Quick note about the toothbrush stuff - we are going to have to go through customs with official forms and stuff, so I have set the date of Dec 31 to be the last day of collection because then we have to fill out a form with exactly how much stuff is being donated. If you would like to participate, again let me know by email at kknthomp@gmail.com and you can send anything in the mail to my parents: Scott and Karen Thompson, PO Box 4294, Estes Park, CO 80517. Make sure it´s not UPS because they won´t deliver to PO Boxes. You can send UPS to Scott Thompson at Coldwell Banker, 320 E Elkhorn Avenue, Estes Park, CO 80517
Last week we had a Peace Corps conference called Reconnect in the town of Cumbaya – how typical to meet with a bunch of hippies in Cumbaya right? Everyone had to do a presentation of the results of the surveys we all did. It was supposed to be practice for when we present it to our organizations, which I did on Tuesday when I came back. Anyways, we had the conference in a convent so we were kind of all trapped in there, but I thought it was actually pretty fun because we played some games in the evenings and it was raining all week so I didn’t really want to leave anyways – I would just have spent money unnecessarily. On Friday afternoon after the conference finished a bunch of volunteers went to see the new Harry Potter movie in Quito. We spent the night there and with 6 other volunteers I went on a little weekend trip to Mindo. The trip didn’t start off well because I got robbed on the bus on the way there. Someone cut my bag open and took all the money out of my wallet. It was the first incident that I ever had, and at least they didn’t take my phone or camera or any important documents. The rest of the trip was really fun though. Mindo is pretty much halfway to the coast, so it was hotter there and more green and humid. There are lots of touristy things, like zip lines, hiking to waterfalls, rafting, stuff like that. We just spent about one full day there before going back to our sites. I got back to Cebadas on Monday afternoon, then Tuesday got back to work. I helped with a demonstration on first aid for the 5th and 6th graders in a school in one of the communities – we did triage with the example that there was a bus accident. If there were injuries we treated them with stuff like pieces of cardboard and scarves because honestly a lot of emergency medicine is just learning how to use the equipment but if you can improvise you can do a lot. Tuesday afternoon I presented my Diagnostico Comunitario to the Subcentro staff – I made a pesto chicken casserole too. After eating I started the slide show but I said I wanted it to be more like a conversation and there was a lot of good dialogue that came out of it. We decided to prioritize nutrition as my main project – but I don’t really know where to start. They want to focus on teenagers because then they get pregnant and without good nutrition they will have malnourished kids with congenital problems. First I think we need to find the baseline data because in reality no one has correct data on the prevalence of malnutrition. I guess I will first start working on that and then hopefully we will think of some way to start the classes or whatever. I still feel like I haven’t really found my niche in the Subcentro or in the community in general but I think presenting my survey results helped me get started. I still want to coordinate with other organizations as well, including Rotary, World Vision, and the local government so that will fill up my time when I don’t have nutrition stuff to do. Also on Tuesday afternoon a woman gave birth in the traditional birthing room in the Subcentro! I got there just right after it happened, which sucked cuz I have never seen a live birth before. The couple and the grandma were there, and they decided just to spend the night in the Subcentro. Since everyone else lives in Riobamba they asked if I could help out, so I stayed there hanging out with them till like 8:30 then came back early in the morning just to make sure everything was ok. Wednesday I finally got to move into my new room! Right now I just have a bed and a table and everything else is on the floor, so this weekend and next week I’ll have to do some shopping for other furniture and stuff. It is weird to think that I will live in this room for more time than I ever lived in the same place during college – stuff like that makes it seem like time is going slowly, but other days it seems to pass by so fast. Today is Thanksgiving so I’m going to spend the night in Riobamba and have a potluck dinner with the other volunteers. That’s all for now!
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Toothbrush request...
Recently I had an idea that would greatly benefit the Subcentro where I work, but it requires the help of all of my friends at home as well. We have one dentist who works in the Subcentro, because of the poor dental hygiene most of her work consists of pulling teeth with a few fillings in between more pulling teeth – pretty much no preventative cleanings or checkups. She always tells people to brush their teeth 3 times a day in the hopes that they will at least do it once a day, but there’s also the fact that some of the people really are so poor that they can’t afford toothpaste. I went to a dentist at home right before coming here and was talking to her about my upcoming plans, and she said if I came back for a visit to come in and she could donate some toothbrushes and toothpaste. Thinking of that gave me the idea to donate toothbrushes and toothpaste to the dentist in the Subcentro to give to all the patients who come in just like in the US, and possibly in the schools too if I can find enough. My request of all of you is to talk to your personal dentist and ask for any donation that they can possibly give for the people of my community. My sister Shannon is coming to visit at the end of December and has agreed to bring down any donations, but my hope is that there are too many that you have to send them to me in the mail! I know it’s kind of short notice with less than 2 months to look for donations, but if each person goes to just one dentist it won’t be too time consuming.
If you are interested in helping me with this little project, email me at kknthomp@gmail.com and I can answer any questions and help arrange to get the donations down here. Please pass this simple idea on to any friends who might also be willing to participate. Hopefully soon I will be able to post pictures of smiling kids with their new toothbrushes, and share statistics of decreased dental problems!
If you are interested in helping me with this little project, email me at kknthomp@gmail.com and I can answer any questions and help arrange to get the donations down here. Please pass this simple idea on to any friends who might also be willing to participate. Hopefully soon I will be able to post pictures of smiling kids with their new toothbrushes, and share statistics of decreased dental problems!
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
This weekend I went to Cuenca for a Halloween volunteer reunion. Cuenca is the 3rd biggest city in Ecuador, and the city with the most Americans/foreigners in general living there – it’s a big retirement spot. It was really surreal that I was still in Ecuador because it could have been Europe or something, its just so different from my site and even from Riobamba. There are 2 malls with movie theatres, cafés that serve real coffee, hookah bars, and pretty much everything you would find in the US except maybe Starbucks or Taco Bell. It was fun to see all the other volunteers again and do something American.
Monday I went to my host-aunt’s house to make bread to celebrate Dia de los Difuntos – I’m not actually even sure what the translation is for Difuntos, but it is the day when they go visit the graves of dead family members and stuff, like Dia de los Muertos in Mexico. That is actually on Tuesday, but on Monday all the family got together to make bread in the shape of babies, and we also made empanadas filled with cheese, rolls, croissants, and I made some cinnamon rolls. We made a ton of dough in a big trough kind of thing, and then just made bread in lots of shapes until there was no more. We also ate guinea pig, grilled chicken, and potatoes, and drank colada morada which is a drink made of blackberries and pineapple and other fruits with cinnamon and cloves. It is kind of like Ecuadorian Thanksgiving because the whole family got together, the kids were playing outside while the adults were cooking, I sat for a while talking to my grandpa, and then we all ate together. Kind of makes me a little homesick, but I’m excited for Shannon and Sarah to come visit me on Christmas so I can look forward to that.
I thought I would now tell a story of my bus ride back from Cuenca, which to me is not that abnormal, but it is probably a good way to describe my everyday life here. I got on the bus and sat down in a seat by the window just waiting for it to leave, and then a man sat in front of me and leaned his seat all the way back so it was touching my knees and shut the little curtain on the window. I kind of pushed it forward but he didn’t do anything, so I moved seats. I’m guessing the person who ended up sitting behind him said something to him but I didn’t want to have to deal with it. (This is a cultural thing I have noticed that people are just kind of rude sometimes, but here its just considered normal) So we started on our trip up the Panamerican Highway which is currently under construction so we had to stop quite a few times to wait for traffic to be let through from the other direction on the one-lane road. The times we were moving were quite bumpy and I was sitting in the second to last row because people had made me move from my other seats, so it was not the smoothest ride. Then this guy who was also a passenger got up in the front of the bus to talk to us all. This is not uncommon for people to sell things like fruit, drinks, ice cream, potato chips, and stuff like that, and there’s also people who come on to beg, and others who are pretty much begging but they are selling cookies or candy. First they make a little speech, thanking the bus driver for letting them on and thanking the passengers for their attention, then they will give every person a candy or whatever, and talk some more saying for just “50 centavitos” you can keep the cookies then go around and collect the money or the product that the people don’t want. So anyways on this particular bus ride I thought this guy was gonna do that, but he actually started explaining how he was an art student in a university and then he started asking questions about what he had said and gave out prizes to people who participated. Turns out he was selling these gemstone necklaces that he and his art classmates had made, which was the most interesting thing I had ever seen sold on a bus. Of course I had to buy one, and it was only $1 anyways. So then I was just sitting listening to my music and being really bored, when the bus stopped and turned off. I thought it was because of the construction again, but then the driver came running back to the back of the bus, and opened up a little thing in the floor that allowed access to the engine or whatever. He did some stuff with some wrenches and we were sitting for a while with the fumes of gasoline coming up into the bus, but eventually he closed it up and we were on our bumpy way again. We went over speed bumps so fast that we all bounced out of our seats. There was a woman sitting next to me with her baby, not really crying but just making loud baby noises. There were also people leaning on the side of my seat because they had to stand in the aisle since there were no more seats left – some of them were going to be travelling about 10 hours total and just had to wait until other people got off and there were seats available. About 4 hours into the ride, they started playing some movie with Sylvester Stallone – the menu and stuff were written in Russian but then they put on the Spanish translation, but I couldn’t really understand it because the bus speakers kept going out, but also because they just record the translation and its not always matched up to the picture or of very good quality. I just tried to sleep some more, then finally arrived in Riobamba where I went to a store to buy a drink and break a $20, but they had to run over to the gas station next door to get me change (another typical thing in Ecuador is that no one ever has change, so sometimes even $5 bills are pretty much worthless). I took a taxi for about 15 minutes to get to where the bus for my site leaves, and then got on another bus for an hour to get home. That 6 hour ride was the longest I have done by myself. Some other volunteers have to travel 15 hours in bus to get to their sites, which is hard to believe because it’s the size of Colorado and there’s no way it would take that long to drive across half the state. So there’s a story of my everyday life in Ecuador…might be boring but maybe it will be interesting.
Monday I went to my host-aunt’s house to make bread to celebrate Dia de los Difuntos – I’m not actually even sure what the translation is for Difuntos, but it is the day when they go visit the graves of dead family members and stuff, like Dia de los Muertos in Mexico. That is actually on Tuesday, but on Monday all the family got together to make bread in the shape of babies, and we also made empanadas filled with cheese, rolls, croissants, and I made some cinnamon rolls. We made a ton of dough in a big trough kind of thing, and then just made bread in lots of shapes until there was no more. We also ate guinea pig, grilled chicken, and potatoes, and drank colada morada which is a drink made of blackberries and pineapple and other fruits with cinnamon and cloves. It is kind of like Ecuadorian Thanksgiving because the whole family got together, the kids were playing outside while the adults were cooking, I sat for a while talking to my grandpa, and then we all ate together. Kind of makes me a little homesick, but I’m excited for Shannon and Sarah to come visit me on Christmas so I can look forward to that.
I thought I would now tell a story of my bus ride back from Cuenca, which to me is not that abnormal, but it is probably a good way to describe my everyday life here. I got on the bus and sat down in a seat by the window just waiting for it to leave, and then a man sat in front of me and leaned his seat all the way back so it was touching my knees and shut the little curtain on the window. I kind of pushed it forward but he didn’t do anything, so I moved seats. I’m guessing the person who ended up sitting behind him said something to him but I didn’t want to have to deal with it. (This is a cultural thing I have noticed that people are just kind of rude sometimes, but here its just considered normal) So we started on our trip up the Panamerican Highway which is currently under construction so we had to stop quite a few times to wait for traffic to be let through from the other direction on the one-lane road. The times we were moving were quite bumpy and I was sitting in the second to last row because people had made me move from my other seats, so it was not the smoothest ride. Then this guy who was also a passenger got up in the front of the bus to talk to us all. This is not uncommon for people to sell things like fruit, drinks, ice cream, potato chips, and stuff like that, and there’s also people who come on to beg, and others who are pretty much begging but they are selling cookies or candy. First they make a little speech, thanking the bus driver for letting them on and thanking the passengers for their attention, then they will give every person a candy or whatever, and talk some more saying for just “50 centavitos” you can keep the cookies then go around and collect the money or the product that the people don’t want. So anyways on this particular bus ride I thought this guy was gonna do that, but he actually started explaining how he was an art student in a university and then he started asking questions about what he had said and gave out prizes to people who participated. Turns out he was selling these gemstone necklaces that he and his art classmates had made, which was the most interesting thing I had ever seen sold on a bus. Of course I had to buy one, and it was only $1 anyways. So then I was just sitting listening to my music and being really bored, when the bus stopped and turned off. I thought it was because of the construction again, but then the driver came running back to the back of the bus, and opened up a little thing in the floor that allowed access to the engine or whatever. He did some stuff with some wrenches and we were sitting for a while with the fumes of gasoline coming up into the bus, but eventually he closed it up and we were on our bumpy way again. We went over speed bumps so fast that we all bounced out of our seats. There was a woman sitting next to me with her baby, not really crying but just making loud baby noises. There were also people leaning on the side of my seat because they had to stand in the aisle since there were no more seats left – some of them were going to be travelling about 10 hours total and just had to wait until other people got off and there were seats available. About 4 hours into the ride, they started playing some movie with Sylvester Stallone – the menu and stuff were written in Russian but then they put on the Spanish translation, but I couldn’t really understand it because the bus speakers kept going out, but also because they just record the translation and its not always matched up to the picture or of very good quality. I just tried to sleep some more, then finally arrived in Riobamba where I went to a store to buy a drink and break a $20, but they had to run over to the gas station next door to get me change (another typical thing in Ecuador is that no one ever has change, so sometimes even $5 bills are pretty much worthless). I took a taxi for about 15 minutes to get to where the bus for my site leaves, and then got on another bus for an hour to get home. That 6 hour ride was the longest I have done by myself. Some other volunteers have to travel 15 hours in bus to get to their sites, which is hard to believe because it’s the size of Colorado and there’s no way it would take that long to drive across half the state. So there’s a story of my everyday life in Ecuador…might be boring but maybe it will be interesting.
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