I had my first youth group meeting yesterday in one of my rural communities. We have a youth group in the main town, by my counterpart refuses to schedule meetings if we don´t have funding for food to give the kids. I still think we can meet and get work done without having food, but she seems to disagree. So I actually up and self motivated, and met up with the remnants of a group from one of the rural communities. There were 4 girls that showed up. I gave them a mini lesson about the immune system, and why HIV/AIDS destroys the immune system. They were really patient with my Spanish, and I think I actually got the main points across! We are hoping to participate in a nationwide art competition about HIV, so I used the meeting as a time to introduce the theme and get to know the girls. It was a highly satisfying experience, and I finally feel like I´m starting to work on my actual assigned work! (reproductiva health and child/maternal health education).

A few weeks ago I went out with one of the nurses to work on census. We caught a bus out of town, and walked down the main road taking down the number of people in the house, age, type of house, if they had utilities or not, and what sorts of animals they have. We came to our last house of the day, a ranch. The family had multiple cows and 4 children. The youngest came running out of the house, practically tripping himself over, carrying an egg. He hands it to me, and says something in timid Spanish (which of course I didn’t understand). I asked the nurse later what the little guy had asked me (I can understand her Spanish because she knows to speak slowly and clearly) and she repeated how the little guy had asked that if he gave me the egg, would I not give him a shot? I guess the majority of the time when nurses go house to house its for a vaccination campaign.

I was able to view another birth yesterday. It was less emotional this time, and the mother wasn´t scared like the first. In Spanish they call giving birth ¨Dar Luz¨ which translates to giving light. Its quite appropriate really. Randomly I was stung by a bee in the middle of the delivery, (my first bee sting) although I must say I’m glad it was me, and not the lady in labor.

This picture is from today (I’m going to try to be better about taking photos) We made a roadside stop under a mango tree to give a month old little baby its polio, and retro viral oral vaccinations.



Before I came here I had a chat with a friend of mines mother who is a natural path. I explained to her that I was joining the peacecorps in the health sector. I told her how I was impressed with the high levels of vaccination that they have here. Her response to that was ¨well I spend most of my time here dealing with the repercussions of vaccinations like autism and other autoimmune disorders. (well there isn´t any solid proof that vaccines cause autism, nor is it as far as I know an autoimmune disorder) I then asked her if she disagreed with vaccinations and she said yes, and that none of her children had vaccinations, nor have they been sick. (they´re really health fanatics, exercise eat well etc etc.) I asked her if vaccines were valuable if we could eliminate diseases like smallpox, and she responded with; well if you look at trends, the diseases like smallpox are already in decline when the vaccination comes out, so we really don’t know if the disease went away naturally or it was the vaccine that did it. Can you imagine? and this lady has a doctorate to give people medical advice. If you have been exposed to a place where people, not just babies, die all the time from preventable diseases I feel like she´d sing a different tune. Even is the shots do cause autism personally I think if we can save thousands of lives its worth the few hundred that get autism.

Another thing is that this lady, her children are living in a developed country. There is a phenomenon known as ¨Herd Immunity¨(I believe that’s the name, I´ll explain). Herd immunity is when a population are immune to a disease (aka receive vaccinations) no one has the disease. So if a person goes without the vaccine in an area where no one else can catch the disease, then there is no one to pass the illness to that specific person. So in essence, this lady´s children are safe from things like hepatitis, because everyone else is getting vaccinated.

I pushed the natural path more to explain how vaccinations cause autism, and she didn’t have an answer. Its not that I have anything against naturopaths. Their work is valid. Not all modern medicine is 100% nor is natural medicine. I think the two could work together really well if the two camps would just listen to one another and not see each other as some great evil.

More on health care. In the US I think we take for granted the people to people interactions we have between medical providers and the patient. Doctors have a reputation of being impersonal and un-empathetic. Nicaragua puts this on a whole different plane. For example today a little girl was crying because she fell. Her mother said to her ¨if you don´t stop crying, that doctor is going to give you a shot¨ the doctor nodded in agreement. The threat was totally empty, but the little girl (she was probably only 3) did shut up. Maybe the immediate outcome was what the mother had wanted, but I don´t see how threatening kids with injections is good for anyone´s mental health. Also a kid crying from falling is totally normal. Adults constantly are calling their kids ¨necio¨or annoying/stupid for normal kid things, like playing, running around. I asked if necio has a negative connotation, and was told that it indeed is a negative word. So these poor little kids, the majority here in my site at least, grow up learning that normal kid behavior is annoying, making them in essence a bad person. There is little discipline here, so situations tend to escalate ending with someone getting smacked. The behavioral problems aren´t nipped in the bud, so kids learn to push their parents limits, and the parents loose patience very quickly. It’s a cultural problem that I can´t even come close to touching, nor do I feel it’s my place to so, as I’m an outsider.


Well that was all super cynical. I meant this to be a more optimistic post. I guess cynicism is a bad habit, which I need to work on breaking...
I get to come home for Christmas in 14 weeks! So for wants/needs I have requests out for the following: apple pie, peach cobbler, Spencer’s ice-cream in Milford, fish chowder, hot cocoa, and sledding, apples, blueberry muffins, Thai iced tea, sushi, apple cider, good wine, Moscow mule, chocolate cake, good company, speaking English, snow, cooler climes, exercise....oh how the list grows...

Cue the thunderstorm, time to log off! (saw a rainbow today hanging over the volcanoes, absolutely beautiful)

Hello all!

My local volcanoe had a minor erruption last week, which was kind of exciting. Alot of smoke, and ash. I think the type of volcano that San Cristobal is, isn't prone to violent firey explosions.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h2XeRIAo4H1klveujf8GudAobTsAD9AI61480

It was shooting up pretty large mushroom clouds a couple days later when I rode past the base of it.

I just had my first in service training. we were put up in the city of Estili for a couple days. We had sessions on everything from how to work with youth, to how to procces soy from beans to make milk, and soy meat.

 
 
 


So this is Yolanda, and she is making star fruit-orange juice, (which by the way is beyond phenominal) They call star fruit melecoton. (or spelt something like that).

So one thing that is very noticable about living in a new culture are their beliefs, which to an outsider (Me!) can seem quite strange. Here's an example. The other night I was invited to dinner with a family with whom I've made friends. We were in the back yard playing with the kids, when a small chicken, who'd been trying to roost in the trees fell out of the roost, and landed on its back. This caused quite the ruckus, between the kids, the adults, the dogs, and other chickens in the trees. The grandmother ran over with a plastic washbin, and placed it upside down over the little bird, and procceded to drum the tub with a stick, with the little bird inside. She would lift the tub up, and check on the bird, continue to drum, check on the bird, continue to drum. Finally I snatched up the little guy, and checked it for potential breaks, cleaned off his little bloody wing, and gave it some water. The grandmother took the bird back, and drummed over it for the final time. This time the bird opened his eyes, and was moving his head around (an atestment to the success of the drumming). A kid ran over with a box, and took the chicken to another house in the complex. I asked the grandmother why this system worked. She told me that the bird fell because it was full of bad gases, and that the drumming worked to expell the bad gases. I'm not sure if I belief that this worked, but nevertheless the little bird seems to be recovering.

Other beliefs, (in my opinion) are less mild, and in a way fairly dangerous. These tend to be seen more in the rural areas,and i'm not sure how wide spread they are. For example, Women, after delivering a baby can't shower, or eat fruits or veggitables, or meat, for a fairly extended amount of time. Another which I think contributes to the large number of skin problems that are found here, is that the people believe that you can't shower in the afternoon because your blood is hot, and the cold water will make you sick. Because the people don't wash the sweat, or dust, or dirt off your skin, skin problems are really prevelant here.

I mean, there are wonderful things about this culture, the people are amazingly friendly, but some of these beliefs, I just have had a hard time understanding, and really, can be frustraiting. I try to teach people the facts behind the beliefs, trying to show the bennefits of shower, or how you need to eat fruits and veggitables to repare the body, etc etc. But I imagine its hard to believe a foriegner (me) who doesn't really speak the lanaguage (me)when you've grown up in a society that confirms, and teaches these belief. I have to be careful to not be culturaly-centric, or condescending, or preachy. I just present the information, and hope that someone will use it.

Its easy to reflect on a new culture, but I've been trying to think of beliefs that we live by in the US. We have our supersticions, like dont walk under a ladder, or break mirrors, and knocking on wood, but these aren't principles which we live by. can anyone think of beliefs we have stateside?

Hazel

New back ground! Hopefully it doesn’t hurt anyone’s eyes. I think the black frames the pictures better, and supposedly uses less energy!

This weekend, I took a little mini holiday to the coast a little spot called Salinas Grande. I´m not sure who Salina is, and what she had that would be considered grande, I didn´t work up the courage to ask! I have a friend who lives there, and ex-PeaceCorps volunteer. Went went over the first couple steps of surfing, (ie staying on the board while paddling, actually way harder than it looks!) We paid a local guy to take us down the river, through the mangroves which was a phenominal experience. I forgot how much I love the environment and learning about our natural world, I had an environmental concentration to my undergrad degree for a reason! Our informal guide is a ranger-guard in the reserve where we were. He showed us how the mangrove trees are seeded in the ground, how the seeds are weighted, and have to land just so in the soil to germinate. He also told us there are crocdiles 5 meters long that live in the river (a bit bigger than our little outboard) but they´re afraid of the noise of the engines on the boats (I imagine that weren´t-no-fish-tale). Periodically sharks are pulled in from the fishing boats, and on discovery channel for the last week I watched many many shark attack dramatizations, I´m not gonna lie, I was a little apprehensive to be in water over waist deep. But it was a fabulous weekend, and when the turtles come to nest next month, I´m definately going to try to get back!


Oh the last photo was from a quincenera (not sure how to spell is) Its like a sweet sixteen they do here for the girls.