I just got back from Field Based Training and it was excellent! We had a great volunteer hosting us and all the presentations and activities had good attendance and, for the most part, good participation. I was in Totonicapán, which is a good bit colder than where I live now. That was not my favorite part of the trip but it warmed up during the day and the sky and mountains are beautiful at that elevation.
We gave charlas (talks) on disaster preparedness, nutrition with a cooking class where we made beet tortas, hand washing and soap making, family planning with a group of midwives, an HIV/AIDS workshop with a high school, and diarrhea and a home recipe for oral rehydration solution. We also walked around the local market and made a risk map (hygiene, food preparation, street dogs, standing water, and disposal of garbage) and presented it to the local health center. The groups were all indigenous and spoke Quiche but for the most part understood Spanish or had a member that was able to translate for us.
It was good practice giving charlas and thinking about how to become integrated into the community I’ll be placed it. It sounds like the first three months are the toughest but if I work hard to make connections with the health center, municipality and other groups that by six months I should have some enthusiasm and by a year, hopefully things will be going smoothly.
The other excitement of the week was the start of the world cup in South Africa. We woke up at six on Friday to watch the opening ceremony and sat in the comedor until eight-thirty watching the Mexico/South Africa game. The place we went for lunch had the TV on as well so we were able to watch part of the Uruguay/France game and on Saturday we left Totonicapán early in the morning and stopped at eight for breakfast and the Argentina/Nigeria game.
** I wrote this post a week ago and only just now got the chance to post it! Oh spotty internet… This week has been intense and interesting as well; our group did two more HIV/AIDS workshops and our individual charlas, which I felt went really well. On a more personal note I’ve gotten a lot more personal writing done, which is why I’ve been slower with email correspondence, etc. I’m feeling rather introspective because I really haven’t spent this much time outside of the US before and it is strange that I don’t miss it terribly but it does make me think a lot about life back home.