So this week I got to participate in my first health charla. A few child and maternal health volunteers who live in Jinotega were giving this workshop to midwives about proper birthing practices, and were asking for some helpers. So I showed up to lend a hand. They invited 30 midwives from campo communities outside the city of Jinotega, and over 30 showed up, so it was a great turn out. The health volunteers gave charlas on proper sanitary and hygiene practices while aiding with the birth of a baby, from topics ranging to proper hand washing to how to properly cut and care for the umbilical cord. They also gave a talk on HIV/AIDS and a condom demonstration, which I really want to start doing in my site. My part in the charla was during the roundtable demonstrations. I was at the hand washing table, demonstrating how to properly wash one's hands with soap and water and use of alcohol (or the hand sanitizer gel we Americans so love to use). It was an interesting day and I had a good time.
My favorite part was when they got an older campo lady to volunteer to come to the front and demonstrate how to put a condom on a cucumber. It got a lot of laughs and giggles from the participants, but was very important to include in the charla. These women shouldn't be embarrassed about this subject! They help birth babies for a living, they should be able to talk about safe sex and HIV prevention.
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| Gardening is fun! |
This week we also had a going away party for a volunteer who's finished her service and is off to Texas to start med school. We'll miss you Lauren! Seeing her leave makes me realize how little time I actually have in service here and all the things I'd like to do in my service before my time's up. The irrigation project is still on-going. We planted more seeds this past week in the garden, including pumpkin, watermelon, onion, more cucumber, and squash. We're continuing with the 3-liter bottle watering system, which is working out pretty well. Now we just have to find more bottles for all the new plants! Hopefully once the new tomato seeds have sprouted we can transplant those where all the other ones have died and get the drip irrigation system up and running again.
The ovens project is moving a little slowly. The meeting with the women who are receiving ovens went well. They're all very excited about this project. Most of them were hoping to have their ovens done before Semana Santa (Holy Week, the week before Easter), but I'm still waiting on getting the metal barrels delivered from Managua. Once those come in, hopefully this week, the welder can make the barrels into ovens and we can start the work. I'm not holding my breath though.
I gave a charla to the 5th and 6th graders about basic gardening, hoping to get them more on track with the school garden project. The charla went well and I think they're a little more informed on what I had in mind for the care of this garden. I'm hoping to do more garden charlas around the community to get people in the mindset of maybe starting their own little patio gardens at home. There's this square meter garden concept that I'd like to try with someone, where you plant 9 different things within one square meter. It allows for a variety of veggies in a small, easy to maintain space.
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| "Bathing" in the river, as Nicas call it |
Here's a funny story: this last week I walked over to a neighboring community with some friends to go swim in the river and visit with an older woman who sells vegetables from her little farm. The river was cool and wonderful to swim in on a hot day. Nicas just jump right in with their clothes on (which was fine with me, I didn't really feel like subjecting anyone to my white-ass bathing suit body), and then just dry off on the walk home. Since it was such a hot day we didn't want to walk home at high noon, so we hung out at Doña Dominga's house, drying our clothes in the hot air, before loading up on veggies to take back home.
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| Taken just before he stomped on my foot |
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| Adding salt to the wound |
At one point one of the girls ties a string around this loose horse's neck that was in the yard and jumps up on it's back. They yell for me to come out of the house to look, since I had been telling them how much I wanted to go on a horseback ride at some point. I just laughed and said no way would I ride that boney saddle-less horse with nothing but a string around it's neck. But I did go up to pet the horse and help another girl up onto it's back. At that point the horse took a step to the side and stomped right on my foot! Practically barefoot in my chaco sandals no less! It landed right on the cuticle of my big toe and tore the skin back. I froze a second and didn't know what to say because I wanted to scream out in English but knew they wouldn't understand anything I was saying, so I immediately started pushing the horse away from me and finally yelled out "mi dedo! mi dedo!" (my toe! my toe!). Once I had him off me I hobbled over to a chair in the shade and sat down to examine the damage. Because I'm so sensitive to finger/toe trauma I made sure to sit down quickly before the possibility of fainting could occur. One of the women ran into the house and came back out with a cup of salted water which she immediately slathered onto my toe. I didn't know what she was doing at first and asked what it was. It didn't take me long to feel the stinging pain of the salt on my open wound and start shaking my foot to try and relieve the pain. She told me the salt was the best to reduce inflammation and risk of infection. I told her putting salt on an open would was one of the most painful things you could do! Then I thought about how much rubbing alcohol hurts but how important that is sometimes, so I felt stupid for telling her that. She assured me it was the best thing to do, and made sure to reiterate that later once the purple color left my toenail ("it would have stayed purple if I hadn't put salt on it"). Who knows, now I want to look that up as a treatment. Everyone was laughing when I told them that I wanted to scream out in English. They told me to do it anyways afterwards, so I did, yelling out "ahh my foot! He's on my foot!", and they all got a huge kick out of hearing me yell in English. The girl on the horse's back said she felt bad because she didn't know it was on my foot, but it obviously wasn't her fault it stepped on me. Anyways, so it was super funny but super painful. I've been cleaning it everyday and putting neosporin on it, and it honestly looks like nothing happened at all to my toe. But it hurts still and I wonder if it got a little infected under the skin.
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| Pantasma mountains |
Well, if I don't blog before then, have a great Easter everyone! My plan is to hang out with various families in site who are going to swim in the river (a very popular/required activity during Semana Santa) and cook various traditional dishes for this particular holiday. I hear canned sardines are usually eaten since meat is a no-no. I'll fill you in with all the details (and food photos) next time!
~Sarah~
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