Saturday, March 24, 2007

Happy World Tuberculosis Day




Until I joined the Peace Corps I had no idea that there was such a holiday, but I want to wish you a very merry belated World Tuberculosis Day. (It was yesterday, Saturday March 23.) In Rinconada we had a march on Friday to celebreate. The kids from my health classes, 5th and 6th graders made posters and walked around the town behind the ambulance. There were chants about how if you have a cough for more than 15 days you should go to the doctor and others explaining that TB is treatable. It was really fun and I think in total there were about 10 people from the Health Post and more than 70 kids. Then all the neighbors that came out to walk around with us and see what all the fuss was about. Fun times.


Interestingly, just before coming to Peace Corps I did a brief stint at the New York City Health Department in a small unit that does research about the health needs of inmates in City jails. When I started there I didn't know that anyone in the US had tuberculosis, but I was really surprised to find out that many inmates at Rikers Island test positive for TB (That's that shot where you have to go back two days later to see if you have a bump on your arm.) and then those inmates get chest x-rays to see if they have active TB. I'm not sure how many people we're talking about but, it seems that there are a number of inmates who suffer from TB in New York City jails. When the health provider at the jail finds someone with active TB that inmate has to be quarantined. I didn't hear of any specific cases of quarantine in the few months that I was there but, I understand that such cases have occurred. There's a guy in my old unit whose job it is to track the health records to make sure the Health Dept. knows if and how many inmates have TB.


In Peru TB is more common, especially in certain geographic pockets like the red light district in Lima. Happily, in the last 3 years there have been no cases of TB where I live in Rinconada Llicuar, although they did find a woman last year who had tuberculosis in a mass in her breast tissue, a pretty unusual ailment. The doctor tells me that she probably had untreated tuberculosis as a young person and it traveled to her breast. Fortunately, because the bacteria is in her breast tissue rather than in the lung it is not contagious. (TB is spread though the saliva by coughing.)


Here's a cool event that I found on the WHO website for the New Yorkers:


¨In New York, for the first time, a special TB exhibition will be held in the UN headquarters, with photographs by the award-winning journalist James Nachtwey. The free exhibition, from 22 March to 25 April, is designed to raise awareness around the challenges to addressing an epidemic that kills 1.6 million people a year. A total of 33 photographs, taken from a variety of worldwide locations, will also be supported by a special DVD featuring the photographs with accompanying music performed by the musician Yo Yo Ma.¨






Thursday, March 22, 2007

One more photo from the World Map Mural


Here's another shot of me and my team :)

Monday, March 19, 2007

Finito! Mural Madness


Working with kids is still new to me. I started painting a mural of the world map with 120 kiddos ages 8-12. It was way too many. I sort of knew it was too many people from the get go, but it's what the people who organized the summer camp wanted so I tried to go along with it. I didn't know that I needed yet another lesson on going with your instincts. :) I finally finished the mural of the world map- 8 weeks later with my super dedicated team of kids who happen to live across the street from the school, a mere 4 weeks after the camp ended. We had a little party on Friday and the kids got prizes for attendance and dedication. It was great fun. I was so proud!

It was sort of like giving birth to a painted wall. This is Edith, Jhon and Wilder who finally finished the map.

And this is everyone and their mother who came when they heard there was free soda at the inauguration party.

Warning: This is a paragraph full of me whining. Today I'm totally frustrated. I have realized that the laptop that I brought doesn't burn CD's. You might be wondering why I didn't notice this before. Well I'm sort of wondering it myself, but basically because I lent the laptop to the former boyfriend as I had a desktop back in the USA. Now backing up anything like my photos, is kind of rough. I decided to try to buy an external hard drive to fix the problem. Then my ¨No Hassle¨credit card wouldn't work and I was informed after 20 minutes of an international, theoretically but not actually toll free phone call that I would have to make such a phone call every month if I want to continue to use the card in Peru. GRRR. It is so annoying when menial tasks are a pain in the neck.

Off to plan an anti-tuberculosis March for Friday and the last touches for the health classes Tuesday and Wednesday. Kids, kids everywhere.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

My St. Louis Pen Pals

I've been writing to my goddaughter Libby's 4th grade class in St. Louis. I´ll have to type up their letters and post them because they are fabulous, but since it's already at my fingertips here is my response.


Dear Matt, Marcus, Libby, Jaime, Georges, Conner, Casey, Taylor, Amudha, and Nicole,

Thanks so much for your letters. They were fun to read and I enjoyed learning about all of you. Thanks for asking so many questions about Peru and Rinconada Llícuar. I love learning about new places and I hope that you do too.

I live with a very kind and welcoming family. The dad is named Martin Ruiz Saba, the mom is Dora Purizaca Tume, and Dora’s brother called Benito Purizaca Tume lives there too. Their children are Darwin Ruiz Purizaca, Pepe Ruiz Purizaca and Ingrid Ruiz Purizaca. Martin and Dora are both in their forties. Benito is 26, Darwin is 12, Pepe is 7, and Ingrid is 6. In Peru and in most countries where Spanish is spoken children get two last names, one from their mom and one from their dad. Everyone keeps these last names their whole lives.

My house is made of cement blocks and has a tin roof. I live with one of the wealthier families in town so they have a nicer house, but most of the houses are made of a reed that grows in the riverbeds. The reeds are placed side by side to make walls and then the walls are covered with mud that dries and hardens. Part of my house had a cement floor when I moved in three months ago, but most of the house had dirt floor. This week the family is pouring cement floors in two of the rooms. This will be great because it will help with the respiratory problems that sometimes come from the dusty floors.

Rinconada Llicuar is a very small town home to about 2800 people who live in about 550 houses where most people are farmers. They grow rice and Pima cotton. It’s on the edge of the desert, but they get water from a deep well to irrigate the fields. Other people are fishermen. Rinconada is about a half an hour from the Pacific Ocean where the fishermen work on big ships that catch anchovies.

The fishermen bring fresh fish everyday (not anchovies) and we almost always have fish for lunch or dinner. I love fish and my favorite Peruvian dish is called ceviche. It is made by cutting fresh fish into small pieces, and putting it into a kind of salad with onion, cilantro and a spicy pepper called ají. Then you put lime juice all over it. The acid from the lime juice makes the fish look like it was cooked, but it’s raw. Then you eat it with toasted corn kernels which are like big soft popcorn kernels that didn’t pop and fried plantains called chifles. Don’t worry if you don’t like raw fish. People also eat chicken and potatoes a lot in Peru. In Peru there are more varieties of potatoes than there are anywhere else in the world- I think it’s like 2000 different kinds. Peruvians also eat a lot of rice at lunch and dinner; they say that food is not a meal without rice.

Most Peruvians are poorer than most Americans and people have fewer things. Rinconada Llicuar has had electricity for about eight years now and most people do have electronics like televisions and radios. In my house we have electric lights, a television, a radio, a refrigerator, and a blender. Few families have refrigerators because they’re very expensive. We do not have running water all the time, only every other day for 3 hours, but most of the houses in town have a faucet that the family uses to fill big buckets and barrels with water. There are no large buildings and only a handful of two story houses in town.

Peru doesn’t have states, it has departments and Rinconada Llicuar is in the north in the department called Piura. The capital of the department is also called Piura. I travel about an hour and a half from Rinconada Llicuar to the city about once a week to buy groceries, go to the bank and the post office, and to visit with other Peace Corps volunteers.

All of northern Peru is very hot. In the summer it gets to more than 100 degrees on the hottest days, but the rest of the year the weather is sunny and warm and it doesn’t really get below 60 degrees. I like the weather very much; the sun makes me happy. Northern Peru is also very close to the equator so the sun is very strong and you can get sunburned very easily. It never snows here. People wear clothes appropriate for very hot weather, but that will protect them from the sun. Farmers wear long cotton pants, long-sleeved cotton shirts with collars, and baseball caps. They used to wear big straw hats, and some old men still do, but most of the men don’t wear straw hats anymore. Men wear flip-flops or sandals called yankees that are made of tire rubber. They’re called yankees because rubber tires in Spanish are called llantas and the words sound similarly. Women wear knee length cotton skirts and t-shirts and kids wear shorts and t-shirts unless they’re helping in the fields and then they wear pants. Everyone wears flip-flops unless they’re going to church or a party and then they put on sneakers or dressier sandals.

There are no llamas in northern Peru, but there are lots of them a little farther south and in the mountains. I have only seen llamas in a park near Lima, the capital of Peru. I do not have a llama sweater, but I hope to buy one in April when I go on a trip to Cuzco, a town in the mountains where llamas live. My favorite animal in Piura is the owl. We have big white owls that I think are beautiful. People also raise a lot of guinea pigs for food. They’re called cuy, but I haven’t tried them yet. I still think of them as pets.

I have never been to Brazil, but I have been to Paraguay and Ecuador which are also in South America. I have also never been to the rainforest, but the Amazon River starts in Peru. The Amazon River goes through the rainforest in Peru and Brazil. I am hoping to go and visit the source of the river before I leave Peru.

Peruvians love soccer and I have enjoyed learning to play since I have been here. I work with a group of women who want to learn more about healthy lifestyles and sometimes we play soccer together. I also go running in the rice fields in the mornings because it’s very beautiful watching the sun come up over the rice fields and I want to keep my heart and lungs healthy.

There are some dangers in Peru, like there are anywhere. Peru has earthquakes pretty often. They’re usually not very strong earthquakes, but you still have to be careful. We had a small one in my house last week. The walls shook for about two minutes and then it stopped. Also, when you travel you always have to be careful of robbers because dangerous people can tell that you’re not from wherever you are traveling and sometimes there are dangerous people who will try to grab your purse or wallet.

To join Peace Corps you apply, just like you’re applying to go to college or for a job. To go to Peace Corps first you have to go to college and then if you want to apply you have to write a resume, cover letter, and a few essays. You have to get letters of recommendation from your teachers and previous employers and then if Peace Corps thinks that you can do the job they call you for an interview. Then, if they like you in the interview you have medical checks and background checks, and if you pass all of the checks they will send you to another country to work for two years.

I like living in Peru very much and even though I haven’t lived here very long I have friends in Rinconada Llicuar and I’m friends with the other Peace Corps volunteers who live in towns near me. I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I get back to the US. I would like to work for an international non-profit organization or USAID, the part of the government that manages international aid.

What do you want to do when you grow up?

I hope that I answered all of your questions and I hope to hear from you again soon.


Best wishes,

Ella