The good, the bad, and the itchy!

Hi All!

Week three flew by and dragged on all at the same time. It was a great week as far as tech and language, but I´m also glad it´s gone!

I have eaten more things than I ever imagined I would (although still no cuy!). My lunches this past week have included cow tongue, cow hoof soup, and pig skin soup (hair still attached and all...mmmmm!). The rest of the food is still TONS of rice and potatoes, with an occasional veggie cooked into the food, and even more rarely a crisp, raw veggie on the side. I´ve tried everything so far, and not too many complaints! Some foods I prefer more than others, but the only one I really struggled with was pig skin soup.

We had two more cooking lessons this week to finish our community health lessons. We made llapingachos, a potato dish from the sierra, which was quite delicious. We also made meti (mite?), a grilled chicken dish from the oriente. I´m trying to learn how to make these so I can cook good food for myself when I´m on my own!!

It was a bit of a rougher week health-wise. I got sick on Tuesday for the first time, but once my stomach cleared out I was better. I didn´t feel well for the rest of the day and went to bed really early that night (early than my usual 9pm!). I felt much better when I woke up Wednesday, except for the bug bites that I then had ALL over my body! I was worried that I had bed bugs, but I changed my sheets that night, saw some unidentfied bug scurry away when I took off the bottom sheet, and I haven´t gotten more bites in bed since....stilllll itchy from the one night attack, but I think I´m safe in my room again!

Aside from the minor health issues, it was a GREAT week for community health tech!! We learned how to make tire gardens, which is a really cool idea whether we´re in an urban or rural site! We each made a tire garden with partners, and mine has radishes, cilantro and lettuce, which will hopefully start growing soon! I think tire gardens will be one of the first projects I work on at site because they are relatively easy to begin and draw a lot of interest, so it might be a good integration technique with my new community!

I gave two charlas (lectures/information sessions) this week! These were our first charlas, which we are expected to do a ton of at site, so I fell great having gotten some good practice. The first was a hygiene charla at a school on Friday, focused on hand-washing (importance of and techniques). A lot of the things we learn seem basic to us, but it is information that people here have NEVER heard, so it is very important information to share! We had 4 groups give handwashing charlas at the school Friday morning, and my group worked with the youngest kids, about 5 and 6 years old. It went really well for the first 15ish minutes, the kids were adorable and very interested in sharing what they knew, etc. After about 15 minutes, we started losing attention fast, so our Training Manager (who knows Spanish well) helped us start some games to keep the kids interested. At that point we finished with the charla and just played duck, duck, goose and did relay races for the remaining time. It was really fun and definitely helped boost our confidence because that is one of the hardest age groups to work with and while we had some help, most of it was done ourselves! I definitely want to work more with kids at my site :)

The other charla I gave was yesterday during our Saturday workshops where my group had to give a cooking demonstration like we received from the facilitators over the last 2 weeks. We prepared recipes and nutrition information for a traditional Ecuadorian breakfast, then we taught the class and made the food in class. It turned out pretty well and the overall charla went really well!

It is nice to be getting out there and practicing presenting in front of people other than our health program, who we are now all comfortable presenting for. And practice is just what we´re about to get. We leave tomorrow morning for our first tech trip, and my group is giving 4 or 5 charlas over the week, covering the topics of hygiene, nutrition and chronic illness prevention with ages ranging 8-adult. We have 3 separate charlas prepared (in my group of 3!) and now just need to practice and go give them! It will be fun to get away from Tumbaco for the week and get even more comfortable with presenting information to strangers. We´ll see how it goes!

Hello to everyone at home - sounds like everything is going great there! Happy early birthday, Mom!

¡Besos a todos!

Kerry