The Average Day

So it's been nice/a lot of work settling into the routine of having my own place and no one to share the work with : )

Most days I get up before 6 and start the morning with a walk. Pia and I meander through the neighborhood and sniff other dogs and eat trash (well, Pia does, I usually just watch). We get home and I fix us both some breakfast and usually do some chores such as washing the dishes and cleaning the table--which somehow manages to get cluttered every five seconds!--wash the clothes or sweep. After eating and hurridly getting dressed, I race out the door to the day's appointment, late as usual.

We visit one school per day, the majority of which we travel to by bus. At the schools we visit each classroom, using a die to check the kids personal hygiene. The die has 6 sides of course, each with one aspect related to personal hygiene--clothes, face, hair, nails, hands and teeth. We do this to encourage the kids to come to school clean and to practice healthy habits at home like brushing their teeth before coming to school.

For the last 2 months we have been doing a baseline diagnostic at each school to see if they have the infrastructure necessary to practice healthy habits. The two main components are having water during the school day and having at least 8 "sinks" so the students can wash their hands. The majority of the schools always have water (5 schools only get water once a 5-9 days). However, the vast majority have only one or two sinks for 200-700 students. This is what we will be focusing on during our two years here. If the students don't have water or sinks, it's almost impossible for them to wash their hands or brush their teeth.

During the diagnostic phase, we are also judging their "Health Corners" to make sure each class has their personal hygiene utensils such as soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs, nail clippers etc. We want to set up a creative environment where it's easier than ever to practice healthy habits.


Here are some picture of the Health Corners we have judged so far:

This teacher will probably win a prize for her creativity and because she has all the necessary elements in her Health Corner!
This teacher has a really cute Health Corner (each kids holder is a tooth!) but she didnt' have a high percentage of students with their utensils : (
During a meeting with all the staff members at each school, we discuss the results of the diagnostic and see what the school is doing well and what they are lacking. We then discuss each school's specific situation and what factors might impede them as they try to implement the program with their students. Sometimes it's that the parents aren't cooperative, often it's that the kdis aren't practicing the habits at home and there is no continuity, etc.


We then make a step by step plan as to where we want to start working in order to meet the program's goals. We have "Pasos" or footprints in order to make it a more interesting process. The big footprint is where we write the goal such as "teaching health lessons twice a week". On the the little footprints we write the detials of what we must do in order to get to our goal. This helps us break down a big idea into something more manageable and attainable (because each small goal acheived is recognized) and helps us to think in terms of what we must actually do instead of just saying, "I need to plan a health lesson, where do I start? There's so much to do."


That's pretty much it for the school day (the Guatemalan elementary school day begins at 8 and ends at 1pm). We get back on the bus to head home. By 2pm I'm fixing or eating lunch. After, I usually take Pia for another walk. We usually end of meeting some kids from one of my schools on the road and either playing soccer or basketball or visiting with them at their houses.

Some days I head to the Centro because they sell veggies and flour and other things my little town doesn't sell. Pia and I are always buying flour because my new big thing is to either teach my neighbors how to make pies or cookies etc, or make them myself and go over for an afternoon visit with the moms. I've already had several "dates" with the moms nearby and have several lined up for this week : )

It's a good way to get to know the adults since the kids already know me from school and a great way to share something from American culture as well as something from Guatemalan culture. Sometimse we we watch movies in Spanish and we always talk about the differences between life here and there --popular topics are marrying age, number of children in families, education, how young people don't live with their parents etc.

This has been an amazing and tasty way to get to know the community. Except, my teeth are going to fall out of my head from all the desserts and my heart is going to swell two sizes from all the butter that's in them!