Changing houses (July 18, 2010)

I’ve definitely reached my absolute low-point and need to move up from here. There are so many contributing factors, however the most prevalent are:

(1) Expecting to be professional in a most backwards, corrupt, unmotivated and ill-trained society.

(2) Peace Corps goals being sent from Lima

(3) Also being expected to act as a professional while living with a host family with the most rudimentary resources

(4) Not taking time for myself/doing things for myself

(5) Living at high altitude, rain and the cold

(6) Cyclical sickness

(7) Not having any social support network in my home environment

Addressing issue 1: I’ve had this discussion with my Health Director, that for anything to be seen through, I have to do it myself and babysit. It’s completely ridiculous and tiring and I’m trying to find a way to remove myself from this situation. For example, we were supposed to have a Multi-comité sectoral meeting, meaning, that all the ‘leading’ institutions in the district were to meet (institutions meaning schools, health post, myself as an organization, etc. – there are 7-8 in total). I thought I had made a win in the previous meeting by setting the standard that we at least need to meet monthly to improve the communication. Setting aside the first part of the meeting to give a report from each institution’s side and leaving the latter part of the meeting open as a forum for discussion, and for letting this meeting be open to the public (as observers and in the latter part, as participants, if desired) made sense to me. Again, this would improve communication, coordination, and encourage citizen participation. Of course this whole scheme was botched when the alcalde (mayor) wasn’t here for the next meeting date we selected and when trying to reschedule for the next week, that the secretary neglected to send out letters of invitation for the following Wednesday. The secretary told me to my face that he would, but when I didn’t receive any notice, I followed up with him, and he said I had to hand in another oficio/letter to initiate setting the meeting. The Peruvians have so many formalities for doing things – sending an oficio for this, sending one for that, when verbal agreements should be sufficient in many circumstances and especially in as poor of a district as we live in, with the so very few number of computers, printers, 1 copy machine, lack of paper, and power... The following Monday and Tuesday ended up being días feriados for some holiday so the secretary had no motivation to send out oficios these days. Least to say, the meeting was postponed unconditionally. It is nearly impossible to try to plan a work chronogram. Something that should be able to be done within a week takes months, years or never here.

On that theme, the system is so corrupt that it is not uncommon for ‘professional’ workers to not be paid for months at hand, but because they have no other real option for employment, some continue to work, but rather half-ass. For example, the health post. Our health post was recently converted from a ‘post’ to a ‘center of health’ – however, we will not be endowed with funds until August. How can that make sense? We are dealing with a public system – our patients to not pay to be seen, but rather for the number of patient charts, we get paid by the state, sometimes…

Point 2, Peace Corps goals/expectations being sent from Lima… I want to laugh, or rather yell at the person on the other end when they say, “Oh, send me that by e-mail, with this form and this attached”. That could all be so easy if I had internet access. I live in the Sierra where there is no internet and 99% of the population doesn’t even know how to use a computer! Let me get right back to you… I have to take a car (if there is one and I don’t have to walk 2 hours to catch it) to the closest place with internet (2 hours away if it isn’t raining). Getting to e-mail is extremely stressful. Many times I don’t want to even bother because of the amount I have just from the Peace Corps. Also as part of our ‘curriculum’ of work, we have goals to fulfill, which in some sites are realistic and in others, are not. I would love to fulfill them here in Mache, if I could get any support and/or interest and with “community partners” that didn’t have to be babysat to see if they follow through with their jobs. If the authorities and the people don’t want it, they don’t want it. It takes so much to raise a finger – especially from the authority side. From the people’s side, it is understandable to some extent, because this is all they know and agricultural work is so draining – to try to organize themselves to do other work, when they have families that are barely getting by is above and beyond at times, conceivable.

Point 3 – living in a rudimentary situation. We get water in the morning for a couple of hours and have to collect it in buckets to be saved for use throughout the day. We have a latrine you have to walk to or slide to or forge a stream to get to… To wash laundry – well my going rate usually is 3-4 hours. And to cook – to try to eat healthy foods (boil water and wash them, or clean them with water treated with bleach) – it just takes forever. Oh to shower – boiling water (takes an hour), then showering from a bucket – time consuming. I showered once with the water – it was not just cold, it was freezing. I’ve been escaping to the health post to shower, since they have one, but I have to make it just barely warm – making it any warmer requires too much electricity and knocks out the power in the area. Being a part homemaker and professional – extremely challenging – extremely hard to have time for myself, for example to go running, and time it just right to avoid the heavy rains in the rainy season (that start after 12 pm or go on all day). I’m probably just taking this job too seriously and need to significantly lower my expectations, if only the expectations on us volunteers in the more rural, rudimentary sites could also be lowered…

Point 4, 5 and 6 – taking time for myself, living at high altitude, rain and the cold, and cyclic sickness

As aforementioned, it’s hard to escape from daily chores and work-work. And with the high altitude, rain and the cold, you have to plan things carefully. The high altitude makes you more tired. It either rains all day for a series of days, or the rains come right after 12, midday, and lasts until 6 pm so you have to plan accordingly. And the cold – strongest obviously when there is no sun – morning and night, indoors overall since rooms just tend to maintain the cold like ice boxes, and immediately when the clouds come rolling in. So among those factors, the ideal hours of practicing healthy habits (running and doing yoga for me) are when house duties and work are expected. I’m trying to lessen the priority I have for work so I can escape to being healthier. I also like to practice good hygiene, but it seems currently I am being limited to one shower a week. If I move to a new house with a shower, I could frequent them more often… I have a cyclical sickness – so many GI issues that I thought I never would have. Basically in many circumstances, I have just lost complete control – will spare the details. Which I have to say is absolutely horrible if you don’t have a shower nearby. Need to go to Lima soon to see a GI specialist.

Point 7. Amongst all these trials and tribulations, I really have no support network where I live. I’m realizing how much I need someone to talk to on a daily basis to release negative sentiments and be able to see things in a more positive light once again. This is not to say I don’t have friends – but when you irregularly run into people during the day, you fall into more superficial conversations, and you can’t spew into more serious subjects. It’s like having to put on a happy face constantly because it’s not the time and place to seriously relay your emotions. However, my happy face has worn off, and when I feel horrible, I have become incapable of sporting the ‘happy face’, which some people haven’t taken so kindly to – I do not have a connection with my host family to be able to comfortably talk to them, and most of the time we just see each other in passing. A lot of this results from my host-mom (well, she’s really not like a mom at all, so I’ll just call her by her name, Juliana). She’s extremely particular, perfunctory, meticulous – hence the most likely reason her husband no longer lives with her, but rather in Trujillo (the capital city of our department, 3 hours away). It’s not to say she’s not a respectable person, she’s just extremely difficult to live with… very stubborn… not a caring, warm person, but rather just very dry and distant. Anyway, to try to integrate into her system is nearly impossible – she’s extremely busy attending to her animals, her 10-year old son, who’s not really her son who she ridiculously babies, and now a newborn – an illegitimate child recently left here by a member of her mother’s family – a whole ‘nother story. Anyway, I’m just kind of this outsider, who literally and figuratively has her room apart – and cooks by herself. I’ve really become distanced which is unfortunate. I finally told her a second time I have to move, which she was a little bit more receptive to this time. I felt horrible the first time, definitely torn up, because I have a lot of respect for her family, and I don’t want her to gain a poor reputation from our most gossip-centralized small town, but I’m learning sometimes to act in my best interest. Really hard.

Anyway, I’m hoping to overcome these most self-deprecating catastrophes… Oh how dramatic! It could be a lot worse, but again, a lot better….

Arequipa & Puno (July 2010)

Traveled to Arequipa and Puno – highly recommend it – more than anything, such a beautiful culture. Each part of Peru harvests different people, VERY different people, with different customs, traditions and languages. Wish there was enough time to spend the night with a Quechua speaking family on one of the islands in Lake Titicaca… nice to have a visitor from the States (Ken!) and share the company of a volunteer who has been converted to a Arequipeña at heart (Emma!)…

Exerting all my efforts (July 13, 2010)

It’s taken getting sick for the umpteenth time, making it to the latrine (sort of – I will spare the details), to realize I need to change my situation. I came to this final decision when cleaning up my bodily fluids with newspaper and bleach and feeling rather ungrounded, yet again, but this time not willing to accept it. I have been treated extremely poorly by many individuals in the Sierra town of where I work – the ‘professionals’ who work in the health post, municipality and schools. For being such an underdeveloped site, we do have these institutions, but rather a superficial representation of them – a most ominously, malformed skeleton of them. These institutions carry professionals brought in from other more developed areas/cities, and the majority of them (I will not say all of them) regard this place as the last place they would like to be in this world. But, because they need work, they need some sort of income, they get sent here, and are always in search of a better placement. So I get stuck working with people with the most pathetic attitude who could care less about the population they are serving. Again, I will not say this for everyone, and this isn’t how they act all the time, but for a good majority, and a good portion of the time, this is the case, and this is the crap I have to put up with.

As far as the functionality of it all… corruption runs rapid in the municipality (the local government). People lie, cheat and steal – and I guess this goes for most politicians. But, it has to be worse here because they can more easily get away with it? Especially when the grand majority of the adults here are uneducated or if educated, only up to the 5th grade of primaria (primary school). The money they do receive from the state, they invert into physical buildings – what is tangible. Obviously these physical devices of infrastructure serve nothing if they are not maintained or are lacking services within them. They utilize this spending to line their pockets (since they can more easily falsely report the cost of construction). For the amount of religious presence here (Catholicism and Evangelism) it’s rather disturbing how much corruption there is. Does a religious presence diminish what would be a little bit more of immorality? Besides the alcalde (mayor), who I definitely have words for, especially for how he treats females, those working in the municipality are in their early 20’s, likely because they can get paid dirt cheap, and probably so the alcalde can get away with more ‘activities’.

As far as school, kids are hardly in school. There are so many days off, fiestas, holidays, vacations, it’s ridiculous. And, when there even is school, teachers are sick, they just don’t show up, their transportation breaks down, etc. Aka, again, if there is a complete school day, hail to the heavens! Because the teachers are brought in from more urban sites (Otuzco – 1.5 hours away, or Trujillo ~3-6 hours away), again, they have little to no interest in staying, so right when the opportunity arises, they vanish. Extracurricular activites? Mmmm not so much. The current alcalde is getting into building schools, which sounds great, especially when kids have to walk over an hour to get to school, not have enough time to return home for lunch before having to go back to school, and they are extremely malnourished (making the extra exercise that much more taxing) – but not when selecting to build a school where only 7 kids can attend (all in different grades), and the teacher that is hired can’t even correctly teach the alphabet.

The health post has the same sort of game going on where all of them are from different places (primarily cities), have never had any experience or desire to work in a rural setting, and are constantly looking for better placement. They live here solo, while their families (spouses, kids, etc.) are in a different part of Perú. They are expected to serve as practitioners for all ailments, from the prostate to the kidneys, to the lungs, to the eyes (let’s keep going), since they are the only ones available. Least to say, there is a high turnover rate, and health professional are coming and going. It’s common for rural volunteers to see the cycle of perhaps 10 doctors in their site during their 2 years of service, and also experience times where there are no doctors so técnicos work as doctors... So far I have crossed paths with 4 doctors and also been here during a dry spell without any doctors. The funding here is so ridiculous also (we are part of the public healthcare system – Ministerio de Salud/Ministry of Health), that we can go months without any funds. How do we function? Good question. You can imagine that the sanitation practices are severely lacking…

We do have NGOs that come through every once in awhile that try to put in their temporary ploy of making the world better. It’s kind of like a whirlwind of an attempt which in this uneducated, slighted, unmotivated society. Typically no real sustainable, noticeable impact is made and accustoms people to expect free food, money, or things when these organizations sweep through, giving them less motivation for creating and working for their own improvement.

Perhaps I will spare you more details of this messed up world I am tangled in… I am definitely going through a low bout, experiencing negativity, cynicism, but am trying to learn how to pull myself out of it. Because that’s the challenge of it all right? Trying to figure out how to work in a place such as this… Constantly finding yourself saying, this isn’t working, so try this, and well, this isn’t working, try this, and this too isn’t working, so try this… and so on.

Ohhh, and in reference to the title, ‘exerting all my efforts’ – I feel like I have, by trying to take so many different approaches, that I am exhausted and rather need to recuperate. I am learning ways to make myself happy – like a volunteer recently said to me, which you hear over and over again, and which I thought was rather selfish before now, is that the most important thing you can do is make yourself happy. Only then can you draw more strength from your energy reserves. As a result, I am trying now not to work so much and take more time for myself. Will let you know how it goes… Still trying to change host families. Surely having a healthier home life will make my outlook much more positive and wholesome? Maybe to go so far as to say idealistic once again?

Learning to say no (June 16, 2010)

This is one of my biggest challenges – saying no – not only to those around me, but also, and most importantly to myself. I have such the bad habit of metiéndome en demasiadas cosas (getting myself involved in too many things). Hopefully the next two years will be the opportunity to acknowledge this and work on it. It’s so hard to control the onslaught of the plethora of ideas that pass through my mind. Especially when they can be so applicable to my surroundings and when there is so much dysfunction as to where I am working...

I haven’t written for some time honestly because I went through a mini-depression, kept myself over-occupied, and had a series of unfortunate events happen, including losing my computer and external hard drive. I never have the two together while visiting the ‘big city’ (the capital city of the department of La Libertad) since robberies are ubiquitous. I always leave my external hard drive back in the Sierra to have all my information and work backed up. But, because the cord to my external hard drive was busted, I had to get it replaced and therefore brought it with me to Trujillo, putting the ‘vice-president with the president’. The worst part is it’s my fault. I took a taxi through a shadier part of Trujillo at night to get to the house where the coordinator of a NGO lives with another volunteer and we had a load of things, personal belongings and materials for charlas (trainings), etc. I was guarding the bag with my computer under my legs because robberies can commonly take place through windows. Disembarking at night with no light in the taxi or street, we thought we grabbed everything, did the double-check, quickly paid the driver, and scurried away, trying not to let him on to where we were going for our safety. But… I left the most important thing that was in my possession – my computer and external hard drive. I thought I had grabbed everything, consciously did the double check, but the bag must have fallen further under the seat, which was hard to notice with the lack of light. After spending a couple of days scoping out the black market, posting radio ads and awards, I had to suck up a huge loss that I had never wanted to fathom.
Part of the work lost was my community diagnostic that I had been working incessantly on for some time.

Reading Into the Wild got me through it and I thought I could change my habit of over-committing myself, but I’m coming to that juncture once again where I need to reassess. It’s really so hard when you have so many interests and the community you work in severely lacks basic water and sanitation practices, health education and promotion, good nutrition (my best guess is ~70% malnutrition in children), youth development/education, artisanry, local business, awareness to the damage pesticides do to the soil and health, and, and…

However, after talking with another volunteer, and hearing the residual epiphany of others – you really have to pick 2-3 projects and stick with them, otherwise you seemingly accomplish nothing in your time. Coming the 24th of this month, I will have been 8 months at my Sierra site of Mache. Again, and again I think I constantly am busy working, but what have I accomplished? And especially, when I lost all this ‘information’ I was so steadily clinging onto –

Humor me (Mayo 28, 2010)

Fulfilling my nighttime routine – going to go fill up a bucket of water (it’s not turbid anymore because it’s no longer the rainy season! Yeah!), bringing it up to my room, heating it up with my little gas stove to fill my water bladder (a rubber bag I received from a Catholic nun that has saved my life), emptying my pee cup (or cut off pop bottle) to again attend to my necessity, putting on my thermal pants, wool turtle neck and socks, and Brian’s Tall and Large (since he’s 6’4”) Columbia Sportswear jacket, inside-out, since the fleece side is on the outside (how much sense does that make?) – not sure when I’ll ever give that back to him – it keeps me so warm! Then, brushing my teeth and washing my face with my tippy-tap (a 2 L bottle hung from the ceiling, upside-down, with the bottom cut-off that I fill with water) and next sometimes fitting in a little bit of yoga if I feel motivated/warm-enough and then climbing under my 8 blankets, including a down-comforter, to cradle my ‘water baby’ (the hot-water bladder). I wonder if I’ll ever miss this routine…

What stimulated the title – so I had been invited over for lunch on a Monday by the ‘Presidente del agua potable’/Drinkable water president (sounds like a big title, but really isn’t) in the neighboring caserío of La Primavera a couple of weeks ago. The president is a quaint man named Jaime, in his late 50’s who I‘ve become buddy-buddy with. I actually couldn’t make it that day, so I scheduled an early Monday morning run to let him know to see if we could postpone. As was to be expected by Sierra folk, he had completely forgotten anyway, so it wasn’t an issue at all to reschedule for the upcoming Thursday. Coming in on Thursday, I arrived, and he reacted as if I caught him with his pants down, because he had totally forgotten. Again to be expected. Slightly irritated, because it’s about a 45 minute walk to get to his house, and in the opposite direction from where I needed to go later on that day, I told him we could have a makeshift lunch (I had brought a sweet-potato, broccoli and carrot salad – something unheard of here). He insisted we ‘reschedule’, but I actually wouldn’t have been able to reschedule for quite some time (had to travel for a training seminar coming up). So we made do with rice, some beans and the salad I had brought. It turned out just fine, although I am looking forward to eating some cuy (guinea pig) hopefully sometime soon…

What if (03/16/2010)

What if I told you you could be doing anything right now, at this point in time, without inhibition. In many ways this is possible in the States – at our finger tips we have a wealth of resources and opportunities. But, for some reason so many are unhappy and get stuck into the rut of pursuing something they realistically don’t desire pursuing. Here, there isn’t a wealth of opportunity. You are most likely born into poverty, and depending on your situation at home, are malnourished and have to walk over an hour to get to school, one-way straight up a mountainside. Your options are taking care of animals (which would be lucky if your family has any) and/or working in the chacra/the fields, growing potatoes. Fortunately, if born in this generation in rural Perú, there are more schools (and depending where you live, access to these schools). There may be the possibility of making it through primary and secondary school, and if available, attend an institute to become a técnico in agropecuaria (a tech in agriculture) or receive training in accounting. I guess receiving a title in either of these two may lead to some opportunities for jobs, but realistically speaking, it most likely would lead to, well, working in the chacra. For accounting, there is the possibility of working in the municipality, but this could be a course, depending on who the mayor is and how fiscally responsible he is… and well, this is kind of looking glim…

Unfortunately, if looking for opportunity, you would have to leave here (rural Perú) to attend a college/university, and that’s if the educational training here was adequate, and for some pure strike of luck – your family has enough financial backing to send you to a more urban area where the real opportunity is, or has a family member already there to host you. And sadly, if you were to pursue a career, such as a health career, usually deemed as a more esteemed pathway in many places (and typically has a rotation in the rural areas when you start out) – be it técnico (perhaps the equivalent of a licensed practical nurse/LPN combined with a pharmacist), an obstetriz (similar to a nurse practitioner, and specializing in maternal care), a nurse, or doctor, you get paid a ridiculously small sum for a monumental amount of work. For example, if working for the public health care system, el Ministerio de Salud/MINSA, a técnico may only get paid about 500-600 soles/month, a nurse or obstetriz 900-1200 soles/month, and a doctor 2000-2400 soles/month. Now divide this by 3 to convert to US dollars. Doesn’t leave much opportunity to excel does it? And many work 7 days a week, from 8am to 8pm. Apart from this, they are on call for emergencies during the night. One example of a week in Mache for the doctor was being called out to emergencies every night in addition to his regular work hours – one night out to the town of Nuevo Paraiso (1.5 hours) for a patient with severe pregnancy pains, the next night for a twin birth, the next night for a guy who tried to commit suicide with pesticides, and the following, for a 1-year-old child with meningitis. Each emergency lasted a good part of the night and at times resulted in having to bring the patient to an urban area 3-6 hours away. But, remember, the next day, he has to be up and ready to work at 8am. The health post personnel do get off 5 days a month… if that counts for anything, to visit their families that typically live in more urban parts. And fortunately, after working for a significant number of years, acquire 15-30 days leave per year…

Health personnel could seek to work for the private sector of ESSALUD, but you have to have connections and money to enter the game. It supposedly is a very corrupt system… However, you could get paid twice as much…

The health post personnel kind of chuckle inside, or really try to fathom what it’s like in the outside world. There is a NGO that recently started coordinating with us, that brings in pre-medical students from the U.S. to get some sort of introspect to what the medical life is here, in a developing/part third-world country (I don’t really think Perú is – parts of it rather). So far, from my experience, a lot of these kids don’t speak Spanish, and they come in with their Western attitude of middle to higher class, to watch, somewhat impatiently, the spectacle of poverty with campo (field/country) folk coming into a building made of real construction materials to receive healthcare. They are dressed very well, with fancy cameras clipped to the outside of their bags, speak English and loudly, laugh and joke and point at the cute old woman bent in half because of severe osteoporosis and just overall malnourishment. I’m being very crude, but it’s a spectacle and the health post personnel have a hard time fathoming the purpose of this entourage. And how these kids could afford to hop on a plane, to come here, and just observe to gain this ‘experience’.

Walking to Vista Alegre (a caserío/ small town) today (up a mountainside – but really the vista/view is alegre/happy), I was accompanied by initially two little girls, later to also be joined by two boys. I have to say I was a bit ecstatic to cross paths with one of the little boys – one of them named Brian Cleyver. ‘Brian’ is pretty cute when said with a Spanish accent. I had met Brian in the past when taking my kids from the classes I offered during their ‘vacation’ on a hike up to the top of the cerro/hill/ridge. We ran into him when at the top, looking for the ‘Pozos de Madre’ – supposedly there are a couple of small holes that are profoundly deep on top of this mountain ridge. Brian, who introduced himself to my previously as Cleyver (having two names can be complicated – depending if there are inconsistencies in what people call you), was traipsing across the chacra, with clothes that had been sewn and resewn and resewn again, and shoes, too large, very well worn with toes fully exposed and with random strings for shoe laces. I could immediately detect his innate curiosity and sincere good spirit. He immediately assisted us in our search for the ‘pozos de madre’. He was impressively knowledgeable about the plant life and scat of different animals we came across. He also aided in the search for an herb for tea – panisara. He ended up making it to one of my classes in the following week, but couldn’t thereafter because of the work he had to complete in the chacra.

I had returned to his home on another occasion while conducting my diagnostic to see what the living conditions were – although I didn’t know he belonged to this particular family. Sadly when entering the ‘kitchen’, there was a cat warming itself, on top of the burning leña/wood stove, and two of their five to seven dogs, were drinking from the same baldes/buckets that the kids were also drinking from (as an aside, when doing my diagnostic, and asking about health problems, his dad responded that he has problems with his nerves, in his left arm and leg and pain in the lower part of his head; I observed some gnarly scars and asked him what he thought the cause was… he responded that he had been struck by lightning 2 years ago! Makes sense since he lives right on top of a cerro/mountain. And he definitely looks like something struck him…).

In my walk to Vista Alegre, I conversed with the four kids and found it really delightful, I was especially excited since I was starting to better understand young kids – a difficult Spanish to understand (of youth and those that live in the campo). Brian was asking me how I arrived here from my country (by what means of transportation), and speaking of an airplane to go from the States to Lima, a bus from Lima to Trujillo, and then a micro (smaller version of a bus) from Trujillo to Mache, and here I was walking from Mache to Vista Alegre – something very mystical to him. He wanted to know what other countries were ‘up there’ by the United States. I had brought an umbrella that had been sent from the States and he was absolutely intrigued by it, how it worked (differently from the umbrellas that you could buy in a bigger town near by), and I took a picture of him. He, of course, then, wanted to learn how to take pictures. When we got to where I was hosting a town meeting that day, I taught him, and he made a spectacle for the next hour, taking about 60 pictures, while we were waiting for those from Vista Alegre to arrive (I am working on punctuality – would be helpful if people had watches). I’m thinking of bringing a whistle with me and blowing it as I’m rising to Vista Alegre to let people know it’s meeting time. I’m hoping we can get financial support to install some sort of bell to advise the ‘town’ it’s time for a meeting.

After having a rather successful meeting with the health promoter, touching on ‘caca-a-boca’/poop-to-mouth diseases, personal hygiene, and hygiene of the house and public places, I listened to music while descending the mountain to return to Mache and came onto a sound-bite/ people talking as part of an intro to a song in my music player, about what people wished they would have focused on more before passing/dying.

Some people went around interviewing dying patients, and not one person said they regretted not making more money or working harder – they all seemed to say their regrets were not spending more time with the people they love and not traveling more and relating more to the world and to the planet.

How liberating would it to be doing what you want to be doing, to pursue what drives and speaks to you?

Following a herd of sheep and a hot shower (02/09/2010)

Working here provokes a love hate relationship – there are days that are fantastic, where you are floating on cloud 9 and your outlook is gleaming, bright, and positive, and days where you want to dive off the deep end and disappear into the nebulous and retreat into your comfort zone. It’s hard to weigh in as to whether people really appreciate you, things, and interactions – here. I feel like some days I’m making an impact, making valuable connections and that it’s well, worthwhile, for me to be here. And other days, I feel like why do I even bother? I feel like everyone around me could care less, that I am not wanted here and am just wasting time. It’s like showing up to the health post, the municipality, or hosting a meeting in a community and they barely acknowledge you’re there. You start a conversation, and their attention is easily diverted, they give you the head turn, and away they go. In the meeting, they show up, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 50 minutes late, or not at all. And then they just sit there and stare, some bicker about the topic at hand, and then they go back and forth, not really deciding anything. Some kind of just sit there and laugh at the spectacle, or some just blankly stare, absent, with vacant on-looking eyes. However, then there can be a complete, or close to a complete, success, where there’s a meeting with health promoters that you have worked so hard to recruit from all your caseríos. We had 29 health promoters and mother leaders show up to training for this month’s theme – la gripe y infecciones respiratorias agudas (IRAs)/ the flu and respiratory infections. Así es.

As far as medical attention goes… it’s been a challenge to observe. Once coming into the health post, I witnessed a 7-year-old girl, with third-degree burns from cooking oil. Sitting naked on the exam table with a surrounding gawking audience of the health post personnel, she was bent over crying in agony, with loose flabs of skin hanging from her hip and several other boiled circles of skin on her stomach and legs. She was just sitting there crying with a lamp spotlight on her nudity and pain, and her audience scolding her callously for her crying. God just let her cry and give her some relief! I was on my way into the country side to visit some families in the neighboring caserío of Olaya, and I could do nothing for this girl.

Later that night, after coming back from Olaya, I ran into her and her mother shortly after they were departing from the health post. I was at least able to converse with her mother, perhaps consoling her to some extent, and comfort the little girl, giving her a bit of smile, and a most gentle embrace (avoiding the burns). After they headed off, I was en route to fulfill a guilty pleasure of a shower (thanks to the health post), where I could receive my therapy – to retreat from the world, be warm, and think – my means of putting myself back together.