charlas con la posta de salud

So one of the big jobs in Peace Corps is giving little talks and doing activites with groups, like classes at schools, women's groups, church groups, etc... As part of training other volunteers and I have been working with the Health Post in Sta. Eulalia to talk about the vaccination campaign against rubella, some self esteem stuff for teenagers and basic hygiene practices. Here'a a little photo gallery of that.

The woman in the green is Sondra, the nurse at the Health Post.
The guys are Mike and Patrick who are performing (with me and Lauren) doing puppet shows and litte skits about rubella and measles for a group of 116 parents and a classroom full of 7-9 year olds respectively.
Lauren is introducing herself to 116 parents.

Senic Sta. Eulalia

Hi everyone! It's picture day. Here are some photos of Sta Eulalia. The street is the street that I live on looking down hill towards the Parque Sta. Eulalia and the Peace Corps training Center and the second one is a shot of the town taken from the roof of the Peace Corps training center.

Remember the Alamo!

Here's a little message from my dad today: Remember the Alamo. I'm a little concerned about the sentiment because as any good Texan knows, the the Texans lost the battle of the Alamo to General Santa Ana but hey I guess they did win independence from Mexico...

Viva la Tejanas!

Bedbugs and broomsticks

Ahh the wonders of renting a furnished room: bedbugs and dogs. I am either getting a ton of mosquito bites or I have bedbugs. I have not yet seen the bedbugs, but the mattress is inside a giant pillow case type thing so I have to take that off to look for the bugs. I'm a little afraid if I do that I'm not going to want to sleep on the mattress anymore and that would leave the floor- lame. Then when I wake up in the middle of the night scratching like a maniac and I go to get a drink or go to the bathroom who meets me at the door to my room? The super-adorable dog Quia the patio-dog. She always has incredibly muddy feet and loves to jump up on me. Maricucha, the mom of the house, generally shoes him away with the broom. Other dog training techniques in the family include yelling and swatting with a newspaper. Since I'm usually a positive reinforcement kind of girl I was trying to praise the dog for sitting and not jumping, but that just wasn't working. I have been reduced to keeping the broom outside my bedroom door and carrying it like a shield to the bathroom. The dog cowers just at the sight of the broom.

Over the weekend I decided that it was time to do something about the bedbugs so I took the mattress and put it on the tin roof in an attempt to burn the little bastards. I also put a whole lot of bleach water on it and let it dry. I washed all the linens and wrapped my is insecticide infused mosquito net around the mattress and the whole family thought that this process was pretty darn funny. And really I have to agree. So finally, fortunately I spoke with the Bug Master, my father and the proprietor of an exterminating company so named. He said that none of that will work and I should go get some Delta Dust. So now I'm in the market for Delta Dust. I'm not sure how to say that in Spanish, but I am pretty determined to figure it out. I look like I have ants in my pants ALL the time because I'm super itchy!

photos from back in DC

This year was the 45th anniversary of Peace Corps, so back in DC I think this was the evening of Sept. 15 we had this ceremony where former volunteers from Peru and Bolivia put little pins on us. It was the Peruvian flag and the American flag. Aren't I cute? John Hatch, the guy who started FINCA spoke and he was very inspiring.

All is well in sunny Chosica. We had biohuetos class- organic gardening yesterday at the Agricultural University in Lima. It was really cool. Every Saturday we're learning about what plants are native to Peru, the soil types, microclimates, a little bit of medicinal plants and nutrition. It's totally cool. I'm definitely going to try to plant a garden when I get to my site. Hopefully it will be a far cry from my very lame little ficus tree in Brooklyn. That little guy had a rough life.

Then we hung out in Jockey Plaza, which is actually an enormous shopping mall, but it's close the university and easy to get to. It was odd. We ate at a super fancy Pizza Hut no 8 year olds in their soccer uniforms or "Book It" cupons there. Hopefully next Saturday I'll make it central Lima. It's like an hour and a half from the university so it's a little tough to do on a Saturday afternoon, but with a little planning :)

Also I finished knitting my first pair of socks! Please admire becasue they took me like 6 months to make.

Also, I do have some good photos from here, but I haven't downloaded them yet. I'll put them up soon!