(Even if you didn’t know it).
So yes, I am a professional promoting health in rural Peru. However, let’s not forget that I’m also a 24-year-old kid far from home. So, to add some fun to our lives, Sarita, Robyn, and I made an amusing music video. I did all of the choreography and directing, Robyn did all of the editing, and Sarita was a rock-star with the acting. The whole thing was filmed in our three sites. Yes, Sarita’s site is on the beach. She is super-lucky. So, go ahead, laugh at me: I promise it’s funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCQKTQFZwsw
Saturday, February 21, 2009
My new life
Hi everyone,
I’m very sorry that I’ve been totally neglecting my blog as of late. I’ve been a little down because I’ve been pretty sick, and so I wasn’t feeling too inspired to write. Peace Corps also recommends that we write in our journals on bad days and on our blogs on good days. So today I had a good day.
Let’s see- I’ll start with my work. I’ve actually been doing work, so that’s a wonderful start. My first month and a half was devoted mostly to healing from my injury, and getting a handle on living in Malval. I guess I didn’t realize just how outgoing I was going to have to be. The day I arrived in Malval I knew no one, had no fixed plans, and had no deadlines. Everyone in town already had fulfilling lives without me. My job was to poke around and try to find a space for myself, and eventually for my projects. That’s a pretty tall order, especially for someone who gets exhausted talking to people she doesn’t know well, in English, in the United States.
Anyway, towards the end of January things finally started to fall into place. I spent a couple of days writing a 47 question encuesta (survey) to be implemented with 100 mothers in Malval who have children less than three years of age. (This is because children under three are a vulnerable population, and because most of the mental development takes place before a child is five, and so there is still some time to intervene.) The questions cover many aspects of health including the material of which the house is made, if there are animals living in the house, if there is a latrine, if they purify the drinking water, if the mother breastfed, what the nutrition of the child is like, if the child is vaccinated, if the child has recently been sick, if the family exercises, if the mother has ever had a pap-smear or breast exam, if the couple uses birth control, the level of education of the parents, if they think HIV/AIDS is a problem in Malval, etc. The encuesta has two main goals. The first is collect information about the state of health in the community that may guide my choice of a primary project, and will at the very least familiarize me with some of the challenges and opportunities of health in Malval. The second goal is to get me out into the community; meeting people and walking around.
It turns out that 100 is an awful lot of encuestas. I solicited the help of the local health promoters to help me with them, and so far we’ve completed 60. I hope to complete the remaining 40 before the first week of March, but that’s going to be a big stretch.
In addition to the encuestas, I’ve been coordinating with my local health post to collaborate on their projects. The town nurse, Darwin, and I have plans to work with the schools during the school year on a Peru-wide program called “Escuelas Saludables” (Healthy Schools), and we are also going to train the health promoters on various subjects. I’m in charge of the sessions on diarrhea and upper respiratory infections in children, nutrition, and basic first aid.
Additionally, Peace Corps Peru won a small grant from PEPFAR (former President Bush’s HIV/AIDS relief plan) to work on HIV/AIDS prevention in four departments in Peru, including Tumbes. We had our first meeting launching the program in December, and in March we are going to have meeting to elaborate our work plan for the year. I’m very excited about this initiative because Tumbes is at a point where the HIV/AIDS infection rate is not astronomically high, but has the potential to become so. Thus, it is the perfect time to intervene with an education program that could potentially have a very positive impact, and prevent Peru from ever looking like Botswana (well, it’s going to take a lot more than just the Peace Corps to do that, but we can be a part of it). Also, we met with a doctor last Friday who wants to do research in the area about HTLV, which is another scary STI that I didn’t even know existed. His research sounds quite interesting, and he has asked us to help out.
Aside from health things, I also started a small English club. I didn’t want to teach English here (for many reasons- ask me if you like), but the kids just begged and begged me. I eventually decided that if nothing else, it would be a great way to get to know some of the kids. It is. Almost all of the kids in Malval know me now, as do most of the kids in my caserios. More often than not I’ll be walking down a road I’ve never been on before, a couple of miles from my house, and I group of children who I’ve never seen will run passed me yelling, “Hello Sarah!” It’s pretty cute.
As for Tumbes and Malval- they’re growing on me. It’s the rainy season now, and so it rains every night (strangely it just started to rain as I typed that sentence). That means that everything is green and blooming. It’s quite beautiful. There are also all kinds of tropical birds that have come out of hiding. I’ve seen four different types of hummingbirds and wild parrots! Unfortunately the mosquitoes are also out of hiding. At 6pm tonight I put Deet all over my exposed skin. By 7:30pm I had five bites on my back underneath my shirt! Not fair! I wouldn’t be too worried except that both malaria and dengue are endemic here. I’m taking malaria medication and I sleep under a mosquito net, but dengue is scary…
I’ve been making a point to go out hiking around my town, and it’s been wonderful. Saul, my host nephew, knows the names of all of the plants and birds, and often goes with me. Last week he took me fishing as well! My town is surrounded on one side by hills that are strangely reminiscent of parts of the American Southwest, and on the other side by banana and rice fields. There’s also a canal that runs through town that is now home to three crocodiles!
So, that’s a bit of a glimpse into my life as of now. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to e-mail me. Sometimes I forget how much my life has changed in the past five months (I know, I’ve been here five whole months!!), and so I unknowingly leave out important details. Plus, one of the goals of the Peace Corps is to educate Americans about life abroad. That means me, yes, but also you. Take advantage and ask me questions! Also, please don’t forget to update me on your lives as well. I still care, and I still miss you.
Love,
Sarah
I’m very sorry that I’ve been totally neglecting my blog as of late. I’ve been a little down because I’ve been pretty sick, and so I wasn’t feeling too inspired to write. Peace Corps also recommends that we write in our journals on bad days and on our blogs on good days. So today I had a good day.
Let’s see- I’ll start with my work. I’ve actually been doing work, so that’s a wonderful start. My first month and a half was devoted mostly to healing from my injury, and getting a handle on living in Malval. I guess I didn’t realize just how outgoing I was going to have to be. The day I arrived in Malval I knew no one, had no fixed plans, and had no deadlines. Everyone in town already had fulfilling lives without me. My job was to poke around and try to find a space for myself, and eventually for my projects. That’s a pretty tall order, especially for someone who gets exhausted talking to people she doesn’t know well, in English, in the United States.
Anyway, towards the end of January things finally started to fall into place. I spent a couple of days writing a 47 question encuesta (survey) to be implemented with 100 mothers in Malval who have children less than three years of age. (This is because children under three are a vulnerable population, and because most of the mental development takes place before a child is five, and so there is still some time to intervene.) The questions cover many aspects of health including the material of which the house is made, if there are animals living in the house, if there is a latrine, if they purify the drinking water, if the mother breastfed, what the nutrition of the child is like, if the child is vaccinated, if the child has recently been sick, if the family exercises, if the mother has ever had a pap-smear or breast exam, if the couple uses birth control, the level of education of the parents, if they think HIV/AIDS is a problem in Malval, etc. The encuesta has two main goals. The first is collect information about the state of health in the community that may guide my choice of a primary project, and will at the very least familiarize me with some of the challenges and opportunities of health in Malval. The second goal is to get me out into the community; meeting people and walking around.
It turns out that 100 is an awful lot of encuestas. I solicited the help of the local health promoters to help me with them, and so far we’ve completed 60. I hope to complete the remaining 40 before the first week of March, but that’s going to be a big stretch.
In addition to the encuestas, I’ve been coordinating with my local health post to collaborate on their projects. The town nurse, Darwin, and I have plans to work with the schools during the school year on a Peru-wide program called “Escuelas Saludables” (Healthy Schools), and we are also going to train the health promoters on various subjects. I’m in charge of the sessions on diarrhea and upper respiratory infections in children, nutrition, and basic first aid.
Additionally, Peace Corps Peru won a small grant from PEPFAR (former President Bush’s HIV/AIDS relief plan) to work on HIV/AIDS prevention in four departments in Peru, including Tumbes. We had our first meeting launching the program in December, and in March we are going to have meeting to elaborate our work plan for the year. I’m very excited about this initiative because Tumbes is at a point where the HIV/AIDS infection rate is not astronomically high, but has the potential to become so. Thus, it is the perfect time to intervene with an education program that could potentially have a very positive impact, and prevent Peru from ever looking like Botswana (well, it’s going to take a lot more than just the Peace Corps to do that, but we can be a part of it). Also, we met with a doctor last Friday who wants to do research in the area about HTLV, which is another scary STI that I didn’t even know existed. His research sounds quite interesting, and he has asked us to help out.
Aside from health things, I also started a small English club. I didn’t want to teach English here (for many reasons- ask me if you like), but the kids just begged and begged me. I eventually decided that if nothing else, it would be a great way to get to know some of the kids. It is. Almost all of the kids in Malval know me now, as do most of the kids in my caserios. More often than not I’ll be walking down a road I’ve never been on before, a couple of miles from my house, and I group of children who I’ve never seen will run passed me yelling, “Hello Sarah!” It’s pretty cute.
As for Tumbes and Malval- they’re growing on me. It’s the rainy season now, and so it rains every night (strangely it just started to rain as I typed that sentence). That means that everything is green and blooming. It’s quite beautiful. There are also all kinds of tropical birds that have come out of hiding. I’ve seen four different types of hummingbirds and wild parrots! Unfortunately the mosquitoes are also out of hiding. At 6pm tonight I put Deet all over my exposed skin. By 7:30pm I had five bites on my back underneath my shirt! Not fair! I wouldn’t be too worried except that both malaria and dengue are endemic here. I’m taking malaria medication and I sleep under a mosquito net, but dengue is scary…
I’ve been making a point to go out hiking around my town, and it’s been wonderful. Saul, my host nephew, knows the names of all of the plants and birds, and often goes with me. Last week he took me fishing as well! My town is surrounded on one side by hills that are strangely reminiscent of parts of the American Southwest, and on the other side by banana and rice fields. There’s also a canal that runs through town that is now home to three crocodiles!
So, that’s a bit of a glimpse into my life as of now. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to e-mail me. Sometimes I forget how much my life has changed in the past five months (I know, I’ve been here five whole months!!), and so I unknowingly leave out important details. Plus, one of the goals of the Peace Corps is to educate Americans about life abroad. That means me, yes, but also you. Take advantage and ask me questions! Also, please don’t forget to update me on your lives as well. I still care, and I still miss you.
Love,
Sarah
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Rain
The sound of the rain on my roof is deafening. It’s not raining very hard, I’d say it’s raining steadily, but my metal roof amplifies the sound. Not to mention that water is pouring off the gap in my roof and into the gutter right outside my door. It sounds like I’m living behind a waterfall. There’s even a steady drip, drip of the leak in my ceiling. When I look up I see that there’s a whole in my roof that was covered by cardboard. The cardboard is not enough tonight. I’ll have to remember not to leave my laptop there later.
I think it’s interesting that in the United States we associate rain with sadness and melancholy. Here, I associate rain with life.
As you may have guessed, it’s the rainy season here in Tumbes. It rains every day, but not all day. In fact, in almost exclusively rains at night. Each morning I get up to a world of mud and puddles and frogs jumping between the two, but to a sun shining brightly in the sky.
Tumbes has been transformed into a jungle of green. Although we technically live in the dry forest, this part of Tumbes is very close to the jungle. Just to the north, near the mangroves, is the only place on the continent where the jungle reaches the Pacific Ocean. These days, you can really tell how close we are. The air is filled with the songs of tropical birds, and beautiful flowers seem to be bursting from the trees. I saw a flock of wild parrots in my front yard.
A month ago the soccer fields of Tumbes were dust bowls. Now they are covered in grass. When no one is kicking around a ball, horses, donkeys, and cows graze there. It’s clear that they need it. You can see their ribs shining through their coats of fur, but now, finally there is food. Tumbes has come alive.
Of course, if the rain continues for too long there could be death. The damp, humid climate is a haven for upper respiratory disease, and the numbers of sick children at the health post has skyrocketed. The puddles of rain breed mosquitoes, and with them come bouts of malaria and dengue. Worse yet, the river could flood and kill all of the crops. It’s happened before, setting Malval up for a rough year of poverty.
But for now, the rain is beautiful, and a welcome break from the heat. Let’s just hope that we don’t get too much of a good thing.
I think it’s interesting that in the United States we associate rain with sadness and melancholy. Here, I associate rain with life.
As you may have guessed, it’s the rainy season here in Tumbes. It rains every day, but not all day. In fact, in almost exclusively rains at night. Each morning I get up to a world of mud and puddles and frogs jumping between the two, but to a sun shining brightly in the sky.
Tumbes has been transformed into a jungle of green. Although we technically live in the dry forest, this part of Tumbes is very close to the jungle. Just to the north, near the mangroves, is the only place on the continent where the jungle reaches the Pacific Ocean. These days, you can really tell how close we are. The air is filled with the songs of tropical birds, and beautiful flowers seem to be bursting from the trees. I saw a flock of wild parrots in my front yard.
A month ago the soccer fields of Tumbes were dust bowls. Now they are covered in grass. When no one is kicking around a ball, horses, donkeys, and cows graze there. It’s clear that they need it. You can see their ribs shining through their coats of fur, but now, finally there is food. Tumbes has come alive.
Of course, if the rain continues for too long there could be death. The damp, humid climate is a haven for upper respiratory disease, and the numbers of sick children at the health post has skyrocketed. The puddles of rain breed mosquitoes, and with them come bouts of malaria and dengue. Worse yet, the river could flood and kill all of the crops. It’s happened before, setting Malval up for a rough year of poverty.
But for now, the rain is beautiful, and a welcome break from the heat. Let’s just hope that we don’t get too much of a good thing.
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