Hello friends! So that last few weeks or so I've started making some headway on projects in my community of Arosemena Tola. The first three months are meant to be more or less slow as we develop our projects and figure out exactly what our role in the community is, but nonetheless I've been trying to be productive!
These last few weeks I was able to give multiple charlas (talks) to people in the outlying communities when I go with my coworkers to do home visits to people with disabilities. Visits are very casual, and I just bring with me big papelotes (poster paper) that I give my presentations on. The other week I gave charlas to kids and their families on Hand Hygiene and its importance in prevention of diarrheal/GI diseases. We practiced washing hands together and singing the "Happy Birthday Song" two times through. My second charla I gave regarded dental hygiene and the importance of preventing cavities/dental caries by brushing teeth. Some of these topics seem very simple, but for an example, I visited one 10 year old boy and his 5 year old brother who told me that they have never brushed their teeth. Something that would seem part of daily life to many of us, these kids aren't always educated on. So hoping that by the next visit the kiddos will have tooth brushes and be brushing their teeth!
In the meantime, I have been working on my Community Assessment Tool (CAT) to help determine the main needs of the community and outlying communities. I live in the urban center (1,000 people) in the whole "canton" of Arosemena Tola, thus there are another 23 outlying communities where outreach is needed. Additionally, I was working on preparation of a presentation that I would give to local community school leaders. One of my counterparts reviewed with me the importance of sexual education and life skill programs in the schools of Arosemena Tola. Thus, we organized a meeting at the GAD/Municipal Building that I work at and had 6 communities come to listen to my presentation on a program I'm wanting to implement called Cómo Planear Mi Vida. This program includes 10 sessions on different life skills and sexual education themes such as healthy relationships, self-esteem, puberty, STI's, HIV/AIDS, etc. In many of the communities here in Ecuador, there is a large population of adolescent pregnancy and domestic violence, thus we are working to change that little by little! We set up with the schools to come visit their communities next week and discuss an agenda with them of when we could start implementing this program, which is very exciting!
*Update! Never got around to posting this, so here I am sometime later and am happy to say that we succesfully signed agreements with the 6 schools to start our Como Planear Mi Vida program! This week we gave our first charla in the school in El Capricho, and officially got the Mayors approval to have our own taxi to transport us to the outlying communities for our project! So happy to have our local government supporting our projects!
Regarding life outside of work, I'm continuing to integrate into my community and partake in fun stuff! A few weekends ago I participated in a crazy 15Km race which 6km of that included hiking a mountain in the jungle here. The first part was running on pavement, second was the mountain, and last was another chunk of running on road. It was about 85 degrees that day and not a cloud in the sky. And no, I did not train :)....but one way or another I finished and it was an experience to say the least. Didn't necessarily run on the mountain part since I didn't want to fall and hurt myself, but just running on the road was killer in itself. Reminded me of the Mount Marathon race in Seward, Alaska over the 4th of July! The race was done in honor of ending the month of the Arts, and there were events in the afternoon in the community of Santa Rosa with local indigenous dances and music!
The last two weeks, my youngest host brother was visiting since he starts college in end of September in Quito. We went and visited a cool river spot called Laguna Yani. It's been cool to spend time with my whole family. This last weekend we had a big cookout for my host aunt's birthday. I also randomly got on a zucchini bread kick here in Ecuador (I supposed I got jealous of my mom in Alaska making the bread so I thought, why can't I make zucchini bread here?!), so I went to my coworkers house and had a little cultural exchange her and her kids how to make zucchini bread. Hardly anyone in the Oriente knows what zucchini even is since it doesn't grow in this region, mainly produced in the Sierra region. But, everyone loved the bread! Hoping to once a month do something like this, looking forward to making pumpkin bread/muffins next month with her, and hoping to do some pumpkin carving too, which would be fun for her kids! She has family in the Sierra region, so has the hookup with all the veggies!
All in all, continuing to work on developing work here in my site and enjoying the off time as well with my crazy fun host mom and brothers, really starting to feel like home here! Went and visited a bigger city last week with some of the other volunteers and realized how much I really love living in a small town! :)
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