- 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!
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.
