bolsas

It has been an interesting week.  I can't believe it's actually been a week since I last wrote.  Where does the time go? Jana and I have been in Pimampiro for over two weeks now, that is  crazy in itself.  I am currently sitting in the "central park" of Pimampiro, using the free wifi (it works on the computer!!). There is so much to say, and so many thing I want to talk about, but haven't had the time or energy.

Friday we went to Chuga, one of the paroquias surrounding Pimampiro.  They say that Chuga is in "el cielo," which means the sky, or heaven, depending on the translation.  Either way, it was beautiful there.  You can see so much and so far, it was incredible.  We visited the clinic and a school there, but only for a brief time.  We then did the hour hike to the highest part of Chuga, where there is a cemetery.  We went with Fernando (works for Paulito) and his brother.  The entire hike was really steep up this mountain, on a very narrow path.  We asked, and the community carries the coffins all the way up this hill to bury the bodies.  I was a little scared walking this on my own, I can't imagine carrying a casket all the way up.  The cemetery itself was not what I was picturing.  It was not groomed and well defined like the ones we are used to seeing.  There were random plots everywhere, and they were all overgrown.  There were also still mounds of dirt where the coffins were, not buried too deep I guess. The ride there and back was definitely interesting.  I rode on a "moto" (dirtbike?) with Ramiro's friend, and Jana rode with Ramiro.  Looking back, the poor guy probably felt like I was assaulting him.  I had on scrub pants, which was a mistake because I was sliding all over the place.  I was literally hanging on for dear life both on the way up and on the way down (side note, he told me to hold onto his backpack straps aka waist on the way up the mountain, and to hold on to the handles next to my seat on the way down the mountain. just in case you find yourself in a similar situation, you will know what to do.).

Saturday we went to Paragachi, the little town next to Pimampiro (where we had played soccer).  Ramiro took us so we could get some of our surveys filled out because they were having a community event.  Jana got eaten alive by these little mosques (nociums?). Her ankles were swollen for days.  We finally got a hot tip from the peace corps worker to soak them in Mantico (an herb), and that finally helped.  This was after our mom had rubbed various home remedies on them, including a tequila/tobacco mixture that made Jana sick later on that night.  After that experience we backed a small bag and headed to Quito for a fiesta.  There were eight people from the peace corps, and a handful of them were finishing there assignments.  So we tagged along, and got a feel for the night life in Quito.   A cultural learning experience of course.

I have a lot more to write about, but for now I will move on to the random things.
1. Eating lunch the other day, there were many flies around.  Mom gets out the fly swatter and starts going to town.  What she doesn't see is that our friend Sonia (47%), has a fly swatter as well.  We are all watching here as she rears back, and has her aim dead set on a fly pirtched on the block of cheese.  It's slow motion at this point. None of us can move fast enough.  We are yelling "NOOOOOO" as she kills the fly directly on top of the block of cheese.  Solution. Rinse block of cheese and put it in fridge.  I couldn't stop laughing as I was eating my cheese and bread later that night. Yum yum.

2. We had a conversation with one of the peace corps workers about promises here in Ecuador. There is a certain hierarchy of what promises mean here. A pact, is something you can't break. For instance, Jana and I made a pact to stick together after our Haiti plans fell through.  A friendly agreement is something you agree to do, but have not really committed.  Like general future plans. An Ecuadorian promise is something that is mostly likely not to happen. If the phrase "ya mismo" is involved, it is almost certain not to happen.

3.  Bolsas.  So in Peru, the word for bag is bolsa.  So we assumed that it was the same here. Wrong. Yesterday we asked our mom my she used the word "funda" for bag, instead of "bolsa." She laughed and told us it was a bad word. She explained to us that bolsa was the word used for "sack," and I think you can figure the rest our from there.  We now understand why people laugh at us sometimes...

Sharing Cups

We are officially nurses now.  I know, I got my license about two years ago, but I have not truly been a nurse until today.  Today Jana and I received our Mandiles, which are white nursing shirts/jackets with our names and Paul’s logo embroidered on them.  Under our names, say “enfermera,” which makes it official.  We wore them to the clinic today, which was fun.  Working at the clinic is always interesting.  It is always full of people by the time we get there at 8am (or a little later).  We call people in to the first exam room and get their height, weight, BP, temp, head circumference if they are babies, and so on.  Now depending on what doctor they are seeing and why, we only collect certain information and it has to go in a certain place in the mass of papers stuffed in their charts.  Yolanda, the nurse or helper woman, that works with us sometimes,  runs around like a mad woman all day, telling us random things, bringing 5 patients back at a time, only half finishing their information, and confusing us all around.   She does however help us with calling out their names, which is a tricky situation.  The handwriting is difficult to read, they all have four or more names, and a large majority of them are in Quitchua, the native language.  It is a small victory when someone stands up after a fumble out a name.  After we see everyone, we sit and fold gauze.  We do this for about two hours, while intermittently giving injections or doing other random tasks.  These injections are ridiculous.  In the states, we give about 3mL maximum per Intramuscular injection.  Here, 3mL is the minimum.  We 5ml of milky nastiness IM in the rear all the time.  I usually try to reconstitute them using less water, but it’s still bad.  They usually don’t complain though.  Also, everything here comes in ampules, which means you have to break the glass to get to the serum.  In the states, we use a filter needle to draw it out of the glass shards, then use a different needle to administer it.  Here, it’s all the same process.  No filter, draw up the med plus some glass, and give it with the same needle. It’s painful for me, I can’t even imagine what they’re feeling.  So this has been our morning for the past few days. 

In the afternoons we usually go to the office and work on everything else we are doing.  We are surveying the people in the area about general public health concerns, so there seems to be more and more to do each day.  We are also planning our return to Lima, and everything we are going to try to do there.  Plus all the daily things that come up.  It seems like there are always a million things to do.  Busy is good though.  I just can’t wait to sleep in this weekend. 

This is truly a small town.  Most things that are bad about small towns everywhere, apply here.   For instance, teen pregnancy is huge here.  We see kids at the clinic every day that are pregnant, as young as 14 years old.  This is also a very poor small town, so education is limited at best.  We do however give a lot of birth control injections, but we are giving them to 20 year olds with a two year old in tow.  It’s something I suppose.  When we were joy-riding with our “sister” and her friends last weekend, they told us that there was a huge stigma against young girls taking birth control.  Another problem: young kids getting drunk all the time.  Not sure what the age limit is for buying alcohol around here.  If there is one, I’m sure no one adheres to it.  So you see young boys walking around drunk on the weekends.  There doesn’t seem to be many drugs though which is surprising considering how close we are to Colombia. 

I am confused about a lot of things in this culture.  Let me begin, and please, correct me if I’m wrong, and help me out in any way you can.  Indigenous people lived here for a long time, then the almighty Europeans came took their land, gold, silver, possessions, everything they could (this is abbreviated).  The Spanish were here for a long time, so their culture grew and evolved with the indigenous people’s.  Eventually, the native people grew tired of being told what to do by the Spanish, and took their land and everything else back (I believe this took a while).   But, and here comes the part I’m a little confused about, after they were driven out, their culture was left as the dominating force.  Hence, Catholicism is the dominating religion, and so on.  So why didn’t the people want their roots back?  They drove the Spanish out, but kept all their ideals.  It must have been all about the Benjamins.  Here, it’s called plata.

I can’t think to write so much anymore.  We are in the office, which is a constant free-for-all.  People coming in and out, using this and that.  Carlota’s three year old wreaking havoc.  You name it.  Did I tell you about the guy we met in Pimampiro, Ecuador with Virginia plates? I may have.  Anyway, he is from a town near here, and drove the whole way from Virginia.  Took him three months.  Amazing.   He invited Jana and I to a wedding on Saturday, but I don’t think we’re going to go.  It’s in Quito and we have to do grunt work on Saturday.   But who knew you could just invite two people to a wedding?  It would be a fun thing to see though.  Tomorrow, we are going to work at a clinic about 30 minutes away up the mountain.  We are going on the back of two different “motos.” That means motorcycles.  Should be interesting.  Can’t wait to see the cliff’s of death up close.  Don’t worry mom, it’s safe.

47% incapacitated

So it`s hard to believe it`s been almost a week since I`ve written.  So much has happened in 6 short days. So on Thursday, Jana and I went to the clinic by ourselves because Paul was busy.  We got there at 8:30am, and went in to talk to the director, whom we had not met.  She barely gave us the time of day, spoke super fast, wouldn´t let us get a word in (we`re still a little slow but we can say what we need to say), and sent us to work with the nurses checking heights, weights, and blood pressures.  bleh.  It was frusterating, but we helped for about four hours, listened to a lecture on TB for two hours, then went home.  We also got the privlidge of folding gauze for about two of those four hours. The other nurses were making cotton balls during the TB lecture.  Thant`s right. Making cotton balls. So the next day, Paul went with us to talk to her and help us explain why we were here.  She at first tried to send us away and only talk to Paul, but Paulito did not let that happen.  So we talked to her about what our objectives are here, and all the ways we plan to and want to help the commmunity.  She started listening a little better when we told her all of the resoucres we could have for her.  She now understands that we will help in the clinic when we can, but we want to survey the general health needs in Pimampiro and its surrounding communities and help out with what we can. 

Friday afternoon we went to Ibarra with Paul.  We took with us a truckfull of goods, a little girl and her grandmother.  They were moving from their home in Pimampiro, which Paul told us was in horrible shape, to a brand new house in Ibarra, the "big" town about an hour away.  Angie (the little girl) was very excited and happy.  Their new home was safe, clean, and beautiful.  It is actually directly behind a small clinic in Ibarra that their family is somehow connected to.  We got some decals put on Paul`s truck and bought some nice white nursing shirts for Jana and I.  Yes, I shall wear white again. Appearance is a big deal here, so we need to look a little more professional than we have been looking.  We are getting our names embroidered and Paul`s Mountains of Hope logo embroidered as well.  Pretty spiffy indeed.  We then went to a coffee shop in Ibarra and met up with a girl named Sonia. Sonia has known Paul for a long time, and Paul has helped support her through her schooling.  She was always the top of her class and an otherwise gifted student.  Someone from the states met her, and is supporting her through college.  She wants to be an English teacher.  She rents a room in Ibarra for $30 a month, but goes home to see her family every weekend in Paragachi, a little town just outside the main town of Pimampiro.  She showed us her room and all of her things.  She showed us a photo album with pictures of her friends and family.  In this she has a picture of her and Paul, from what looks like to be quite some time ago, maybe 5 or 6 years.  This to me speaks wonders.  It was a wonderful day.  Drank a realy latte, had apple pie right out of the oven, and I rode home in the back of the truck, which going 60-70mph along the Pan American highway was quite an intense feeling.

Friday evening we went out with our new mom on a walk and went to her friend`s store and hung out and talked.  Saturday we finally slept in, it was marvelous.  We came to the office, which was blissfully empty, and worked all day.  We prepared a written letter to the director of the clinic, made documents to evaluate health conditions, and so on. Elena`s daughter came into to town from Quito and stayed the weeked with Elena.  We hung out with her and her friends for a typical Saturday night in Pimampiro.  Drove around the town about 30 times, finally stopped at the central plaza where there were several other pods of people hanging out, and drank beer out of one cup.  people share cups all day everyday.  for us to get our own cup (except at home with elena), is a speical occasion.  even the kids at the beach, we had two large bottles of water with two cups to share amongst the 14 of us. so the 8 of us sat in the park listening to music, sharing plastic cups of beer, watching others do the same thing all over the park.  it was fabulous. 

Sunday, big day.  We got up, scarfed a little breakfast, went immediately to Sue and Paul`s to help prepare for the large dinner event that night.  The man who has givin Paul and Sue money in the past was coming to visit Pimampiro for the first time, and they planned a dinner for 50 plus people in his honor. live music and all.  We stayed at Sue`s all day, chopping, cleaning, chopping, mashing, i made a slide show for the event, and trying to get everything ready.  Showered finally! and went to the dinner.  It was a very nice dinner, people from many different towns, some pretty far away in the mountains, came to welcome Ken, the guest of honor and his daughter Daphne.  Many people spoke and gave thanks to Ken, there was some dancing (yes i danced), and lots of food. We were all exhausted, but it was a good day. 

Monday we went with Paul, Sue, Ken, Daphne, Sue`s friends, Catherine, Carlota (the secretary), Blanca (the gardener, cook, everythinger), Fernando, Ramiro, up into the mountains to see some of the projects Paul and the others have been working on.  We packed a number of us in the back of the truck and headed up (arriba).  The drive up was amazing. Some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever witnessed.  The projects Paul and his team are working on are amazing.  They started bio-intensive organic beds on school property in very small remote communities.  The students have done a lot of the work under the guide of Paul`s team members, and are learning a lot in the process.  They have taken ideas they learned and started the same technique of gardening in their homes. It`s pretty incredible.  People are also learning how to eat and cook from Sue.  The area is so rich with an incredible amount of fruits and vegetables, but a lot of the people don`t know how to prepare them so they sell the good stuff and eat rice and potatoes.  Sue has lead several cooking classes to teach people how to use everything they are growing.  We went to several different communities during the day, then ended up in Paragachi in the late afternoon.  Here we saw several more gardens, and also a project in the soccer field.  They planted 1000 trees around the local soccer field to block the wind, keep the ball in (it`s kinda on a cliff), and for general prettiness.  We ended up playing the local kids in a friendly game of fútbol, the old people versus the young healthy, inshape, athletic kids.  We had numbers but they have skill and youth.  These kids I sweat could run faster than I could kick a ball accross a hard dirt ground. We did however have the old man from Colombia, who walked with a walking stick all day, but turned out to be a very energetic and mobile soccer playing.  We played for about an hour, maybe more.  Not really sure who won.  After Paul anounced for the 5th time, that the next goal wins, it began to get dark and we stopped. It was some good exercise and a lot of fun.

So much more to say, but it`s getting late. So a few random things.

This girl who works for Elena showed us her pictures in her wallet one day.  One was a regular ID card, but below it there was a card that declared her 47% incapacited by the country of Ecuador. She is clearly slow, and has some issues, but a percent!? I would hate to see mine. We asked later and they said that she gets discounts and other perks. At least there is something.

There are termites in Elena`s house. Every morning Jana wakes up with a pile of wood shaving on her legs. There are also three or so piles that show up in the bathroom. I chose the good bed apparently.  Last night we ate pizza with either spam-stuffed or hot-dog stuffed crust. delish

North we go

Where in the world am I?  Pimampiro, Ecuador.  Pimampiro is a small town, population about 5,000 in the northern part of Ecuador (about an hour and a half south of the Colombian boarder, 4 hours north of Quito, maybe somewhere in the Andes mountains?).  We got here around 7pm last night, after beginning our travels early Monday morning from Guayaquil.  I am convinced that very little in the country/continant is consistant.  For instance, evertime I go into a new bathroom I wonder which part about it will confuse me.  The shower in Lima, we had to set up the hot water heater to be on during certain times of the day, but the times were never right on the machine, nor did an hour really mean an hour.  Guayaquil; must flip switch above shower to make coils heat up to get hot water.  But you can barely have any water pressure because the more you turn the water on, the colder it gets.  Quito; electrical outlet in shower. WHY? Pimampiro; super crazy shower contraption that our hostess had to turn on from outside.  The shower head consists of a huge blue device with several hoses attatched to it and various exposed wires wrapped around it.  Then there are three knobs, the two that say hot/cold apparently do nothing, but when I touched the third, the lights got brigher in the bathroom and the shower went off.  I stand there frozen, not sure if I´ve blown all a fuse somewhere or if I was about to be electricuted when I hear "Elizabeth, do you have water?" (in spanish from the hostess). I of course don´t, so she had to come into the bathroom (mid-shower) and fix it for me.  By fix it I mean, return it to it´s state of dribble.  Jana and I are going to have shampoo in hour hair for a month.  But at least we´re clean.

So the time we spent in Guayaquil was very nice.  The hostel where we stayed is amazing.  We had everything we needed and then some.  While we were there we met with people from the Archdiasis who we were connected with through Javier (our Peruvian contact). They took us to several clinics around Guayaquil and one hospital in a poor area.  The hospital consisted of 20 beds, an ER, a birthing ward, a chlidrens ward, and on OR.  The OR was pretty nice; 4 surgical suites, it´s own autoclave type machine and so on.  They said they do about 25 planned surguries per month.  They have 4 nurses and 4 doctors on staff for the whole hospital.  Total. One nurse and one doctor on at a time.  But there was only one in-patient while we were there so I guess that´s not too bad.  Hopefully they don´t get too many influxes.  So the plan is to eventully get surgical teams in from the states and do a bunch of surgeries for something in particualar (such as cleft lip) over the span of a week or two. Also, there are living quaters on the top floor of the hospital, so we will eventually be living there.  Fun stuff.

So why am I in this small town in northern Ecuador? Well that´s a whole new story.  Thurday night at the hostel, we started talking to this guy who is from the states, but lives here is Pimampiro.  He described the town and the people, so Jana and I decided to come and check it out and live here for awhile.  The fellow´s name is Paul (of course!) (New Paul? NP?).  So here we are.  Our journey started on Monday morning, with a 10 hour bus ride from Guayaquil to Quito.  The bus was a new and interesting adventure.  It was a free-for-all of people constantly jumping on and off at seemingly random places along the Pan American highway.  The bus helper man was very efficient.  You had about 3 seconds to get yourself either on or off the bus before it took off again.  At times it seemed like it barely even stopped.  More like a run and jump to/from a moving vehicle type scenario.  So we got dropped in a ghetto in Quito, which is not at all where we wanted to be for obvious reasons.  We were trying to meet up with NP, who had flown in.  After several phone calls and us passing our phone to strangers trying to give/get directions for NP, he just got a cab and came to get us.  Our night in Quito was nice.  Had some lovely, delicious Indian food and got some much needed rest. I was unable to sleep at all on the bus, but stayed awake and enjoyed the incredible scenery. Jana on the other hand nods out at the drop of a pin anywhere she is, so she slept most of the way. That morning we went with NP to the historic disctrict so he could buy some fabric and thread and whatnot.  Quito is at a much higher elevation than we were used to, so by the time we left the city we were exhausted and sick.  We both slept on the way from Quito to Otavalo, which is about a 2 hour ride.  Otavalo has the largest outdoor market in the world every Saturday.  We saw the mini version of this on Tuesday and I bargined a few items.  We met up with NP´s friend Segundo, who is an indiginous man that lives near there and does verious organic agricultural projects in his community.  We then learned that NP´s name here is "Paulito," so no more NP.

Paulito and his friend Sue have several projects here in Pimampiro.  Sue is a teacher, and works with kids at an all girls school on various art projects. We visited her at the school today and everything is very beautiful that they create.  Paulito is working with the community here, and various communities up in the mountains on organic agriculture projects.  This town has recently been introducted to pesticides and farming chemicals that are ruining their soil and ability to produce crops in the future.  So he is working on educating the community on the reprocutions of using such products.

Today Jana and I went to the local clinic.  It consists of 5 or 6 doctors, and one nurse.  We will be volunteering there tomorrow, but hope to do more work in the more rural communities up in the mountains in the future.  We shall see.  The town is quite nice. Very small, quiet.  There is free wifi in the center park, but it doesn´t seem to work. No funciona. Very glad I bought that iPhone.  So we are using the internet cafe next to Paulito´s office, which costs 80 cents an hour.  We are staying with the woman named Elena.  She is 50 years old and has 3 kids.  Two of her kids live in the states, and one in Quito. Her mother died 8 months ago, and a few weeks after that her husband left her for another woman, so she gets lonely.  We found out today that we are going to be working with her ex-husband, who is a doctor at the clinic.  Gotta love small towns. Should be sufficiently awkward... The house is small, and in an L-shape.  She has to go through our room to get to her room, or go outside.  Our room is her kid´s old room and there is still all of their old stuff in it. We are constantly being stared at by dolls, and afriad to move suddenly for fear of upsetting one of the thousand trinkets in the room, but it is homey.  She is very nice and feeds us three meals a day.  All for $10 per day.  This may sound cheap, but it adds up pretty quickly.  We need to find a place of our own that is cheaper.  Paulito pays $70 per month for a nice, 2 bedroom apartment.  It would be ideal to find something like that.  Ok, my mind is getting fuzzy and we need to go rejoin the rest of the world.  More updates to come. Miss you all.

A series of uncomfortable chairs

This entry is coming to you from Guayaquil, Ecuador.  Jana and I made it here in one peice, but with some dents here and there.  Currently, my feet are swollen (that's right, 1+ pitting edema KANKLES!), I can't breath out of my nose, and my bowls are still regretting the Chifa I ate on the bus.  Have I told you about Chifa?  It's the South American version of chinese food.  Our first experience with it was in Lima, at an actual restaurant.  I'm not sure what it was I actually ate, rice, of course, chicken surprise, and a lot of random "vegetables."  This was a decent, not necessarily a regretable decision, but one we would probably not make again.  So to our delight, Chifa was the first meal we ate to begin our 28 bus ride from Lima.  The bus itself was pretty nice, much nicer than I was expecting.  Seats that reclined pretty far back, TVs, and a working bathroom.  The bathroom was a somewhat traumatic experience on my first attempt.  We we on the top "story" of the double decker bus, which motion wise was like being on a small row boat in the middle of the ocean.  The door to the bathroom was seemingly vaccum sealed shut, making it very difficult to open, especially when you're already struggling to stand up (I'm getting a little motion sick just writing this).  So once I finally made it in there and slammed the door shut, the real challange began.  I'm sure you can envision the struggle.  Standing on a ocean rowboat, trying to do the things one needs to do to accomplish using the potty.  Not to mention the spring-loaded toilet seat mechanism, with which i am now saavy. So other than that, we watched a ton of movies in spanish with english subtitles (it's interesting seeing russel crowe speak in a high pitched spanish voice).  I also had a mild panic attack during the night because the people infront of me had their seats so far back I couldn't move my legs.  I was relieved after I moved seats and took two dramamine. 
 So Thursday and Friday.  Thursday was kind of a bust.  We were supposed to be back at the school doing more measuring and lice-checking.  But we got there late, the kids got out of school early that day, and we had no place to work.  So we only saw about 90 kids, and spent the rest of the day running errands with Javier.  Kinda frusterating, but that'll happen in third-world countries.  Friday was a much better day.  We had our work space back and saw a lot of kids.  The assistant director of the school was helping us as well, which made things run a lot more smoothly.  We never figured out an exact percentage, but roughly20-30% of the kids we saw had lice.  Some of the infestations were so bad we didn't even have to touch their hair to see them.  There were just little bugs scampering all around their heads.  You'd think you would notice something like that, but I guess not.  We did not actually de-lice any of the school kids, there were way too many.  We recorded their names and they will hand out intruction sheets we made on how to treat it to the kids parents soon. 
Friday night we went out for the first time. I got my first experience of Latin American clubs.  Very loud music, lots of flashing lights, lots of people, and lots of dancing.  It was fun, but I would really just rather sit at a bar and talk to my friends, or not go out at all.  It was a good expereince though. 
Saturday was my favorite day of all.  We took ten kids from the orphage to the beach.  The beach is not a cheap place, so in order to be able to pay for it all, we bought two loaves of bread, half a kilo of ham (not a whole kilo, because 1kg=2.2 pounds, which we realized we had gotten backwards when we saw the deli man heaping ham onto the scale in massive amounts), oreos that were on sale, and bananas/water from the local market because it's cheaper than the grocery store.  So Saturday morning, Jana, Mayra, and I took the bus to San Genaro and picked up the 10 kids.  We got cabs (because there were so many of us and the beach is about 30 minutes away) and went on our way.  They were so cute and excited with their little backpacks and flip flops and singing excited little faces. The beach itself was great.  The waves were ginormo.  The biggest I have ever seen.  You couldn't get within 100 feet of where they were breaking they were so big.  But the kids had fun going out as far as they could and then riding them in.  The twin boys that are always crazy and all over everything at the orphanage were hilarious.  They were terrified of the waves.  They would never stand with their back to the ocean and they would barely let the water go above their ankles.  It was pretty cute.  So we played with them, fed them, played some more and had them home after about 5 hours.  They were exhausted and happy.  Good day.  And we did the whole thing for about $40.  Not too shabby. 
Saturday night and sunday we spent typing up all the information we had gathered over the past 3 days.  This took forever and we barely finished in time to pack and catch the bus.  But we did it, thankfully.  So now, I am relaxing and enjoying the beauty of this new place.  We are going to look at a couple houses tomorrow, and hopefully pick a place to stay by this weekend.  Wish us luck...

Laughs and Frustrations

I have a lot to catch up on.  I had a great weekend.  Saturday Jana and I slept in until 9:00, which was really nice.  We can`t sleep in too late here because the nuns prepare 'breakfast' for us. breakfast here is bread, butter, sometimes cheese, some type of jam (we pray for strawberry every morning, but it`s usually orange with a rediculous amount of rhine (sp?) in it and it`s too much for me. we got scrambled eggs (!) one day which was amazing.  I thought it was some type of granola though and was pretty confused for awhile. we also get cornflakes (rarely bowls) with the flavor of the day liquid yogurt to put on it, OR tan milk which i have yet to try.  i drink instant coffee every morning, but i`m not convinced it has caffeine in it.  i am dying for a normal cup of good coffee.  maybe in ecuador.  After our bread, oh and i forgot to mention fresh squeezed OJ, we took our 7 kilos worth of laundry to the lavanderia. We had one trash bag full of clothes. Jana had it slung over her shoulder, and i was walking behind/next to her supporting some of the weight.  As if that wasn`t sightly enough, we were trying to cross this huge confusing intersection with 20 islands to hop to and from and one way traffic and roundabouts, when we got soaked by a friendly car with someone carrying a super soaker.  terrific. well we finally made it, after asking several people where to go and being harassed by some guy along the way.  (side note, she said our laundry would be ready the next day. next day, they are closed. day after, 4:30 pm, we are there, but alas, our clothes will not be ready for another 30 minutes...pains!)  anyway, i bought some sunscreen (blockedor) off the street, and we headed on our way.

we got to the beach around 1100am and it was PACKED.  we had to pay 15 soles ($6) for two chairs and an umbrella, which was our only option as the entire shoreline was filled with people.  We sat and baked until about 4:00 when we got so hungry we had to go back.  During this time, we saw people eating the most rediculous things.  The fmaily next to us let their little boy eat non-stop sugar/fat foods the entire day.  We did not buy a meal there because it was so expensive. We saw another family drop a good $50 on food to feed 3 adults and 2 kids. CRAZY. There were people trying to sell us all sorts of things all day.  Food, drinks, jewlery, candy, ice cream, you name it.  I want to hand out free food pyramids next week. People hardly ever drink water here either.  Everywhere we go and every meal we eat is accompanied by some sort of cola or sweet drink.  No wonder we see so many kids with cavaties.

Sunday: relax, homework, relax, sleep, fresh delicious food in a caboose restaurant, sleep. beautiful

On monday we were supposed to take two girls from the orphanage to this school called Cerrito Azul.  Cerrito Azul is a school for autistic children who cannot function in the regular school system.  One girl did not show up, so we just took one, Luciana, 8 years old. We noticed Luciana looked/acted a little different during our initial screenings last week.  We found out during the day and spending time with her that she is mentally fine, and does well in the regular school system.  We got a full tour of Cerrito Azul and talked to the director there for a long time.  They takes kids from 2 years to 18 years (i think that`s the max).  They teach them everyday things such as how to prepare food, 'cook,' basic reading and writing, and other basic survival skills. Unfortunately, they are on vacation right now, so we did not get to meet any of the children.  The director seemed like a very intelligent woman who was able to make a place for people with speical needs feel safe and able to learn.  The building is nothing special.  There are several rooms, divided by age group, and small kitchen, and a very small outside area that is hardly enough to play in, if enough space at all.  We ended up sending another mom and her son there for evaluation.  Her son is 9 years old, and seems to be pretty high functioning.  She was brought to tears when she was telling us how he cannot keep up in regular school and how he is not developing as he should be.  Today we found out that after talking with the director at Cerrito, she is going to home school him under the guidence of Cerrito.  He seems to be too high functioning for Cerrito Azul, so that seemed like a good option.  It is unfortunate that there is not a better alternative for him.  In the states, he would be able to remain in public school, while receiving extra help.  He attends the public school in San Genaro, where they are hardly enough teachers to go around, and the kids only attend for 5 hours a day, in two sessions because they are so over populated.

Today we were in the San Genaro school checking the kids for the same old lice, flat foot, scabies, cavaties, height, and weight.  It is very frustering at times trying to get organized.  Jana and I have concluded that it`s not a language barrier, it`s communiucation issues. For whatever reason, getting organized around here can be like pulling teeth (which some of these kids need very badly).  But we got through about 200 today, and we are going back tomorrow and Friday. Ok, going to go look at the pretty sunset!

Friday!

2/25/11
jana finally got the other computer to work in the 'library,' so we are actually both on the computer right now crazy!  appearantly all we had to do was press 'accpetar' when it asked for a password. who knew? we have had another busy two days. yesterday we went to the montessori school and screened kids for lice and whatnot. we saw 30 some kids, and none of them had lice! woo. but then about 45 minutes after we were done, six more randomly showed up, and 4 of them had lice. naturally. and they started playing everywhere and messing with everything, so that should be good. we saw one girl that has some sort of syndrome, undiagnosed. jana looked it up and thinks she has an idea, but we are going to see her again next week and take a better look. maybe take her for a chest xray, which apparently only costs 15 soles, which is about 6 US dollars. not bad at all. another weird thing, you don`t need a prescription for anything here. not used to that...you just walk into the pharmacy, tell them what you need, antibiotics, narcotics, blood pressure meds, and they give it to you. muy interesante.

today we went to the shantiest part of the shantytown. it`s called san genaro 2 (it`s up the hill from san genaro, which is where we have been working). we saw adults and kids in a chapel there. it was very hot and dusty.  we treated one woman for pneumonia, one with scabies, and saw to all the other random complaints people had. mostly told them to take ibuprofen. works like a charm.

it`s interesting talking to javier about the problems here. he is very focused on education, which is a major part of what we are doing. he says that if you build something, someone can take that from you. but if you learn something, that cannot be taken away. it`s a very good point.

i`m pretty much tired all the time, actually took a nap yesterday afternoon. yesterday we had 'mexican' food, which was a big taco with very pink pork, chicken, fried egg, white sauce something, green sauce something else, and black beans. yummy. this evening we are going to walk to barranco, the section of the city to our north and get some food and walk around. there`s a park-type area and vendors and other things. FRIDAY!! we get two days off, very excited. but we have a lot of homework to do, so we can`t get too crazy. going to try to upload some pics to facebook. wish me luck.

Lice, Lice, and màs pediculosis!

2/23/11
busy day again. yesterday we ended the day at the school where they are teaching english to teachers in peru. it was a lot of fun. jana and i introduced ourselves to all of the classes. they ALL asked 1.were we married? 2. do we want peruvian boyfriends? 3. how old we were. funny. then one was pretty insistant on getting our phone numbers...which luckily we don´t really have a phone number at this point.  but they were all very eager to learn and very nice.

today we went back to the orphanage and saw about 25 more kids (not really sure where they all came from). it seemed like everytime we turned around there were more waiting on the bench for their turn. they were all nervous and cute, but warmed up to us pretty quickly. 11 of them had lice, so we are officialy the de-lousing experts of the area. if jana and i come out of this lice-free, it will be a miracle (did i spell that right courtney?) we have the 'afernoon' off today so we are going downtown with javier and mayra to see some things. not really sure what. AND we are eating dinner outside the convent, so that should be fun too. who knows, i may even have a cerveza! probably not though. my new father figure, javier, may disapprove.

while it is sad seeing the kids that come in, it is also some what encouraging. jana and i were just talking about how different it is here than it was in haiti. she said it best, 'in haiti they brush their teeth because it makes their mouth feel good. in peru they brush their teeth because they know it will stop their teeth from falling out tomorrow.' (side note, i can´t figure out how to make double quote marks on this key board. if anyone has any insight to this, please let me know). but it´s true. while the situation here is not the best, there is at least a hope for the future. we found out today that the orphange gets enough food at the beginning of the month to last for 15 days (from the government), then they have to rely on outside sources. the head of the house is an incredible woman. you can tell she truely loves and cares about those kids, and has a good head on her shoulders. she listend very carfully about what jana and i have to say, and makes sure that she does what she needs to for the kids that need help. this is no easy task when you are taking care of 12 kids full time, and 15 plus during the day. they kids that live with her are very clean, well fed, and happy. there is hardly any space in the orphange. every time we go in there it looks different because they are constantly having to rearrange everything. one of our long term goals is to find a better space for them in the same area.  also to find a way that they can get food everyday of the month, not just the first 15. anyway, time to go wash the lice off then head downtown. woo hoo!

First Verse

2/21/11
Hello everyone.  Quick catch up to speed. Jana and i arrived in Lima, Peru on Sunday, February 20.  We are working with Javier and Mayra Bazan, on several different projects around Lima.  it´s been a busy last two days.  jana and i have major brain pains by the end of the day from trying to speak and understand spanish all day.  but it´s been good. yesterday we drove around and saw all of the places that solidarity in action works with, and where we will be working.  we started the day with circle time with hermana silvia and 5 girls from the university that also want to help volunteer. they decorated a bulliton board with our names, welcoming us. it was very nice. then we had circle time and we all introduced ourselves and what we do and so on... we then went to a primary school where we will be screening 900 kids for lice, flat foot, and whatever else next week. we will be there three days to get them all done. should be a challenge.  we then had some more cirlce time and a decorated white board (with our names on it of course) with some of the teachers and the principal of the school. everyone was very nice. we then went to an orphanage (kind of. there are 12 kids that live there, and more that are just dropped off during the day). it was there that i proceded to introduce myself as 'my name is liz. i am sick' instead of 'my name is liz and i am a nurse.' hehe. (the words are very similar) the 5 year old crowd made me more nervous than all the introductions we had already done that day. oh well. they forgave me. then we proceded on further into the town san genaro, which is one of lima´s largest slums (this is where we had been all day). we went up onto the mountainside, which the houses became poorer and poorer the further up we went. we finally had to climb in the sand to make it to a church where we will be screening adults for their blood pressure and 'wounds' and who knows what else later on this week. LAST we went to a montessori school where we will be screening for more lice i think. my brain hurt pretty bad at this point. we may be teaching english there. more to come on that.

so today we went back to the orphanage and got heights and weights, checked for flat foot, and screened for lice, scabies, and flouride deficiencies on 30 or so kids, ages ranging from 17 months to 9 years.  this whole process took about 3 hours. lots of screaming babies and wiggling toddlers. but very cute. happy to report that only about 10 kids had lice, one had scabies pretty badly, and a few other random ailments.  ok, more to come. off to an english class for adults.