It's November!

I accidentally skipped an October update, I hope you'll forgive me. Fortunately, while I wasn't writing on the blog, a lot of awesome stuff was happening in October, so here's the rundown...

I went to COLOMBIA!!! It was super cool and a perfectly timed vacation. I didn't even realize how much I needed to get away from work and life here. When I got back to Ecuador, I felt totally refreshed and ready to jump back in. Vacation time is NOT overrated people.

I started the trip in Bogota where I met up with a friend from home. I never ever ever would have considered visiting Colombia alone, although now I don't think its quite the crisis situation that we all imagine. All developing countries have their safety issues and as long as you're not straying too far off the beaten path, its safe.

After Bogota we visited Villa de Leyva and San Gil.

"Pozo azul" or a little blue pond outside of Villa de Leyva.

Riverside botanical park in San Gil.

Then we headed up to the Carribean coast and an absolutely beautiful national park on the beach called Tayrona. To get to the beach, you have to hike a ways through the jungle (like an hour or more) which was obviously super hot and sticky.

And once you get to the beach? You can rent out a cabaña for $80 (no thanks), camp (no tent) or sleep in hammocks. No joke, the hammock was the best sleep I got the whole trip. All 10 hours of it.

After that we went to Cartagena, which is as awesome as it looks in the movies. Despite the oppressive heat and humidity, I really enjoyed the city and the many channels of American crime shows in English on the tv in our room. Don't judge me!

Colorful colonial buildings in Cartagena.

The last full day was spent at a mud volcano, which is pretty much exactly how it sounds. You climb to the top of a little hill and then jump into a mud pit with about 50 other strangers. It you want to bond with someone or many strangers, go to the mud volcano. It was super super weird and amazing.

Andrew and I and our 50 closest stranger-friends enjoy the mud.

At the end of the month I made a trip down to the jungle in the province of Zamora-Chichinpe. It was my first time that far south, and I kept having to remind myself that I was still in Ecuador because it was  so different from my chilly little mountain oasis.

The jungle is really awesome! We stayed at some cabañas about 4 hours from the capital of the province in the parrish of Nangaritza.


We played in waterfalls...


and took a river boat ride...


We swung on every vine that looked strong enough to hold a person...


and entered the Labrinyth of a Thousand Illusions... which is made up of ancient coral covered in jungle. The coral apparently comes from the period of time when Ecuador was ocean, but now sits in the middle of the Amazon. We were also warned to not stray off the path because there are landmines still buried around from the 1995 border war with Peru. Awesome.


After the labrinyth we were treated to this lovely view...


All in all, it was a great trip and I can't wait to visit again. It was only my second time visiting the "Oriente" as they call it here, but I really love it. I plan on using my extra vacation days to go play for more time before I leave next summer!

As far as my normal life is going... things are pretty good at the moment! I'm working a lot more in the schools doing health classes which is fun. I'm also getting involved with the founding of a women's jewelry collective in Chalaguan, which has a lot of potential, but we'll see what happens. Unlike the dry latrine project, this idea came from the women themselves so I'm hoping that they will be more motivated to see it through. Next week we're going to meet with them to figure out the logistics and how they should organize themselves. I've made my logistical and possibly financial support contingent on my getting to do a series of child development classes with them in January and February, so hopefully we can get a lot of stuff done at once! An adult educator with the Ministry of Education (Cecilia) is the one heading up the effort, and so far we work pretty well together, so I think this project might actually happen! Keep your fingers crossed.

I'm also heading home for a visit December 17 through the 28!! I really can't wait. I really do love Ecuador now, a love which took a full year and a half to blossom, but I'm extremely excited to see family and friends and eat cheese and watch TV. I can't tell you how much I've missed delicious cheeses.

Ok thanks for reading! Hope this finds you well. I'll leave you with this picture of me and some of the basketball team at the awards ceremony a couple weeks ago...

September update

Hello friends! Happy Fall! Here in the Sierra of Ecuador, we're officially entering winter soon, which means many, many months of rain and fog. The rain is much needed because everything has pretty much dried up, including some of the streams used for water. By the time January rolls around, I'm sure I'll be sick of the constant rain, but for now its necessary.

The big news of the past month is that I moved to Tixan! I said adios to Alausi and paying too much for rent, and moved to the small town of Tixan (population 700ish) to complete my service. I was pretty nervous about it before, but after a few weeks here it feels like the right decision. Its significantly colder than Alausi, mostly because its about 200 meters higher in altitude (2940 meters) but its nothing a couple sweatshirts and a few blankets can't handle.

I'm living in one of my co-worker's houses, but the family primarily lives in Riobamba, so they're not around much, just the occasional weekend. It turns out that this is the perfect situation because I get a good amount of alone time yet the nurse stays at the house occasionally during the week, so we'll make dinner and chat a bit in the evening. She's also pretty health conscious and open to trying new foods, which means we eat lots of veggies, which I love. Fiber is not underrated people, particularly when you have amoebas.

Work is going well and I've changed up my schedule quite a bit to keep myself busier. I'll be working at both the elementary schools in Tixan this year doing health classes. At one school I'll work with each grade once a month, and at the other I'll work with the kids twice a month for a shorter time. Its incredibly tiring to teach 90 minute classes with 35 kids, but I enjoy it. At the end of the day I feel like I actually accomplished something. The curriculum for my health classes is completely open as well, so I plan on doing a bit of everything, from hygiene to nutrition to environment stuff. This month I did a handwashing class with everyone, switching up the activities a bit depending on the age, and they were (almost) all successful. I'll also be starting sexual and reproductive health classes with 8th-10th graders and I'm really looking forward to that. I think it's going to be good.

This Friday begins my second annual "inter-area" sports tournament. If you'll think back to last year for a moment, this is the tournament for which I was "madrina", aka I was in a beauty contest. Luckily, I'm not doing it again this year. All I have to do is show up in my uniform and play. The tournament is spread out over three weekends and we're going to be competing in basketball, indoor soccer and Ecua-volley. I refuse to play Ecua-volley, but if they need me for soccer, I'll be happy to run around for awhile. Obviously I'll be playing basketball, and I suspect that we'll do well this year.

Unfortunately I'll have to miss the second weekend of the tournament because I'll be on vacation in Colombia for 10 days! I'm extremely excited. I'm meeting my friend Andrew in Bogota and we'll head northeast through the country up to the coast. It'll be my first time out of Ecuador in 15 months and my first time to Colombia. I don't really know all the much about the country (besides cocaine and FARQ), but I plan on learning a lot. I'm particularly interested in the Carribean beaches we'll be visiting the last half of the trip :)

Lastly, I thought I'd just throw out the fact that I really enjoy getting mail... hint hint. The last time I went to the "post office" to check if I had any mail, the mail guy said "Nope, your boyfriend and family have forgotten about you." Is that supposed to be a joke? Yikes. Please send me mail. Every postcard counts.

The address again is:

Chloe Pete, PCV
Correo Central
Alausi, Chimborazo
Ecuador

No, you're not missing anything, there are no numbers. Just words. It's not perfect, but it works in 2-4 weeks.

Ok thanks for reading! Hope this finds everyone well. I'll be visiting Portland for a few days over Christmas, so definitely let me know if you're interested in catching up and hearing more weird stories from my time in Ecuador.  

Link to Ecological Dry Toilets info

In April, I attended a workshop on constructing dry latrines, or ecological dry toilets. Overall they're pretty similar to pit latrines, but there are some key differences that make them more awesome and nice to use. A couple days ago the resident expert on these toilets, Chris Cannaday, posted some pictures and information on his blog from the Peace Corps workshop, and I thought some of you might like to check it out!

The frame of the Arbor Loo... plus a sliver of my backside!

This weekend, the plan is to make the official move to Tixan. I feel good and also horrified by the idea. Then next week school starts again! Supposedly they don't do much the first few days (weeks?) so I'm drawing up the plans for some more involved classes and projects with the kids in the two schools in Tixan, and possibly the high school. The clinic has been stressing me out a lot recently, so I'm looking to find some other things to do for part of the time.

Then in two weeks is our Mid Service conference! Gahhhhh how times flies! I'm not sure what we'll be doing for 5 days and 5 nights, but I think it'll be nice to see the other volunteers in my group who I haven't kept in touch with... which is everyone minus 3. We've also lost four volunteers in the last month or so (as in, they decided to end their service and go home... they didn't die or anything), which puts the group at around 50 I think. It'll definitely be interesting!

Last weekend I also took a quick trip to the northern beaches, so I'll try and post some pictures here soonsies. The Pacific Ocean seems to maintain its beauty no matter which hemisphere you're in :)

One Year in Alausi!

The view from Chalaguan south down the valley at sunset, August 9, 2012

Can you believe a little over a year ago I moved to Alausi? Neither can I. Time FLIES!! There have been so many ups and downs and funny/crazy/weird things that have happened, its pretty amazing to think back to the last 12 months. Let's reflect a little...

TRABAJO/WORK
This is the most challenging part of being here. Work typically consists of days and weeks of endless frustrations (with intermittent periods of boredom) only to be broken up spontaneously by tiny yet awesome achievements. I want to be clear on this: I'm not changing the World here. I'm barely influencing the lives of a few people. I didn't have any grandiose ideas of eradicating malnutrition and eliminating poverty when I got here, but even so, my ambition has shrunk even further once I came to terms with the reality of life in my little corner of Ecuador. The poverty, unemployment, lack of investment in education, and overall (dare I say it?) failure to provide basic medical services combines to create a black hole of sickness and ignorance. Throw in crushing sexism and a very strange yet very prevalent culture of "gimme gimme", that I think has been cultivated over many decades by NGOs, missionaries and government welfare programs... and you've got one hell of a situation. Sure, people say they'll change their hygiene habits... but only if you pay for and build the toilets yourself. And then they won't actually use them because thats not how behavior change works.

To be clear, I haven't built or paid for any toilets yet. I've summarized the attempted dry latrine project with the community of Chalaguan here in recent months, and there is nothing new to report. I'm going to give it another try here in the next couple months, but I'm currently formulating my cautious second attempt. I'm not even close to giving up yet, but I've realized that the approach was all wrong the first time (just add it to the list of failed Volunteer projects, which I'm sure counts in the thousands). In this second year, I really really really hope to make some head way with the dry latrines, if not in Chalaguan, then somewhere else. It feels like a giant waste of time and energy and knowledge to have attended the five-day Peace Corps workshop and then do absolutely nothing. We'll see how things go in the next 12 months, but I'll be very disappointed if I can't impart any toilet-building knowledge.

PEACE CORPS, PART 2
Year Two will also be entirely different because I'm moving to Tixan. I've had enough of living in Alausi, not knowing many people, not being able to hold meetings in the late afternoon/evening, watching too many movies at home alone, etc. In Tixan, I'll be living with a family again. Or, technically I'll be living in their house, but they aren't always around because they spend most of their time in Riobamba. This isn't totally ideal for me, but I'm a lot more confident in expressing my needs in Spanish so I'm going to work hard to be proactive and assertive. I won't have internet in the house like I do now either, so be patient with my email response time! The good news is that they have a couch! And my adoptive host mom, Vilma, who I work with at the clinic, is a great cook and eager to learn more! I'm excited to show her some salad recipes... raw vegetables WHAT??? It's going to be ground breaking.

Honestly I'm nervous about the change, because moving is the worst and I always dread that period of adjustment. Fortunately, I think I'm much more capable of coping with the change now than I was a year ago. I understand Spanish! People know me! I'm slowly but surely picking up Kichwa! For example: Haku nuka wasima lechita ubiyangi = Let's go to my house to drink milk. So useful!

I have to get ready for bed now, but I'll leave you with a song from Prince Royce. I hope you enjoy this style of music, called bachata, because it will be playing in my car and house nonstop once I return to the USA. Get excited!

Cuidense mucho! Hasta luego!

Basket update

Jump ball when the Hospital played Iglesia Matriz... and got their butts handed to them by the priests. Why oh why didn't I realize what we were up against?

For all you sports fans out there, on the edge of your seat waiting for an update from the annual Alausi tournament... well here it is.

We (Team Hospital) ended the tournament with two losses. TWO. The artesanas were always going to win because the team is basically seleccionado, as in the "artesanas" are sort of a bullshit organization and they just get the best players in Alausi to play for them. So, one loss was to the artesanas, which I honestly didn't mind because it was a really close game, and we only lost by 4. After them, we played the municipal government and won, but it was a difficult game and really close the whole time.

Our second loss came at the very end of the tournament, against Iglesia Matriz, or the big church here in Alausi. What the hell. They totally came out of no where. Who even works at Ecuadorian churches? I don't understand Catholicism whatsoever.

I played like crap, mostly because I was sick with a cold and couldn't breath through my nose. I wasn't even going to go to the game, but at the last minute I thought "I should at least go and support them." Unfortunately, we only had 6 players, so I had to play the entire game... which was excruciating, particularly after one of the better players on our team fouled out in the 3rd quarter, pissing me off to no end. Who does that?!

So, we lost by 5. It was the worst. The referees also decided to stop paying attention half way through the game and I got the crap beat out of me. Those middle aged Catholic women have got quite a bit of weight to throw around, and throw they did. They objectively sucked at basketball, but the fact is, it is impossible to make a basket if someone knocks you down every time you get the ball. I'll give them that.

Now, we wait to see how the final few games play out to see how we place. The highest we could get is 2nd, although I'd say its more likely we place 3rd. I'm not really sure why it even matters at this point... Will there be an awards ceremony? Trophies? I have no idea. One thing you can count on is that it whatever programa ends the tournament, it will last 5 hours, be freezing in the coliseum, and be boring as hell. You bring the blankets, I'll bring the canelazo!

June Update

Well hello there! How are you? Great to see you. I'm fine, by the way. Sorry I skipped posting in the month of May. For awhile there I was doing pretty well with the monthly posts, but that ended. Last month had a lot of ups and downs and I think most of my time was spent trying to process it all, before I wrote some rambling post and instantly regretted it.



In order to hit the highlights, here are the following topics I'll be covering: 1) Community Integration, 2) Dry latrines project, 3) General frustrations, 4) The Future.

1) Community Integration
According to Peace Corps philosophy, integrating into your adopted community is the crucial first step to accomplishing anything during your service.
    a) What exactly does integration mean?

    I'm glad you asked. The straightforward definition of integration means getting to know the people in your community, sharing experiences, learning about their way of life, needs and wants, and slowly becoming part of the community. Integration is something that we discussed a lot during training, but the reality was mostly lost on me because it's impossible to imagine the actual situation without ever having experienced it. We talked about what would happen if someone who liked to run a lot for exercise wasn't able to safely run at site, and stuff like that. Can you maintain your identity while modifying your behavior to conform to social norms? Yeah, you can, and although it depends on the person, its not really that hard.

    b) And the million dollar question: Is it even possible for a gringa like me with blonde hair, blue eyes and crazy ideas about life to actually become a part of the community?

    The jury is still out on this one. In my mind, the answer is simply no. If I lived here 20 years, married an Ecuadorian and had lots of half-Ecuadorian babies... maybe. But the reality is that I am a United States citizen, I have a valid passport, and I can go home whenever I want (and probably will be going home in 15 months). I have access to a wealthy country that people are literally dying (and being jailed) to get into. The fact that the United States has it's own laundry list of problems, and in some ways is worse off than Ecuador, is completely lost on people here. The math is simple: USA = work and money, which = clothes, food, electronics, cool stuff, and happiness. Ecuadorians can be extremely envious of my opportunities, which makes integration impossible if they're always focused on our differences.
    Not everyone is jealous of course, but other misconceptions about gringas come into play too. Namely, that we are all extremely promiscuous and will have sex with anyone. This is a particularly vicious rumor that almost all people (educated or not) have about white women. This translates to men asking lots of inappropriate questions about my personal life, and women more or less ignoring me (or giving me the stink eye). It's not always that way, but a couple times a week, I'll have a weird encounter with someone that seems totally random and unnecessary and leaves me feeling like crap. It's definitely difficult to make friends and integrate when everyone thinks you're a slut.

The good news is that I do actually feel like I'm integrating pretty well, but in Tixan, not in Alausi. For that reason, I'm planning on moving to Tixan in the next couple months. I think moving will make everything (work, life, integration) easier. Tixan is a much smaller community, and although I'll have to leave behind some comforts (my very own kitchen, a market right down the street, internet in the house, lots of privacy), I think that ultimately it'll be for the best. I'm only planning on doing Peace Corps once in my life, so I might as well go all out and try my hardest to make things work. I've encountered a number of naysayers who don't think I'll be able to live in Tixan, but really, I doubt it's going to be much of a problem. Different, yes, impossible, hardly.

2) Dry latrines project
I wish I had better news, but this dry latrines project is just not going very well. The community of Chalaguan could use some better sanitation, but there has been a lot of disagreement about how to go about doing it. Some people don't want a dry latrine at all; they want a flushing toilet. I told them good luck, but I'm not going to help them with that. Other people want a latrine, but don't appear to want to do any work whatsoever. Many of those same people say that they don't want to do a pilot project (where we build 2-3 toilets in the community), but that they want a toilet for every family, or none at all. My response has been and always will be, "Do you have $15,000 to give everyone a toilet? No? Yeah, me either."

Starting with a few toilets is the only way to begin this project, but only a few men truly understand that (and I can name them on one hand). There are a few families that are interested in continuing with the project (which, as of now, is still in its theoretical stages... we've done nothing in terms of construction or applying for funding), but we have yet to organize them. My counterparts are all over the place, are poorly organized, and don't appear motivated to do much. There are a couple other guys in the community that seem to have it more together, but I'm not sure exactly how to get everyone together to have a productive discussion. A few people who want flush toilets always show up to the meetings and complain. Annoying!

I was and still am excited about the potential of this project, but I feel like I've gone about it the wrong way. I've been too cautious and wanted to give the community a chance to step up and take the reigns. Although, at the same time, with the exception of one meeting that went horribly, I'm not totally sure how I could have acted differently. I'm very aware than I'm an outsider, and I'm not going to obligate people to particpate in this project. I want them to want to do it. That being said, I think that I should work more on the motivation side of things and be more of a cheerleader/organizer to get this thing off the ground.

3) General frustrations
Well, I think I've already talked about a few of these, thats probably good for now. So... nevermind.

4) The Future
As I already mentioned, the plan is to move to Tixan in the next couple months. I've got some ideas in mind for starting a healthy living club in conjunction with the clinic and possibly doing a dance class or something. I must admit the motivation for this is not purely altruistic... I'm either gaining or losing weight here in Ecuador, and currently the weight is on the rise. Yesterday, the obstetrician at the clinic said I looked "gordita". Lovely.


A month or so ago, I finished drawing a big poster on complimentary feeding for babies/kids 0-2 years old (picture below), and my counterpart at the hospital wants to use it to make a few big, fancy, laminated posters for the county, which is pretty cool. I guess the Ministery of Health will fund it. We'll see how they turn out. We talked the other day about doing other ones with recipes or something, but I'm already thinking about doing one on suggestions for getting kids to eat healthy foods. In doing the nutrition counseling at the clinic, the most frequent thing I hear from moms is that their kids don't want to eat or don't eat very much. With malnutrition rampant in this area, it's becoming apparent that its partly because people don't have enough to eat, and partly because kids don't eat all they are given. I don't totally understand why, but I suspect its a combination of parasites causing a lack of hunger, and parents not being patient or creative in their attempts to feed their kids. So! If anyone reading this has any suggestions or creative ways you've seen or used to get kids to clean their plates, LET ME KNOW!!! The more ideas the better, I think.

As for the immediate future, my parents are coming to visit in 16 days!!! I think its going to be good. We've got an exciting itinerary lined up, including time in the mountains, the jungle, a few days in Alausi to celebrate the annual celebrations, and a quick trip to the Galapagos with Deb. I'm very excited, in desperate need of a vacation (in the last 6 weeks, I've spent one night out of site), and I hope they're brushing up on their Spanish (hint, hint).

Welp, thats all for now! I've been trying to keep up with the picture posting over at My Flickr, so check it out. I'll leave you now with a short performance of a song in Kichwa by some 4 and 5 year old girls I know. Yes, that actually is Kichwa and not just nonsense (although it's really hard to tell). Enjoy!

Basket!

In Ecuador, basketball is just called "basket". You know, leave out the "ball" and just forget that entire other word that you learned in school, "baloncesto". What does that mean anyway? Nothing here.

Alausi has an annual city-wide tournament that spans several months and includes all the city institutions and companies that can field teams. The men play indoor soccer (indoor), volleyball (Ecua volley) and basketball. The ladies play basketball. Theres been no explanation why women don't play the other sports too. It's not much, but I guess we'll take it. Machista much?

Anyway, games are 4 days a week, and there are 4 games a day. Since there are so many teams, my team (the hospital) has only played 2 games, the second one tonight. It seems like we'll be playing once every 1-2 weeks or so. We've won both games so far, but I've heard that the teams from the municipal government and the "artesanas" (not sure exactly who they are) are really good and play hard. Like, as in, they hit a lot. I will have bruises probably.

Despite the fact that it's hard to watch some of my teammates travel, double dribble and foul like crazy, and then have the cajones to tell me to "be careful because you have 2 fouls", I'm so happy to be playing an organized sport. I forgot how much I missed it. While sports have always produced a good amount of stress for me (and these past games have been no exception), I love playing. I love team sports. I have been playing on one team or another for probably 20 years now (DAMN), and I think it is an incredibly valuable and important experience. Lots of life lessons, lots of friend-making, lots of good old fashioned exercise to get those endorphins flowing. It's also good to take my mind off myself and work on something that feels bigger and is more important in the moment.

Actually the entire Peace Corps experience is really about that...
Lesson One: IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU.

Lessons 2-10: It's STILL not about you. Sorry.

Lesson 11: You're not that awesome. Well, at least not in the ways that you want to be. Sure, people come to watch you play basketball, but here's the break down: 30% are people you actually know, 30% are people you don't know who are curious, and the final 30% are the creepiest guys in town. Congratulations. Feel special.

Lesson 12: You don't know anything about anything. You thought you knew how to play basketball? Oh, thats cute. Ecuadorians (particularly the men) will give you tons of advice about basketball, and some might even explain to you that "In Ecuador, you have to dribble the ball first before you can walk anywhere." Um. Right. 

Oh well. Those are just three lessons off the top of my head. Fortunately, when I'm feeling down because I don't know anything and I'm not awesome, I can just walk down the street and inevitably some creep-o will say something like "You're the most beautiful gringa in the world." Should that boost my confidence? Probably not. But unsolicited comments from random strangers work in mysterious ways.

Ok well thats all for now! Soon I'll update on my dry latrine project and other work things. Also, I went to the beach and got the bejesus burned out of me. Yeah, thats like a really bad burn.

Nutrition and realistic behavior change

Howdy! It's March! Yes, I know, thank you Captain Obvious, but really. Time is volando (flying) which is also the expression used here. It's funny that some sayings are exactly the same in Spanish (I wasn't born yesterday, no naci ayer) and other things couldn't be more different.

Recently I've been doing some reading during my down time at the clinic, and I came across a really interesting report from the World Bank published in 2007 called "Nutritional Failure in Ecuador." Guess what its about?

The main gang from La Merced in all their "Lord of the Flies" glory. Seriously, its chaos there.

To be fair, Peace Corps gave me the report on a CD after the food security conference I attended back in December, but that CD was loaded with stuff and only recently have I attempted to sort through the readings. There are hundreds. The title of this particular report caught my eye, because they're not usually that blunt. Indeed, it details the policy and program failures of the various health and education programs in Ecuador dealing with nutrition. I think that I've explained a little bit about the issues here, but this report does such a wonderful job of outlining the problems, that I just had to share it. Even though it was written 5 years ago, I think that the vast majority of the conclusions still are true today.

First, the general profile of nutrition in Ecuador:

• Stunting of children under 5 is the main nutritional problem in the country.
• The prevalence of stunting varies greatly by socioeconomic group and by geographic location. Stunting is highest in rural areas, in the mountains (or Sierra), among indigenous populations, in poor families. Which is to say, exactly who I'm working with.
• Like in other countries, almost all stunting is produced within the first two years of life.
• There is probably a huge micronutrient deficiency problem, but the data is really old.

Causes of chronic malnutrition in Ecuador:

• Children's nutritional states worsen markedly during the first year of life, and then remain stable. The critical window of opportunity for interventions to prevent stunting is during pregnancy and in the first year of a child's life. ---> In my experience, the primary reasons for a lack of growth in the first year of life are an overall lack of hygiene, lack of knowledge of best feedings practices (particularly when the first foods are introduced), the common use of unpurified water, and frequent occurrences of diarrhea and respiratory infections (the #1 killers of kids under 5).
• The height of the mother is an important determinant of the child's nutritional status. Every Ecuadorian girl rescued from stunting now, reduces the likelihood of a future child being born stunted. 
• The mother's expectation regarding her child's height is highly relevant to stunting outcomes. Other things being equal, women who did not realize that their child was too small at birth are more likely to have a stunted child today. Counseling at the community level to improve nutritional knowledge should be a main plank of nutrition strategy. ---> You'd be shocked at how common it is for parents to say that their baby is "just small". Parents of small babies seem to feed them less, the justification being that since they are small, they don't need as much food. This is a very persistent belief and its difficult to convince people otherwise.
• Children in urban areas have much better growth prospects than rural children. Nutrition strategy should concentrate on rural communities.
• Altitude has a strong, negative association with nutritional status. Nutrition strategy should give high priority to the isolated communities of the Sierra. ---> Mountain dwelling people are known to be smaller all over the world, (because of a lack of oxygen and availability of nutritious foods? I'm not totally sure) but on top of that, kids are too small.
• Household's resources are an important determinant, but offer a "long route" to improved nutrition outcomes. Other more direct strategies to improve nutrition are needed to complement income growth. ---> There are two welfare programs I'm more or less knowledgeable about: one is for families in the lowest two-fifths income brackets and is a $35 grant every month. The other is for pregnant mothers and kids under 1 year of age and is $10 every other month. That grant is small and supposed to cover the costs of transportation for moms to get to the clinic every month for a checkup. The idea is that at these monthly checkups, the doctor will counsel the mother in best practices if the child is under weight or height. In theory, awesome idea. In practice, uhh... sure, something like that happens.
• Stunting is positively correlated with the number of household members and the number of preschool children in the household. Adequate birth spacing and reduced family size are relevant strategies for improving nutritional outcomes. ---> In my interviews, I found that the average number of kids per family was 3.3. However, the kids typically come rapid fire, one every 10-18 months, far less than the recommended 2 years a mother's body needs to recover and recuperate nutritionally.
• The availability of toilets has a positive impact on nutritional status. Investments in rural sanitation are likely to yield positive returns in nutritional status. ---> I was so excited to read this! Just another reason to push for this dry latrine project, and another factoid I can use to justify the project when I ask organizations for funding.
• Once the model is fully specified, ethnicity does not appear as a statistically significant factor causing stunting. The stunting observed in indigenous communities results from their location, socioeconomic exclusion, behavioral factors, and policy failure in overcoming these problems--not from genetics.

Ecuador has a variety of feeding programs through the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education, but they are pretty sporadically implemented throughout the country. The World Bank report goes into each of these programs extensively, which was great for me to understand more thoroughly what the heck is going on here, but is probably not super interesting for you.

The one program I do what to highlight is the Ley de Maternidad Gratuita or LMG (Free Maternity Law), a law passed in 1999 that promotes access to free primary health care and medicines for pregnant women and kids under 5. It's a fantastic idea. However, silly me, I thought that since the word "law" is in the title, it meant that it was actually that. A law. Enforceable. How wrong I was. (I probably should not get into the details of this because it has to do with government organizations much, much bigger than me, so suffice it to say that when even the tiniest amount of bureaucracy is involved, "laws" go out the window and its every man, or in this case, clinic, for himself. When I asked the director of my clinic why we haven't had medicine for moms and kids for the last month, he replied that the law is more of a "theory".)

The last part of the report I want to share are the recommendations:

• Improve programmatic coordination in the nutrition sector under the Ministry of Health. They've got so many programs doing so many things, and there are lots of repetitions and some significant oversights.
• An important piece of Ecuador's nutrition strategy is community-level counseling, linked to growth monitoring. I don't know why this is such a difficult idea to grasp, but I believe it is THE MOST important thing Ecuador could do to improve nutrition in the Sierra. Individualized, frequent community counseling with growth monitoring would do wonders. It just doesn't exist now. Well, it does sporadically, but to be effective it needs to be consistent. Giving a single 1-hour talk to moms every three to six months will not make a difference (especially for women who maybe have a year or two of primary school and can barely read or write), and it is endlessly infuriating to me that the people I work with don't seem to get that.
• Program assignments should be adjusted based on the severity of the regional situation. Duh.
• Transparency and accountability at the program level should be given high importance. Pretty important to keep track of where the money's going and whether it's making any difference. 
• Make main welfare grant linked to nutrition outcomes.
• Figure out the micronutrient policy! This is one thing that Ecuador is trying and retrying to get right because apparently they just recently figured out that micronutrients are super important to growth and development (you know, vitamins and minerals). The problem with the current policy is that its all over the place, and no one ever quite knows whats going on. First, they came out with a nutritional supplement for kids under 5 called Mi Papilla, or my baby food. Then they threw that out the window (I'm not sure why) and now they've got Chispaz, or sprinkles, which as far as I can figure is the same thing. They're little packets of powdered vitamins that providers are supposed to add to specific kinds of food once a day. I guess moms couldn't figure it out, so they've made it the responsibility of the day care centers. But ask the cooks to explain to you how they're supposed to prepare the food and add Chispaz, and you get shy giggles and "I don't remember." Hopefully they're doing it correctly in practice and just unable to explain it.

A few of my little homies from Chalaguan, posing for the 8 millionth picture, which was followed by many minutes of insane giggling.

I know thats a lot of information about the situation, and if you actually read the whole thing... Congratulations! Or, thank you! Or, why did you do that? My fascination/obsession with how the whole system works together and how the national policies actually manifest on the ground leads me to believe that I really do belong in public health. So, you know, good to know.

Lastly, I made another tastier-than-average soup this evening for dinner (merienda) which included garlic, carrots, onions, lots of broccoli, veggie stock, quinoa, and pesto. I'm now officially ready to declare that pesto is good with anything. Go on, tell your friends.

February Update

Hello! It's February! Where did the time go? Two months just flew by, and all of the sudden I've been in Alausi for 6 months now. A year and a half to go! Before I came to Ecuador, I told myself I wouldn't be one of those annoying volunteers that has a countdown on their blog... but I've come to realize that people don't have those because they can't wait to get the heck out of their country. Counting months is a way to stay sane. To appreciate the work that I've already done, the lessons I've learned, the trips I've enjoyed, and to gauge the rest of my service. Will I have enough time to do the projects I'd like to? Where do I hope to be six months from now, at the half way mark?

So many lessons are learned every week, I'm constantly revising my ideas about Ecuador, my work, the nature of service, my SELF, etc. To live a sane, productive life, we've all got to develop cohesive ideas about our lives. For most people, these ideas are held for months, years, sometimes even decades before they're challenged and we're forced to confront the most basic things we've known to be true. I think it's natural to fight back against the evidence that indicates we're mistaken in our world view, but damn, when your ideas are confronted several times a day, every day of the week, it is tiring. Some affronts aren't all that threatening, but when a co-worker who doesn't believe in viruses starts spouting off about how the flu vaccine works (which happens to be a million percent wrong) or when a neighbor tells you you're selfish and egotistical for not believing in God... Well, the examples are endless. I could give you seven more that were equally frustrating to experience.

Sometimes every day is filled with frustrations. Absolutely nothing seems to work and no one else cares or realizes that this situation is the worst ever. On these days, the only thing there is to do is take a deep breath, gather all the patience I can muster, and calmly move forward.

Anyway, I just needed to get that little disclaimer in here. I think about ranting about all the crazy things that happen around here, but thats probably a bad idea. The real problem is that I'm a complainer. I whine. I bitch. Hi, my name is Chloe and I complain too much. This is a quality that I'm not proud of, and unfortunately this experience has brought it out more than ever. I'm working on it.

The good news is that Carnival was this month! Weeee! How fun and weird is Carnival? Basically all Ecuadorian celebrations are the same: 2-5 days of heavy drinking, parades, dances, concerts and bull fights. Carnival is slightly different in that it's tradition to throw water, flour, foam, eggs, dirt, whatever at other people, whether you know them or not. I have to admit, that I didn't "play Carnival" as much as everyone else, but I personally like my clothes without huge purple stains (from the powder they throw sometimes) and my hair without eggs in it. It's hard enough to get and stay clean here, people! Why do you have to make it so much more difficult!

Next year, I'm sure I'll get more into Carnival, but its definitely one of those things that you have to be part of a gang of people "playing Carnival". Its not so fun to get water balloons and whatnot thrown at you when you're just walking alone down the street to buy bread. Next year I'll form a Carnival gang. Let me know if you want in.

The other good news is that I'm working with a little community called Chalaguan to do a dry latrines project. The Peace Corps is hosting a week-long workshop in April to teach 20 volunteers and their community counterparts how to build and maintain these latrines. I approached the president of Chalaguan a couple weeks ago to see if there was a need and if they'd be interested in working together. Apparently there are zero latrines in the community! The 36 families that live there have electricity and water (a bit of both... not much) but thats it. So! After presenting myself and the idea at a community meeting the other day, both the president and secretary of the community are very interested in going to the workshop. The three of us signed the application and I sent it in on Friday. Now, it's just wait and see if both guys can attend the workshop, and in the mean time, investigate some possible sources of funding. I really have no idea how to go about doing that, but we'll see what happens.

Yesterday, Lucita and I went up to Chalaguan to do a little cooking class, which went pretty well. Lucita's husband had the day off so the whole family (Lucita, husband, son) drove down to come with us to the community. We made "tortillas de sardina". Unfortunately, "tortillas" as most people in the States know them (delicious flat, flour things) do not exist here. I'm not sure why all Latin American countries insist on having the same words for food things that are totally different depending on the country, but they do. In Ecuador, a tortilla is like a little fried patty. In this case, we boiled potatoes, mashed them, mixed them with sardines, formed them into patties, and then fried them in a little oil. Pretty good actually! Especially with the tomato and onion salad on top, that everyone here is so in love with. I mean, you can put the tomato/onion mixture on anything really, but its not a salad. More of a fresh condiment.

Here is a picture of everyone working hard, learning how to make these thingys. Well, not everyone. Notice the group of men in the background. Sure, they helped fry the tortillas, but they giggled like schoolgirls the entire time. So silly. 

 

There are more pictures of the cooking class on my Flickr account in the folder "Tixan". I'm also uploading lots of pictures from my backpacking trip to Cajas National Park from last.... November. Sorry. Just realized I never shared them. You can find those in the folder "Ecuadorian Excursions". Enjoy!

Well, thats about it for now! Until next time, compañeros.

January Happenings

Hi! It's been a rough month, let's just start there. The highlights so far include:

• Lost my camera and favorite hoodie on New Year's, followed by a debilitating hangover. I blame Ecuadorian peer pressure and the unofficial "finder's keepers" social policy.
• Witnessed the brewings of some significant work drama at the clinic. It just sucks. I'm trying not to get involved because its mostly stupid crap, but it really pisses me off. These supposed health professionals let all kinds of petty BS get in the way of them performing their job duties correctly. The worst part is, who suffers because of it? The patients.
• Contracted a moderate bacterial intestinal infection, eating up a long weekend. I definitely jinxed myself in the last post.
• Gave my first nutrition talks to elementary school children, which went pretty well. Trying to coordinate an interesting, informative and coherent agenda (and then getting her to stick to it) with my Ecuadorian co-worker proved to be the most difficult part.
• Lost my phone (or had it stolen... not entirely sure) on the morning bus to work. I had to buy a new one the next day, which wasn't that big of a deal, just a pain in the ass. 
• Currently, I'm laying in bed trying not to swallow because I've got strep throat. The good times just keep on coming!

Oh January, you are merciless. Hopefully, some weird karmic thing is going on and all this crap will clear my slate for awhile. In the meantime, I've been using my quarantine to watch way too much 30 Rock and Freaks and Geeks, both of which have been enormously comforting. I'm starting to miss Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey when it's not on.

The good news is that I'm nearly comfortable enough to start doing some stuff on my own, apart from the clinic and the hospital. The reality is that I'll probably never be completely comfortable working at the schools and in the communities, but its now or never. I'm here for another year and a half and I can already tell how quickly the time is going to pass in terms of getting work done. Sometimes things just take FOREVER to happen.

One project that I'm particularly interested in doing while I'm here is with dry latrines (aka composting toilets, I think). According to my initial surveys, something like 1/3 of people in the communities don't have any sort of bathroom/latrine/hole in the ground which is a huge huge health concern for everyone. Peace Corps is having a dry latrine workshop in April, I believe, and I would really like to take a community member to the workshop (well I think its required). The key is to actually have selected a community to work with on this stuff. I have 2 in mind, but I've got to meet with the leaders and see if people are interested and what we're up against first. I've got a couple organizations in mind for funding, because these dry latrines will cost a few hundred dollars from what I've heard, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Mostly I just wanted to mention this so anyone who reads this can ask follow up questions to remind me about it. :) Also, if anyone's interested, I'm learning about dry latrines from a book called Humanure, which sounds disgusting, I know, but is pretty cool.

Anyway, thats about it for now! Until next time, my friends.