Woohoo! I'm sick!

Well, I finally got sick from eating la comida peruana!

Thursday was a really interesting day, we went to a Health Post or Health Center to meet our contact and basically do an internship for the day. I'm going back on Monday too to help them to a presentation in the primaria (elementary school?). On Thursday, we made posters and cut out letters to promote the campaign of Rebella Vaccinations. Then, we talked with the workers there (only five full-time workers for thousands of people). We asked them about the most common diseases and among them was diarrhea. Unfortunately, the root cause of this is basically poverty because the people there do not have potable water nor bathrooms/latrines/anywhere to go the bathroom. Many of them can not boil the water because they do not have the capacity to do so. All in all, a very sobering experience. We visited four comedores populares, like soup kitchens, in the area. They were very small rooms, sometimes shacks, where women worked to make food for the poor. Meals cost 1.5 soles, which is equivalent to 45 cents. But, many families buy four meals and then take them home to split among their family of eight because they don't have enough money to all get a meal. Also, the govrnment gives the comedores populares rice and oil (I heard some get tuna but I didn't see any) so if they are going to serve vegetables they have to buy them themselves. It's hard to convince people to eat vegetables if they can't afford them... So, it appears we have our work cut out for us.
We are going to conduct "charlas" to help instruct people in more healthful practices and we each have to design, organize, and execute one by ourselves and one in a group. The group project can be over anything, not necessarily health related, so it can even be a hiking club or a running club. The individual project will take place through the health post, though.
Tomorrow I'm going to help the health center in Ricardo Palma to catch stray dogs and vaccinate them for Rabies! That should be interesting, I'm not sure how we are going to accomplish this but it sounds exciting.
Let's see.... the classes that I am going to are just for Peace Corps volunteers who are training in my group. The volunteers in Environment and in Community Health. We are also split into different groups for language classes and also for technical training. We are going to be starting organic gardening classes on Saturdays in Lima! I'm quite excited about this, we are going to an agriculture university or something and talk with super cool experts about how to start a garden. Then, we can have a garden at our site and always have vegetables, as well as start a community garden to help promote health eating habits.