The end of this year has proven to be very busy for me all
of a sudden. I finally have the funds
for the oven project so I’ve been scrambling around trying to have meetings
with all the families to coordinate buying the materials and transporting
them. So far I've bought and transported
half the bricks to 5 houses and am looking for more bricks to complete the
rest. The families with bricks are now
in charge of building the table that the oven will be built on, so I've been
visiting their houses to make sure they’re measuring it right and using the
right materials for it. I’m still
waiting on the 55 gallon metal barrels.
The guy who’s transporting them for me isn't returning my calls and I
don’t know when he’s going to bring them.
Communication is non-existent here sometimes. My goal is to get at least a few ovens
finished before mid-December, when I go home for Christmas. I’d love to give some families the
opportunity to have an oven for Christmas baking!
 |
| Me giving a community HIV class |
This last Friday I held an HIV charla (educational meeting)
for my community. After attending the
HIV workshop in Esteli last month with 4 of my community members, I decided to
plan a meeting for my own community to spread the knowledge. It was the first health charla I've done in
my site. Only about 20 people showed up
(even though I officially invited around 30 houses), but I’m glad they even
showed up at all. They were all people I
know, and most of them were actually the women from the current oven project
with some of their kids. I invited two
other health volunteers to come help me, and I talked with a doctor from the
ministry of health (MINSA) about coming to give his viewpoint on HIV in
Pantasma. Unfortunately the meeting started about an hour late like they always
do, seeing as no one showed up until then, and the doctor had to leave for
another meeting so he left early. He had
brought a lab tech with him and was going to offer the HIV rapid test after the
charla, which would have been great because people could have gotten their
results that day instead of having to go the health center. The charla went well over all though. I was pleased with the people that did show
up, and disappointed that some people I know well didn't show up even though
they lived only a few houses away. The
next day a neighbor boy showed up at my house who never has before, and told me
that some other people were interested in the topic of HIV and wanted to know
when I’d be doing another charla. So at
least the word’s getting out there and creating interest in the community. The next health activity I’m planning is a
health fair for the community to be held at the school on December 2nd. I want to have various booths of info
including HIV/AIDS, STI’s, dental care, nutrition, basic hygiene and hand
washing, and maybe some pregnancy and baby care info. Two other health volunteers have told me they
could come help me, and I plan to ask the education department of MINSA if they
can provide support as well.
 |
| Doing a condom demonstration on a wooden dildo with a health volunteer |
No comments:
Post a Comment