First Week- Medical Posts and Chiclayo

Hello everyone! It’s been a great first week here in Piura! Spanish is still hard but I feel pretty comfortable getting around the city and out to projects. Our projects are just getting started so as the weeks go on we will be able to do more and more. I am so excited to see the progression of our work and our impact on the communities here. 

Ejidos

This week we went to a medical post in a rural area called Ejidos. Ejidos is a collection of small communities in the sandy desert outside of the city. There’s no running water so people get water from the well and carry it back to their tiny homes on burros. I’ll see if I can snap a picture of the well and all the burros next week. Most of the communities have medical posts but there is only 1 doctor for all of them, so she drives to different places every day in order to see everyone. This doctor is one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. My fellow volunteer Brie and I were able to go with her to the different posts in Ejidos and observe some of the baby checkups and vaccinations as well as the intervention strategies with the families. 

We have been working with some medical students to try to create interventions and will be doing a health fair in Ejidos in the next few weeks. We will have different workshops for the mothers of children, focusing on nutrition, vaccinations, handwashing, etc.

This past weekend we went to a city called Chiclayo, 3 hours to the south of Piura. On Friday we will be doing a project in a town just outside of Chiclayo, so it was a good chance to get to know the city before we have to travel there again. The project is in a small town called Monsefu. A well was just built in Monsefu so this is the first time that people will have access to water in their town. We’re going down to give workshops on how to use the water correctly and hygienically. We’re teaching about brushing teeth, boiling water, washing fruits and vegetable, and washing hands. We have been preparing lessons and skits for the workshops and this week we will be making posters and practicing teaching in Spanish (scary!). I’m going to need a lot of practice.

Wish me luck everyone!

A woman weaving in Monsefu

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