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.
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