Beyond our project

As I've mentioned in previous posts, part of our mission here in San Miguel is to establish good community relations and take advantage of unique opportunities.  With this in mind, we've been working with two community organizations:  Feed the Hungry and CASA.  I described the mission of the organization Feed the Hungry in a previous post after we had visited their headquarters.  Today, we went out to a community called Clavallinas where they have a kitchen for the kindergarten, primary and secondary schools.  It was great to see how much the kids enjoyed the food there, and we even got to try some.  I have to say it's much better than most of the junky cafeteria food I've ever had in the United States.  

FTH not only wants to provide food to rural communities, but they want to ensure that it's actually nutritious.  This is how they differ from other programs like the DIF school meals.  They have a main chef, Mario, that trains all the cooks in the kitchens.  In keeping with their mission to provide nutritious meals, FTH makes the community agree to not have junk food vendors at the school.  Sometimes this can be a rather difficult deal to make, but FTH has sometimes hired these junk food vendors as their cooks to ensure that they're not depriving them of their livelihood.  Soon, FTH won't have to be making these deals anymore.  Starting next school year, junk food vendors will be outlawed from all schools in Mexico.  It's a very exciting step in the direction toward a healthier generation.

After getting a tour of the kitchen and the school, we were taken to see some of the family gardens that I spoke about in my "Feed the Hungry" post.  In Africa, similar community gardens have been successful due to the community structure of the villages there.  In this part of Mexico, the social structure is more family oriented so FTH is in its second year of establishing family gardens in the communities.  In its first year, FTH started seven gardens in this community and then expanded to about seven gardens in each of nine more communities.  They now have around 65 family gardens established.   They provide the compost, the protective netting, and seeds while the families provide the work and labor.  To measure its success, the evaluate three factors over three years.  After year 1, they evaluate how many gardens were successfully established.  After year 2, they count how many gardens are actually producing.  After year 3, they determine how many gardens are actually putting food on the table.

As we were given a tour of several gardens, I asked some of the people how they felt about working on their garden and what they thought of the program overall.  In general, I got a very positive response.  One woman told me that she loves growing the cilantro because she sells tacos and like to use them as an ingredient.  Another told me that her children love eating the fresh vegetables.  But the garden is not without its difficulties.  Since water is such a commodity in rural communities such as Clavallinas and the rainy season has barely begun, one family uses soapy water left over from washing their clothes to water their garden.  Obviously this is less than ideal, but until the rainy season is in full swing, it'll have to do.

I was very impressed with the work that FTH has done in these communities, and I think that there are a lot of opportunities for our group, Proyecto Puentes de Salud, to collaborate in future years.

Apart from FTH, we've also started volunteering at a maternity hospital called CASA.  So far I've only been once, but I shadowed a gynecologist for a few hours in the afternoon after work.  We saw about 8 patients, and it was a great opportunity to work on my medical Spanish some more.  At first we saw mostly pregnancy ultrasounds, which were really interesting and exciting for the new mothers, but we also saw a wider range of patients including a woman with gall stones (piedras de la vesícula) and a woman with HPV (el virus de papiloma humano) and genital warts (verrugas genitales).   The gynecologist (ginocólogo) we're working with was great at explaining things.  I'm excited to go shadow some more and pick up some more medical terms, and maybe even see some babies born!

El Desfile de los Locos y una Barbacoa

Two parts to this post:

1.  El Desfile

2.  La Barbacoa

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1.  El Desfile de los Locos
The Parade of the Crazies

This Sunday in San Miguel, there was a celebration called El Desfile de los Locos (The Parade of the Crazies).  Halloween is the closest American comparison I can make.  Basically everyone dresses up in outrageous, crazy costumes and parades through the streets throwing out candy to the spectators lining the streets.  Will bought us some silly masks (thanks, Will!) and went to join in the fun with our host family.  Here's a picture of Renee, Abish (our 14 year-old "niece" who lives with us), Will, me, and Jamie wearing our masks.

There were all sorts of crazy costumes and crazy people everywhere.  It was really great to get to experience this with our host family.  Especially our 5 year-old "nephew" Joshua.  We actually ended up participating in the parade on one of the floats throwing out candy to everyone.  Here are some pictures of the crazy things we saw on Sunday.

5 year-old Michael Jackson impersonator

This guy on stilts grabbed my hand and pulled me into the parade and then all the people started to dance around me.  I had no idea what was going on, but it was pretty funny.

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2.  Una Barbacoa

A Barbecue

After el desfile we went with our host family to their friend's house for una barbacoa.  They made grilled meat, onions, and chorizo (Mexican sausage) on the grill to put on tortillas to make tacos.  It was absolutely delicious, and I was absolutely stuffed 3 tacos and a few coronitas later.  

While the food was cooking, Karen (our "sister" in the house) taught us some Mexican dances.  Here's a picture of Will and Karen dancing.  

We listened to music, ate some good food, and hung out with some great people on the rooftop of the house with a great view of the entire city.  It was a great end to an already wonderful day.  

Hanging out with Joshua

The view from the rooftop

Will and Jamie hanging out

View of San Miguel on the drive home

Community Health Fairs

For the research we're doing here in San Miguel, we travel 5 days a week to different rural communities surrounding San Miguel to do our health fairs (we measure the children in la escuela primaria (elementary school), talk to them about nutrition and a healthy lifestyle, and survey them about their eating habits).  We usually start the day with the charla (talk) about what kinds of food are healthy and how exercise and sleep are important for your health.  

Then, we'll measure height, weight, hips & waist circumferences, and blood pressure.  These measurements seem very simple to us, but the families are extremely grateful for them.  Many don't even have access to a doctor but once a month.  After the measurements, we counsel the children and their mothers about whether the child is overweight or underweight and about the importance of exercise.  If they'd like, they participate in our survey where we ask about the foods they eat at home and at school.  So far, we've seen that there's less of a weight problem than a problem of malnutrition.  The children aren't getting the fruits and vegetables they need.  

To get to these communities, we have to travel on very isolated roads where there's usually a progression from paved to cobblestone to dirt to just plain rocks.  It gives a whole new definition to "rocky road." 

 The communities we go to are also really variable.  Sometimes they have better access to the things they need, but other times their situations are really disheartening.  For example, yesterday we went to a community way up in the mountains.  There were only 18 kids in the school (1st-6th grade), and there was no secondary school in the community.  When we spoke with some of the girls in 6th grade they said they were disappointed that they'd have to stop school, but the closest secondary school was over and hour and a half walk away.  As it was, some were already walking nearly an hour to get the primary school.  They end up working out on the land or in the home.  There was no running water in the community, and they had very little access to fruits or vegetables or anything that they weren't growing on their own land.  One of the teachers noted that this malnutrition has a large affect on their grades and ability to perform in school.  These teachers were assigned to this community for their first year after completing their program.  Since the community is so remote, they have a cot that they sleep on in the school room, and then they go home on the weekends.  At one community we went to, Los Torres, two of the three teachers have stopped coming all together since May, and there's only one teacher running between three classrooms to teach the children.

Here are some pictures from along the drive out to our communities.

At another we visited earlier this week, there were no men anywhere that we could see other than the school teachers at a two-room school house.  One room for 1st-3rd grade and one room for 4th-6th grade.  In all, there were about 30 kids.  After our health fair, we had lunch at the home of one of the mothers, Isabel.  She told us that all the men were living and working in the United States.  She herself had her husband and 18 year-old son there.  The community only had 150 people total with 35 families.

Despite these circumstances, everywhere we go the kids are absolutely great-- very eager and curious about everything we do.  I love explaining to them what my stethoscope is used for and what blood pressure means.  Today we were lucky enough to participate in the PE class at the community we went to.  We did some dancing and some soccer with the kids.  I'm having a really great time, and I'll share some more stories about the kids and places we go as time goes on!

My birthday!

Yesterday was my birthday, and I was lucky enough to spend it surrounded by great people in Mexico.  When I woke up in the morning and walked downstairs for breakfast, Will, Renee and Alex were there and began singing me Happy Birthday.  In the afternoon we went to los jardines botanicos (the botanical gardens) near our house.  They had some really great hiking trails and beautiful views.  It was really hot out though. I want to return on a day that isn't so hot!

That night, Kelly prepared tostadas for dinner.  Tostadas are like open-faced tacos that you put beans, lettuce, cheese, sour cream, and some sort of meat on top.  They were delicious!  Kelly is such a great cook, and I think this was my favorite meal yet.  Then we had birthday cake for dessert!  They're so great to celebrate my birthday like that with me.  I felt right at home.