Portawawa IceBreaker ~ Aco Artisan Stoves ~ A Pregnancy Lesson ~ Rural Nursing Rotations ~ Lesson Planning
Day 1:
This Monday was a planning day. We spent the morning getting ready for Portawawa. We decided to have fruit and a cucumber cream cheese dip this week. We also went around town trying to find some organic almond oil that Manouche was excited to use for an all-natural cream that she wanted to make for the women’s stretch marks. Well… it was fairly easy to find the fruits and vegetables, but the oil was a different story. I think we went to 6 stores before we gave up searching for the day. When we got back to the office, we prepared all the snacks for the next day.
That afternoon we stayed home and worked on our report for the home visits we had done the week before. We found that many of the moms were worried about the hygiene of the children, their behavior problems and lack of academic achievement. We were hoping to find habits that we could easily change like brushing teeth, washing hands, recycling, but instead we found that the actual needs of the site were more abstract concepts that would be harder to quantify and combat. From the report we are hoping to fine tune our plan for the overall curriculum and individual lessons. Helen and I started researching techniques for behavior management and how to get children to focus on academics. This will certainly be an ongoing process, but we hope that our efforts will have an overall positive outcome on the yearlong program.
Day 2:
On Tuesday, we went to the Portawawa group and were pleasantly surprised to find six new women at the session. This was a big improvement from last week’s one new person. We started with a game where we were to introduce someone else in the group but also sneak in a lie. Then the rest of the women had to figure out which statement in the introduction was the lie. Helen and I got to introduce one of the women’s teenage daughter who had joined her in the class. After the introductions Marcia and Manouche introduced the
program.
After the introduction, we had set up a game with a ball of paper with questions wrapped up like an onion inside. These questions were about the woman's individual pregnancy and knowledge about pregnancy in general. Helen was the buzzer and we passed the ball around like a hot potato. The last question in the ball was “what do you hope to learn from the group?” The women responded that they would like to learn about nutrition and how to make sure they stay healthy during their pregnancy. I’m excited to watch the growth of these women over the next few weeks.
Day 3:
On Wednesday, we spent the morning planning again. In the afternoon we headed to Aco. Manouche brought along two friends of hers that are going to help the previous members of the Cuy Project build artisan stoves. They women had successfully completed the program and were dedicated to coming to almost every meeting, so as a thank you for their dedication FIMRC Huancayo decided to help the families build a stove. It was fascinating to see how many of the women in the community didn’t even have ovens in their home. The artisan stoves are very helpful for families who are not able to afford the price of gas, as they only require firewood to heat, they can also be used to heat the rooms surrounding the stove which can be useful during the rainy season when it is a little chillier than the rest of the year. Also, Manouche was hoping that the stoves could turn into a source of income from the families, they could make breads and other products and sell them.
One house in particular stuck with me. We had knocked on the door earlier, but no one was home, so we came back after visiting the other houses and two little boys came out saying their parents were down the street. So, we drove Juan David and his brother down the street. They were just excited to just drive in the car with us. When we got out, we opened the front gate to their home. But to me it didn’t look like a home. Right in front of us as we walked in were the chickens and baby chicks were pecking at their dinner. Across from the chicks was a small room with an open window in which the family thought would be a good place for a stove, the room was small, and filled with potatoes that had been there for a while because they were all spudding. As the two men evaluated the space Juan David and his brother walked toward Helen and I and wanted to show us their little piglets.
In the room next to the one that the stove would potentially go in, there were four little piglets. Most of them where black and white spotted and one was a little orange color. I asked the boys which one was their favorite and they said that the orange one, they shared that one and their sister got all the other ones.
While we were talking everyone else shifted their attention to another room where there was already a stove constructed but wasn’t working correctly or was too small to be functional for the family. The artisans did their measurements and promised to come back to fix the stove. As we were getting ready to leave I wondered what conditions Juan David and his siblings lived in right now, when the house that they are constructing is quite rough itself.
Manouche was talking to their mom who stated that she was so happy that FIMRC is continuing to work with the community even now that the anemia project from last year has concluded and all their children are out of anemia. Listening to that made me feel proud to be a part of this organization. Manouche and Yuliana realized the need for a women’s encouragement and empowerment group while working with these women on anemia education, so now they are moving forward to keep these women engaged and giving them the skills to be powerful, courageous and strong women that their children can watch and emulate! It’s beautiful! I’m really excited to be a small part of that!
While we were evaluating homes for the stoves (Helen and I were basically along for the ride, but anyway...) Pablo and Lucero were administering a baseline exam for the women who had signed up to be in the new anemia class. There were 26 parents signed up but only 6 women came to the initial meeting. It kind of reminded me of the Portawawa group. Manouche said that that’s expected. There was aparently the same issue last year, the nine moms who stuck with the program are the ones who are going to be able to receive the stoves in their homes and will continue with the women’s empowerment group. I hope that more women will join the class... fingers crossed!
Day 4:
On Thursday morning we headed to Huacan district for a health campaign, we had come here during Week One, so we knew what to expect and felt pretty prepared for it. I was taking blood pressures, while Helen was doing glucose and HIV/Syphilis rapid testing. One thing that I wasn't expecting were the questions about health in general that I hadn't gotten a few weeks back. An older woman asked me about a pain that she was having right under her right costal margin, she told me that she had a liver cyst but that the pain has been getting worse and she is having trouble breathing. I felt terrible telling her that I unfortunately don't know what could be causing her pain. I asked a few questions if the pain was worse when she ate, or at night, or when she took deep breaths, but I couldn't give her any advice on why she was having the pain or what she could do to help it because I truly didn't know. Although I was unable to give her any answers, and I didn't feel like I helped at all, she still thanked me much more than I deserved.
Throughout the week this week, we were able to plan a lesson regarding pregnancy for the girls at Amanecer, the young mother shelter that we visit weekly. We took a lot of time planning throughout week, trying to make our Spanish language skills at least appear like we knew what we were saying. I’m so proud of how far Helen has come along in her Spanish! She was so worried about teaching the lesson this week, but she really challenged herself and I’m so proud she did (especially since she is going to be an Obstetrician)!
When we arrived we found out that one young lady had left the home and a new girl had come with her newborn son, however she probably wouldn’t be here long because she had a pretty stable living situation. There were just a few things the judge wanted to get straightened out before letting her go back to her family. I thought it was interesting to see, how different she was from the other ladies that were there, she was a little older and she seemed to have a lot more experiences and a prominent sense of responsibility. Which was different from the other girls at the home.
We started the lesson off by reviewing what we had done over the last week few weeks (female reproductive cycle and organ systems), then we did an activity where the girls had to draw out a human body and important parts in pregnancy. We gave them a list and I’m fairly sure half of the ladies had no idea where the organs went, but the other half not only knew the structures but also what they did. I was very impressed by their knowledge at 13-16 years old I don't think I would have known them myself! We probably spent 30 minutes just on the drawing then another 20 minutes or so explaining what the function of each structure was and why it was important during pregnancy. You can check out their drawings below, aren't they cute?
After the activity Helen and I each had one section of information regarding pregnancy: conception, fetal development, pregnancy tests, and how to have a healthy pregnancy. Marcia, the nurse who usually leads the program, had a great poster about fetal development that was divided up by months, so we had the ladies take turns reading. As we were wrapping up, we gave the ladies a 5-question quiz about pregnancy, we were trying to get them to pick which of the answers was false. This was a little harder for them than we expected. I was slightly disappointed feeling like maybe they really hadn’t learned much from our lesson as I would have hoped. Manouche and Marcia reassured us that the lesson was good, and that we did a good job reading the ladies, to adjust what we were describing to make it more at there level. I really hope they got something out of it.
Day 5:
On Friday we had the opportunity to go to a rural health clinic, where we helped the nurse there do developmental checks and give vaccines to children. We administered Vitamin A in a gel pack to two children. We had a little girl who did not let us touch her. She was sitting in her mom’s lap the entire time, we were able to ask her questions and play with her from there but when it came time to weigh her or measure her height the only way we were able to do it was to weight her mom alone and then her mom holding her daughter. I actually don’t think we were able to get her height at all. Our last patient of the morning was a 13-day old baby boy. He wasn’t gaining weight appropriately, so his mom was advised to make sure that she was getting enough nutrition herself to ensure that her son would also be getting everything he needed through her milk. She stated that it was hard for her to eat a few days after her delivery but would try her best to eat more. As we examined the baby it reminded me of all the newborn exams I had done while on rotations in pediatrics, he was teeny tiny!
In the afternoon we spent time planning for next week and continuing to research and explore the needs of the home visits at El Rosario. Helen and I were reviewing discipline and academic achievement techniques and laughing at the fact that our parents rarely did what all the researchers suggest and yet we turned out alright, but then again, we had stable households with both a mother and a father, something that these kids have lost. I was challenged to remember some of the techniques we had used at Royal Family Kids Camp when I worked with children in the foster care system. The mental development of these children is so unique and so different than that of children who have not experienced abuse, neglect and pain. I think that sometimes it’s easy to forget the background behind these children’s lives when we are faced with a problem like discipline or academic achievement but if we are able to address the underlying issues that we may not think has a role in the current behavior then we are truly able to help the child’s overall wellbeing and allow them to demonstrate more responsible and successful actions. I have a very limited knowledge in these matters but hope that I am able to learn more and develop a deeper understanding of the needs and desires or these children so that we can create a program that will help them flourish into the children that they deserve to become despite the circumstances that have led them to El Rosario. This may be difficult to do in the remaining 4 weeks we have but I think we could potentially continue developing the program while we are back home as well.
Overall this week we spent planning and getting ready for a lot of interesting lessons and projects. I’m excited to play a part in it and watch as these things develop over our time here. I also hope that everyone involved also feels like we have done something impactful!
Sorry that the blog came so late, we've been quite busy! Hope you enjoyed the read!
Chau,
~Maria