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!

La rubeola?

Today I did my first Charla at a kindergarten and pre-kindergarten for parents on rubella. I think that they got a big kick out of it and I think that maybe a few more people will go get shots for our having done a charla. A charla is a little talk with a group about an issue- in my case a community health issue. We're doing community projects in groups for the Peace Corps training projects and the one guy in my group, El Gringo is way more of a blind jumper-inner than even I am. I have been accused of overzealously and blindly pursuing a goal more than once, but this you gotta see to believe. So, four of us went to visit the school to take them this poster about a free rubella vaccination campaign about a week ago and he asked if we could do a charla which would have been great, if he had mentioned to us that he was planning to do that. I was even more frustrated when the charlas that they requested were 1. Telling teachers about how to teach children with special needs and 2. We go to the school to give vaccinations. What you say? I know nothing about special ed and you would never let me get a syringe near you? Yes, you're right. El Gringo totally suggested to the teacher that both of these were doable things. He was alone in that conversation- big mistake. So we had a group that was willing to have us but they had pretty unrealistic expectations of what we could do. I mean it isn't inconceivable that we could find someone to provide these things to the school, but no kind of thought was given to sustainable or feasibility. In any case, this resulted in me and another guy going to talk to the teacher about a more reasonable topic and us talking out and me writing a couple of skits- one was about a pregnant woman getting vaccinated. Later, I happened to read in a brochure that pregnant women shouldn't go get vaccinated. So thank goodness I rewrote that one before we gave it.

It ended up being lots of fun, but I definitely learned a few thing. I am actually grateful to El Gringo for being willing to take the risk, but I do feel like I fixed a problem he created... I'll need to think about that a little more.

Fun facts about rubella from the CDC:

Rubella is a respiratory disease caused by a virus

Symptoms:
Rash and fever for two to three days (mild disease in children and young adults)

Complications:
Birth defects if acquired by a pregnant woman: deafness, cataracts, heart defects, mental retardation, and liver and spleen damage (at least a 20% chance of damage to the fetus if a woman is infected early in pregnancy)

Transmission:
Spread by coughing and sneezing

Vaccine:
Rubella vaccine (contained in MMR vaccine) can prevent this disease.

You do NOT need the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine (MMR) if:
You had blood tests that show you are immune to measles, mumps, and rubella.
You are a man born before 1957.
You are a woman born before 1957 who is sure she is not having more children, has already had rubella vaccine, or has had a positive rubella test.
You already had two doses of MMR or one dose of MMR plus a second dose of measles vaccine.
You already had one dose of MMR and are not at high risk of measles exposure.

You SHOULD get the measles vaccine if you are not among the categories listed above, and:
You are a college student, trade school student, or other student beyond high school.
You work in a hospital or other medical facility.
You travel internationally, or are a passenger on a cruise ship.
You are a woman of childbearing age.

My friend Shaina took this picture of me when I was in LA last year.. or the year before... I would love to put it up, but I have to see if it'll work.... It's such a big file. Any suggestions on making the file smaller?

And here's a good picture of Manhattan from the Staten Island Ferry.... ahhhh NYC...

bartonellosis?

I'm taking on a cultural practice of Latin American newspapers and using really gross pictures to get attention. I got a pamphlet with a picture very similar to this from the Ministry of Health in Peru the day before yesterday.

I have had my first brush with tropical disease that I've never heard of before. It was quite exotic. A man in town died recently when he was bitten by a mosquito that carried Peruvian Warts or bartonellosis. Everyone is super-freaking out and taking their kids to the clinic post in town to get checked. I couldn't figure out what it was and so when I went to the google oracle I learned that it's endemic to Peru, Ecuador, and Columbia and they think that outbreaks coincide with El Niño which is kind of interesting. It's an old disease and the Inca had to deal with it even before the Conquistadors arrived. Fortunately, the treatment is a pretty simple course of pills taken orally, but the man who died didn't go to get treatment. It's a bacterial infection that causes anemia and then these red blood blisters or warts. Sta. Eulalia is sending pest control operators from house to house to fumigate and health promoters to give blood tests and pamphlets explaining about it. This man's death got the whole town in an uproar so the reaction is a little extreme for the danger, but at least people are paying attention and probably getting to see the doctor. On the other hand the public clinics are totally overwhelmed and the providers are running around trying to get everything done.

Yesterday I started my practical training and spent the day at the clinic and in a few high schools. They were doing some life skills trainings for peer educators. It was a really progressive an interesting model. psychologistst and health promoter from the ministry of health go to the school and give "train the trainer" presentations to a couple of kids from each classroom. This one was about assertiveness and good decision making but they also have "charlas" about issues like sexuality, self-esteem and drug use.

¡Viva el Peru! So far so good :)

Life as a crystal drinking yogi in Peru

So this is my first lesson in Peace Corps flexibility. Yesterday I was hurrying though my last 5 minutes at the internet cafe when I accidentally erased the whole damn blog. I was updating the title so that it included the is disclaimer about this not being an official Peace Corps site. grr...

Things are good in Sta. Eulalia. I live with a family that has 4 kids. The oldest is 26 and living and working in Spain. The next three are teenagers that live with me. So far I've been here 3 days and we have been to a birthday party of an extended family member everyday.

I walked into the house on Sunday after the Señora picked me up from the training center. I put down my suitcases and immediately went next door to a birthday party. I was sitting talking to people and drinking Crytal, apparently the national beer of Peru, and Inca Cola, definitely the national soda, when a group of Mexican Mariachi's came in to entertain the guests. We danced the congo and sang "Ai, yaiyaiyai canta no llores." What's the name of that song again? Fun times in Sta. Eulalia.

Tomorrow I go to the Ministry of Health to learn about their work. They're advertising a dog and cat vaccinating campaing this weekend in the square. I might be helping. Oddly this would not be the first time I have vaccinated animals against rabies.

I have been in the Peace Corps a week today!