at the hostel. I told him I wasn't hungry and we could eat it later, but he's 12 so he kept pushing. Then I lost my temper a little and told him I didn't have to share with him since it was my pineapple (so much arguing over a stupid pineapple). I thought I had won the battle, but about ten minutes later I heard a little knock on my door and Sergio asked me if I was ready yet. So I told him to go ahead and eat it without me. He looked uncomfortable, so when he left I thought that he wouldn't do it. Later I checked the fridge and saw that little Sergio called my bluff. That entire pineapple was gone. I couldn't help but laugh to myself, because I had invitar-ed (invited) him so I couldn't get upset or be surprised. 
Now that I am starting to feel busy I finally feel more useful. Diamond and I are still waiting to hear back about funding for the latrine project. Although now we have a modified plan; if the mayor of Tacabamba decides it's not in his budget then we will ask his arch enemy the mayor of Chota for the funding. It might be kind of awkward pitting them against themselves, but it's better then those 60 families getting passed over again.
Thanks for reading! Chau for now,

KB

Group shot of the first ever Pasos Adelante Congress

Condom race

Health promoter class in Tacabamba