Greetings fellow readers!
Working on my second week at site. It continues to be a challenge to find work to fill up my days but it has picked up a little. I guess now would be as good of a time as any to give a better description of what exactly I am doing here in Guatemala. First of all, I am working in a program that is called Healthy Homes. The goal of my program as well as that of the Peace Corps is to create sustainable development or another term they like to use is "capacity building", helping people help themselves specifically in the area of health. I work out of a health center in my community and have been given the title Technician in Preventative Health (it has a better ring when you say it in Spanish). Right now I am working at integrating myself into my community to gain the confidence of those that I will be working with and to be know as something more than 'that gringa that lives in our community." The first year of our service is focused on health education with a focus on the prevention of illnesses that are common to the people of Guatemala (diarrhea, pneumonia, and acute respiratory infections). I will be working within four communities that my health center covers and within each community I will form groups of interested individuals that I will give charlas (or educational talks) to these groups about various topics in the realm of health, focusing on topics that they have interest in. I will also work with groups that already exist in the community like woman's groups, midwives (they are a common occurrence here as part of Mayan medicine), health promoters, and men's groups as part of the municipality. My goal with each one of these groups in sticking with the goal of sustainable development is to create health promoters or individuals that can work within their communities giving the same kindof talks that I will be giving so that when I complete my two years of service the education will still be able to be carried on. I will also be working with individuals from the health center in order to train them in more effective ways of working in the communities.
At this point in time, I am just trying to get my face out there so I am accompanying people from my health center as they go out into the communities to do work (like vaccinate and weight children or go to schools to give out the H1N1 vaccination). I am working with a health technician at my health center and plan various activities with his assistance like meeting community members, speaking with community leaders about what I am here to do, meeting the police, firefighters and military presence that are within my community (having the authorities know me is an important thing, considering the civil unrest that was present in Guatemala's history, I don't want them to think I am here to cause any trouble), and organizing groups to work with within the communities.
I hope this give you a better idea of what I am doing and if you have any questions feel free to post a comment or e-mail me at krdemull@gmail.com.
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