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.
No comments:
Post a Comment