25 August 2011

Just a little bit of bragging. . .

I love my work. 
 
I love it even more when I feel like I am doing something not just good for me, but something good for the people around me- good for Nicaraguans. 
At the end of last year I found out a bit of sad news. One of the young girls I worked with was not eligible to apply for a special scholarship to the States. She was bright. She graduated high school with perfect grades. The only thing was she had no money to pay for college. (While her mother had a job, it paid for running water in the house, food, clothes and maintenance of their tin roof and dirt floor.) We thought a scholarship to the US would be the perfect thing, until it wasn´t an option anymore.
Then, in January I got a call from Georgetown. They had read her application along with a note from aPeace Corps Volunteer from Nicaragua, me. Her application was back on the table.


Eight months later she moved to America.


Why am I bragging? She wrote to me from the US today. She said thank you for everything I had given her. On Monday she starts her first classes- Algebra, English and Informatics. She is living with an American family that doesn´t speak Spanish, but they already treat her like a daughter. I helped her get there. I am proud of her. I am proud of myself.



 
YEAH!

04 August 2011

Capacitación de Nutrición y Higiene de la Niñez

Last Friday I had my first tech exchange. This is very exciting stuff. Peace Coprs paid to have another Peace Corps Volunteer come up to my site and help me teach a group of women about childhood nutrition and personal hygiene. 

I work weekly with an NGO called Aldeas SOS. They are loosely affiliated with Orphanage Outreach in the US. Here in Nicaragua they do a wonderful service. They provide very inexpensive day care to single working mothers. It costs a cordoba a day to drop your  child off and have them fed 2 snacks and luch. In $1 there are C$22. I would say that is a very good deal.

As a community health volunteer in Jinotega, I help Aldeas teach their staff about health. Once a month I go to  each of the 6 centers in town and help the municipal pediatrician check all the kids for parasites, hepatitis and anything else that might be wrong. In the afternoon of the same day I meet with the mothers and teach them about the pap smear, birth control, early childhood stimulation, that sort of thing.

Well, recently we have been having a problem with Hep A break outs. So, I got together with Lucas Alamprese, a PCV in Matagalpa who is in graduate school for nutrition and asked if he would help me teach the women in charge of each center in a 1 day workshop. I would open up the day with a small class on the importance of hygiene and  Lucas would continue with nutrition. 

Check out our pictures! 



I am teaching a hand washing game to the women. It involves vegetable oil, coffee grounds, water and soap. 




If you assume the coffee grounds are bacteria and parasites and you try to wash them off your oily hands with just water it does not really work. In fact, you just end up spreading your bacteria to other people when you shake hands and touch them.


But, if you use soap and water . . . well I am sure you can guess the outcome.



01 August 2011

Did I hear the word HEALTH FAIR?


 A few weeks ago we organized a health fair out in Datanli, a community about an hours bus ride away in the mountains. Their health post is usually staffed by 1 nurse. In our fair we brought a physician, nurse, vaccines, birth control and the dentist! Pretty exciting. 





Giving a charla on higiene personal . . . 



Don Enrique buttering up the crowd. No one is excited to wait in line all day. 


The dentist station. Pulling out teeth is the norm. 




And of course we end the day with a piñata. This little guy was way better at it then I was.