No more shots

So the vaccination campaign is over…however, it did not go out with a bang.  The last day of the vaccinations the nurse decided that we should go out to these much smaller towns that are connected with Chipillico, they are just much further out then the central part.  I was excited because I had only heard about these places and hadn’t gotten a chance to go visit them yet.  So a we headed out around 8 one morning to go hunt down these kids.  The first town we went to is called Pariamarca, and really what it is the name someone gave an area, because the houses are drastically spread out, and each house is on the top of it’s own, very steep very high hill.  So when we reached the top of the first hill for the first kid and I walked into a lady cutting into this giant bird, I knew it was going to be an interesting day!

The bird, I am not quite sure what kind of bird it was, it was HUGE with a gigantic wing span , but it had the face and beak of a puffin bird, even colorful like that.  Apparently the bird was killed by bow and arrow of the 7 year old little boy who lived in the house.  I was just thinking how a mother would react in the US if her son came trotting home with a GIGANTIC bird.  The lady was cutting into the bird in order to remove it’s heart.  The heart is often sold and used a remedy.  As I was watching her do this, covered in blood, I got to thinking about biology class and the endless amount of animals we dissected.  However, we would study for weeks in advance in order to know the anatomy.  This lady just knew it, and was cutting into it knowing exactly what she wanted.  Kind of interesting.  Of course I asked a million questions from which I found out that there REALLY are lions that live in the mountains that surround the valley, and I officially have proof from the skin that was hanging on a wall in her house.  The aren’t huge, just small mountain lions, but a mountain lion is a lion in my book.

We continued on climbing hills searching for kids.  The entire time we were carrying a cooler with the vaccination in it, as well as sticks because the people who like to live out in the middle of no where often have vicious dogs.  Which we encountered a few times, fortunately they are easily deterred with a large stick.  At one of the next stops we end up at a house of a man who didn’t have any kids and we stopped to take a break.  As I was sitting there I noticed these 3 bundles hanging from the porch.  I kept trying to figure out what they were so I went for a closer look.  I discovered that they were snake skins all rolled up.  And we aren’t talking some little garden snake…we are talking anaconda sized snakes…gigantic.  And the guy just casually tells me that he caught and killed the 3 of them just this year.  I swear if I ever seen anything that size around my house, I will be on the first plane back to the US.  I can’t do snakes, especially not of that size. 

The rest of the day was traveling house to house.  It is interesting to visit the different places.  These people are poorer then most, many of their homes are made of sticks rather then adobe.  It’s crazy, their houses remind me of forts I would have made as a kid, but they live in them with their families and don’t know any better.  But the locations of the houses sometimes have it’s advantages.  There was one area were all the houses were located along a creek, great for getting water and washing clothes, even made me a little jealous and I wished my house here was that close.

It was a really long day, but we accomplished a lot.  We even found kids that weren’t on our lists, and were visiting from other places.  My nurse would argue with the mother’s until they would give in and let her vaccinate the kids.  She is relentless and determined that every kid will get their vaccination!

So without wasting any time we moved onto other things.  The CADI ( center for early childhood stimulation) was finally opening.  This is exciting because the health promoters have been working on this for a long time and finally their trainings are coming to and end and they are going to be working there.  I have been working on getting the lists together so that each promoter will have her own class and age group.  It is exciting.  But as with anything here, an event like this does not go without having a party to start it.  So I met with the promoters the other day to make the arrangements.  Turns out, they hadn’t done the work they were supposed too, so we were trying to throw a party together the night before.   Because of that, the mayor was unwilling to donate money to get it started, he needed more concrete documentation.  So based on the 33 soles (approximately 10 dollars) and donated rice, we planned to put together the party.  Fortunately they are really good at working off of nothing like that and put together a pretty good program and menu.

So the next day we had a really small party for the opening of the CADI.  It was held in the school where the center is located.  All parties have godparents, and the godparents basically christen the party.  I was asked to be the godmother.  This meant that I had to sit at a specially decorated table with the godfather, get served a ridiculous amount of food, dance with the godfather, and break a bottle in the entryway of the CADI.   And because it was so last minute thrown together, one of the police officers was the godfather.  He has absolutely nothing to do with the CADI.  The way we were treated you feel more like you are the bride and groom of the wedding, literally we had a first dance.  It was akward to dance in front of everyone, but it is their tradition.  Now I have to go buy a gift for the CADI as well, that is tradition too.  But it’s open now, which is great, and another place for me to do some work with the Moms.  

Then, this week I was supposed to go to a training in Chiclayo, a large capital city about 3 hours south of Piura.  This was a training for project planning and we were supposed to bring a community partner to attend the training.  I decided on the lead health promoter.  However, with the Peruvian tendency to be extremely late to everything I decided to buy our bus tickets ahead of time to give her more of a deadline.  I also was too nervous to stand around and wait for her to get herself together.  So I went earlier in the day thinking that if she knew I was waiting for her at the bus station it would also be more incentive for her to get there.  Do you think that worked???  Nope…I was literally on the bus and head to get off and get my things because she didn’t show.  I waited another hour in the bus terminal and she never showed.  I called me boss and couldn’t attend the training without her.  So I had to stay the night in Piura alone.  Finally the next morning she started calling me.  I was too angry to talk to her, so we ended up texting.  She told me she spent the night in Chiclayo. But I knew she was lying because whoever was texting for her, because she can’t, said their bus would be arriving there in the next 30 minutes, so she had left that morning, not the night before like she tried to tell me.  I went back to my site and ignored her.  Much later I talked to her and she tried to tell me she got on a bus at 5:20 (buses leave on the hour), and I must have missed her carrying her red bag (the bus station was empty).  So I was left very frustrated.  But I also see it as a sign of disrespect, so therefore I will probably not end up working with her. 

On another subject, I found out today my host Dad has another child by a women who isn’t my host Mom, and the girl is about the same age as my youngest host sister (12).  I just can’t believe the infidelity here.  My host brother in law also cheated on my sister and has a 1 year old little girl by another woman.  The interesting thing is that I live in a town of 1600 people.  It’s impossible not to know everyone, and yet all this is still happening right under their noses.  It’s really horrible.  But everyone stays together and they just ignore the incidence.  What is interesting is how much my host mom trashes my brother in law….but she fails to tell me that her own husband did the exact same thing!  The women are so dependent on their husbands that they do nothing about it, and just keep living their lives.  It’s really sad. 

Well that is all I have.  I am sure there will be a new story to post soon!