I suppose it’s about time that I actually explain what it is that I’m supposed to be doing here. When I came, I had little more than a paragraph abstractly explaining that I would be working as a “Municipal School Health Coordinator” and attempting to improve the health of school children. The number of specifics I could divine were depressingly few. Well, now that I’ve been receiving training for a while, I feel much better informed.
There are around five or six technical programs currently in operation in Peace Corps Guatemala, but only two in my training cohort—Healthy Schools and Sustainable Ecotourism. Though it probably goes without saying if you read the previous paragraph, I’m a part of Healthy Schools (“Escuelas Saludables”). The Healthy Schools program began several years ago, but recently it has undergone a change in focus. Whereas Volunteers used to take an active role in teaching K-5 students directly, mine will be the first training group to focus on the larger picture. The Peace Corps has determined that a single volunteer working with five to ten schools is much less efficient than two volunteers working with 30 to 40 schools. We are, they tell us, going to become “trainers of trainers.” We’ll continue to lead lessons focusing on preventative health, but rather than teaching students we’ll be leading workshops and seminars aimed at parents, teachers, principals, and superintendents. The belief is that if we train the educators, they’ll teach their students. We can reach ten, even twenty schools in a single session rather than going to each school individually to teach the same material, , and it will be a lot more sustainable over time because there will be much greater continuity from one year to the next.
The lessons focus on the biggest health issues in Guatemala, almost all of which are a direct result of poor nutrition and/or hygiene. Essentially, this means a lack of hand washing, brushing teeth, and eating a balanced diet. Guatemala is in the top five for stunting (shortness due to chronic malnutrition) in the world. The average height here is probably around 5’4” for men and 5’1” for women. At 6’0” I’ve towered over almost everyone that I’ve met; many women do not even come up to the base of my neck. As for contamination, the rivers and general body hygiene here can be awful. At the risk of denying the agency of economically-disadvantaged Guatemalans, it’s in many cases not their fault. Occasionally the only source of water is the river, which is used for everything from washing clothes and food to defecating and throwing away trash. Thus, one of the most important infrastructure goals of Healthy Schools is to get at least eight clean running water faucets installed in the school for hand washing before and after meals and trips to the bathroom. The implementation of a healthy snack—which in some areas can account for up to 30% of a child’s daily caloric intake—runs a close second.
If a school fulfills a set of given goals, they can be certified by the Peace Corps as a “Healthy School.” Admittedly, I was a little dubious about the value of such a certification, or rather the motivations of a teacher to teach this curriculum, but apparently it’s pretty legitimate. Peace Corps is well respected in Guatemala (or at least that’s what they tell us!) and it’s a good career move, especially for non-tenured teachers, to get certified. Administrators take pride in running such schools, and parents are, just like in the rest of the world, pretty gung-ho about their children’s health.
So in a word, that’s basically it. I will be working with dozens of schools in a given area with a partner from my same training cohort, conducting baseline surveys, leading workshops, and monitoring each school’s progress towards certification. As our program director often reminds us, “In 20 or 30 years we can change the face of health in Guatemala.”
In more local news, this weekend was San Lorenzo’s yearly Feria (fair/carnival). It’s pretty wild. Men dress up as women and act hyper sexually, especially with each other. While it’s not uncommon (or so my anthropology professors tell me) for a society to have socially-acceptable occasions for usually socially-unacceptable behavior, it was a bit shocking to see in my own sleepy little town. As a rather obvious target, many of the men felt that it was their duty to include me in their displays of pseudo-homoerotic behavior. In essence, I was “all grinded up on”…a lot. It certainly caught me off guard, and at times it felt like people were invading my personal space, but I admit that it was pretty amusing.
A lot of teenage couples, who usually canoodle in secret, away from the devoutly Christian eyes of their parents, appeared to have no problem conducting their more PG-behavior in the streets. Things like hand-holding, dancing closely, and even moderate kissing seemed to be permitted for this weekend only. On Saturday night there was a live salsa band, and on Sunday there was a DJ from a local radio station playing Guatemalan top 40. I went to both and had a surprisingly good time. There seemed to be no end of 15-to-19 year old girls that wanted a chance to dance with the awkward gringo. For the most part, all the girls closer to my age are married with children, so keep that in mind before you start haranguing me for being a cradle-robber!
As per usual I’ve uploaded a couple of pictures to go along with this post. They can be found at: http://picasaweb.google.com/
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