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Published: June 13th 2010
Well as many of you probably heard, Guatemala was hit with a severe tropical depression with over 12 inches of muy muy fuerte rain in only 2 days, but once it finally stopped, or at least have calmed to a mist, houses were left either filled with mud or completely destroyed as many collapsed due to mud slides and land slides. Many are left without a home or food so the Municipials (government buildings in each town) are helping out by creating spaces for many families to stay and offering food and clothes, as well. Also, many of the highways were washed away and parts of it completely covered with ud, trees and debri from the severe land slides so traffic has been hectic and been forced to take detours. The volcano erupted around this same time and covered entire Guatemala city and surrounding areas with thick ash and many of the houses are built with a tin roof which collapsed in when they could no longer support all the ash full of rocks and debris. Luckily it hasn´t been affecting my town or close neighboring communities, but it has been hard to clean up the mess since the majority of the towns only have shovels and brooms to clean up the streets so it has been a long process to get things back to normal, especially since it being the rainy season does not help the situation at all. In addition to all the rain washing away streets and homes and ruining crops, the markets are almost empty with very little vendors selling only vegetables (few fruits survived the storm) at almost double the price so not many can afford to buy food and those selling food who rely on their crops as their main source of income are suffering as well. There is an overall sense of gloom and sadness in these areas where i´m living so it has been difficult for many families but i still see smiles on people´s faces with their usual "buenos dias" as you pass them on the streets. They really fight on and keep living to the best they can during hard times like these.
As far as peace corps life goes, the week after the storm the health centers were open and we were asked to give a Charla about preventing illnessess and diarrhea through the basics of hand washing. We used a cartoon story we colored to explain the fecal oral contamination cycle explaining that the most important times to wash your hands are after changing a baby´s diaper, after using the bathroom and before cooking/eating and we really emphasized using soap because mostly they will just splash water from the pila (the ´sinks´here, water sits in the middle and a part on the left for washing dishes and a part on the right for washing clothes and your hair or brushing teeth) on their hands and call it good. Then the cycle continues of getting sick because they haven´t had the same education about germs and bacteria or basic hygiene and since they are microscopic and can´t be seen they don´t associate getting sick with things that are invisible to the eye.
We just returned from our field based training (FBT) this past week where various groups of 6 volunteers stayed with a current volunteer in their site for 6 days to get a sense of what life will be like the next 2 years! We went to San Andres Xecu in Totonicopon which is a beautiful Indiginous Aldea (small town) who speaks a mixture of Spanish and Quiche (one of the 26 mayan dialect languages here in Guatemala). It was settled in the mountains full of lush, green trees and a variety of foliage including several aloe plants and heaps of corn agricultural fields! Boys road horses bare back through the streets, several families have pigs including their piglets which usually were just along the side of the road as well as lots of dairy cows, goats and sheep! I told my boss I wouldn´t mind at all going to a place like this for my site 😊
During the week we had a very busy schedule every day including several tours meeting health post nurses and educators, village health promoters, midwives, NGO workers (guatemalan non profit health organizations who we will most likely be teaming up with in our sites), wokers of the Municipial, and as well we worked in the schools. We all gave charlas, which lasted 2 hours and were full of participatory activities with the students, in the schools about HIV prevention the second day and I was excited about how succesful they were! The kids were enthusiastic about learning and thanked us for teaching them about the seriousness of the disease because this is another recurring issue here in Guatemala. Many are unware of what this disease is and how it is spread. In addition, due to lack of education many are not informed about how babies are made and that sexual intercourse is what leads to pregnancy so for a good majority of our HIV charlas we will also be doing basic education about the use of condoms, how to correctly use them and why they should be used, but of course we have to get permission from the schools first before doing this, so these also will be done for women´s groups and other charlas given to adult populations in the villages as well.
Also during FBT this past week, I gave a charla about basic nutrition and preventing malnutrition to a group of Indigineous Mayan women at a cake baking class! We also learned to make an oven out of chicken wire and aluminum which is built into a cage like looking structure to fit on top of and around the cake pan full of batter which sits on top of a pot of boiling water on the stove since ovens are expensive and rare here. This is also helpful for many women who would like to bake and sell cakes since cakes are a popular commodity for all the birthdays and fiestas here! So while the cake was baking I gave my charla along with a Mayan language interpreter as I spoke in Spanish. They have their principal food of tortillas, just as many 3rd world countries have but it may be rice, maiz, trigo (wheat), potatoes or platanos, and these are the cheap abundant food they eat with almost every meal everday. This gives them enough energy but not the sufficient amount of nutrients their body needs since these foods are low in protein, vitamins and nutrients, so in addition to this I talk about adding in protein foods local and available to the area such as meat, fish, insects, cheese and milk and then adding in vegetables and fruits rich in nutrients and colors (i would also love to help build community gardens so this will be easier to obtain sufficient amounts of fruits and veggies that they can grow nearby since in markets these can be spendy) and finally adding in healthy fats such as nuts, seeds, avocados and oils if available. On a poster I drew a giant cooking pot and labled it alimentos principales (main food such as tortillas) and then drew 3 rocks beneath it to hold it up each representing the supporing food groups such as foods for growth (proteins and animal sources), go foods (healthy fats and carb rich fruits like melons and squash), and glow foods (veggies and fruits for vitamins and nutrients). This is still applicable to their cultural foods since tortillas are a staple food but its teaching about adding in other foods to have a variety of nutrients so they can prevent many of the illnesses that they are seeing such as malnutrition-lack of protein and anemia. Then i drew a whole bunch of their foods and cut them out into pieces so they can have an activity where they put the foods in the appropriate spaces. Since many are not able to read or write we do lots of hands on activities to help teach them as well as pictures, stories, and puppet shows to helps teach and get across our message in the health talks.
We also had the amazing opportunity to do a sociodrama (skit) on a local radio program! We talked about the cultural differences between Guatemala and America and what exactly our roles of peace corps volunteers were in these surrounding towns and talked a bit about the main health problems that we are trying to help with. We talked about us as volunteers living in these towns to help the local community members to create a space for voice with the health and government system and to help empower the people of the villages to build sustainable healthy programs run by the local community members and health promoters we work with. These programs can be for youth and adults and as we each go into our communities and live there for 2 years we can eventually empower enough towns to help develop this country to be stronger and more sustainable on their own and help better the health of the people through hands on education so they can overcome many of the diseases they are currently suffering from.
Each town as a fair every year and we happened to be at an Aldea´s fair this friday and gave a charla to the food vendors to teach about healthy habits at a fair to reduce the risk for community members getting illnesses such as diarrhea and gastrointestinal diseases from poor hygiene habits. We talked about using lids to cover trash to keep flies and street dogs away, hand washing especially before preparing foods and after changing a baby (it is common to change a diaper right next to the food stand without cleaning their hands which is one of the number one reasons people get diarrhea due to the high bacterial content of baby´s dirty diapers), and also using hair nets. We presented this in a skit to make it more enjoyable and then the next day we walked around and drew a risk map to see if the vendors put to practice what they learned the day before.. and guess what... we were excited to see covered trash cans and hair nets with the vendors that came to our charla! However, there were still several areas with unhealthy hygiene so perhaps another charla or information sharing by the vendors this time may be performed for the next town fair.
Our final charla consisted of oral hygiene to a group of Mayan Women, including NGO workers and midwives and again with a Mayan interpreter. Since money is typically an issue, we showed an easy way to make tooth brushes using only a stick, small piece of towel and string and then we also showed an easy economical way to make tooth paste with equal amounts of salt and bicarbonate (can be purchased at any local farmacy here for very cheap) and then use water to wash with. We made it into a competition to make it more fun and I made a little prize first place ribbon for the winner as well as everyone get to go home with a handmade tooth brush and hands on learning of how to brush and make the tooth paste. It seemed to be a success as many thanked us for showing them this.
After this week of FBT I am even more excited to find out where my site will be and start working and perfomring a lot of what I have been learning through training in the next 2 years here. We are a little more than half way through our training which is really exciting. Every peace corps volutneer has their own experience and it is unique and we have the freedom to work with who we want in the communities. I would love to start a health youth group in teh schools for getting more involved at a younger age with programs such as trash and river clean ups (similar to adopt a stream-road programs since there is an unbelievable amount of trash everywhere), maybe some zumba and exercise or dance sessions, crochet and knitting circles with womens groups, oh and they really enjoy drumming and music here so i´m hoping to get together and join in on some drum circles since I very much miss partaking in those, recycling things for crafts such as using bottles to make benches (a volunteer started this last year which was a great success since recycling doesn´t really exist here), community gardens and herbal-medicinal plant gardens in health centers and schools, making shampoo and soaps out of local plants and herbs, cooking groups and recipe exchanges, art groups and painting the walls and basketball courts with the youth groups full of various pictures of environmental issues, maps and whatever else they think of, too! Through out training and visiting volunteers I got so many ideas from the current volunteers along with things i´ve done in my schools in teh past so it really is all about being creative and getting involved with a variety of people within the community to help create healthy sustainable programs that will continue after we leave!
We have another 2 weeks until we find out our sites and then on the 4th of july we have a big party for all the current volunteers serving in guatemala at the peace corps office so that will be fun to meet everyone and we will know our sites by then so we can meet our site mates and close by neighbors to get numbers in advance so we can start making connections since many volunteers can team up and help each other out with projects and meeting more community members! Its like we are one big family 😊 ha. I think that is all I have for now but feel free to email me or leave a comment or question on here, I love hearing from you back home!! Take care and best wishes-
Peace love & hugs, Alyssa
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AJ
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thanks for sending me your blog link! i've just spent the weekend hanging out in Denver and Golden. it's rained all weekend and there's clouds hanging around the tops of the mountains. if I showed you pictures you might think it's Guatemala! hope you get your first pick for location :-)