Health Notice

(Mark Hand, guest blogger extraordinaire. Thanks for another awesome entry, Mark!)

"Swine Flue Hits Manna Project!

No, not like that, mothers. We at MPIE are all happy and relatively healthy (if you ignore for the moment that both Dana and Holly have pink eye of all things) and - while sometimes the men act like pigs - none of us are suffering from H1M16 or whatever it is that has replaced sharks as America's obligatory summer phobia.

But MPIE has been hit by the gripe in a way we hadn't anticipated. Over the last two weeks, our library attendance has fluctuated wildly - falling from a range of 20-35 children in April to 8-25 children in May. We've been scratching our heads, reorganizing, playing a lot of Blokus and re-engaging to make sure our library is at full tilt.

At a community meal last week, however, the mother of one of library's youngest patrons informed Holly as to why Rumilomans were avoiding MPI headquarters: that's right, swine flu. Given that Ecuador's ten cases of swine flu have all stemmed from foreign travel, our new summer volunteers are, apparently, suspect.

The solution? According to our informant, we should a) take our next round of summer volunteers to the Ministry of Health for H1N1 screening, and b) publicly post a "None of us have swine flu" notice outside the library. Thoughts?

~Mark"

Planificación Familiar

Mark has a theory, and that is this: we PDs will never be able to master the art of "lucid dreaming" while living in Ecuador. In order to lucidly dream, one must be able to differentiate, while dreaming, between the dream and reality. In order to train one's mind to accomplish this, one must continually ask the question "is this real?" while awake. But, when you find yourself participating in an hour long parade through the streets of South America carrying an enormous banner behind a group of baton twirlers and in front of 50 marching band drummers, telling the difference between what's real and what's not becomes a little more challenging.

Yesterday, as a part of a health charla (the best translation we've come up with equates charla to "talk" or "presentation") with the Conocoto Ministry of Salud, we organized a "Planificacion Familiar" booth, ie. Family Planning. And by booth I mean tent. And by we I mean Serena. She has been working, along with Priya and Perry (our two "health" summer vols) non-stop for the past week putting together the information, posters, activities, and games for our tent. Thanks to our partner and friend Jens and his incredible organization HealtheChildren we were able to screen-print 150 tee-shirts, which we used as a prize for those people who were able to answer questions about family planning, natural and artificial birth control, and overall sexual health.

As Jos, Dana and Seth helped register 500 little runners for the 5k marathon, Mark taped up our posters and manned the tent while Perry, Serena and I marched through Conocoto with the rest of the parade participants. The rest of the day was spent handing out tee-shirts, explaining how to use cycle beads as an indication of fertility (Mark was the master of this which supported his theory of lucid dreaming, as he kept asking "Am I really explaining about fertility to Ecuadorian women using beads? Is this real?!") distributing condoms, playing "pin the contraceptive on the uterus" and referring everyone with any kind of question to Serena. With over 1,500 people in attendance, we had a full booth and a full day.

The day went off without a hitch thanks to the unbelievable work that Serena put in. I was in awe of how much she knew, how confidently and tactfully she explained different sexual health topics, and how welcoming and positive her every encounter was with all who came to talk with us. Way to go, Serena!

~Holly

(Making some last minute posters)

(Perry and I get ready to start walking in the parade)

(Where we work; Manna sites and spring break 2009 locations)

(The front table with Serena at the center)

("Pick a question. You'll receive a free shirt if you answer it correctly. Good luck!")

(Pin the Contraceptive on the Sex Organ game!)

(Jos explains the rules of the game)

(Natural birth control methods, poster made by Priya)

(Artificial birth control methods, put together by Perry)

(Perry models the tee shirt and answers questions)

(Manna Project programs poster. Always a chance to advertise.)

(A taste of how packed our tent was the entire day! our tent is on the right...)

Snail Mail Surprise

Making the trek out to our Postal Box in Sangolqui (a 45 minute bus ride-trek each way) is always slightly depressing. Since it's such an ordeal to head out there, we usually only check it once or twice every month. Therein lies the depressing part: even after a whole MONTH of not checking it, we usually have one measly little letter from one of our Universities asking for money (how'd they FIND US?!). Every time I head out there, I find myself talking down my expectations.

"Holly, Ecuador is notoriously bad with mail. 50 percent of things sent down here probably never even made it past customs. You just told your mom not to send anything because it would probably never make it. Emails are quicker and guaranteed to arrive. Don't get upset if there's nothing there. Don't take it out on the Postal Worker if there's nothing there."

Ok, so perhaps I'm giving over to my more dramatic tendencies. There was that amazing letter I got back in November from Ashley, and the homemade Valentine complete with a sparkling Wizard of Oz shoe-decal from Kaili. And don't get me started on the packages Dunc's mom has sent him; they're incredible. Actually, alright, now that I think about it we've gotten some great things from almost all our families during the past 10 months. Thanks Moms!

On Thursday, however, I got something incredible. I didn't even go to the Post Office so it was even more of a surprise when Dunc handed me a letter. Inside I found one of the paintings Marjorie had done on one of the many afternoons in Children's Art, beautifully rendered onto a stationary card. Minette Hand (younger sister of Country Director Mark Hand) had emailed me a few months back to see if I might be able to take pictures of some of my students' artwork and email them over to her so she could make cards as a fundraising tool. I did it and then quickly forgot about it, moving on to planning for Thanksgiving and trying in vain to learn Ecuadorian long division.

Melanie Hand (Mark's mom), it turns out, hadn't forgotten. She was kind enough to send a card down to me in Ecuador. I almost teared up in the kitchen (effectively freaking Dunc and Mark out) as I opened it. Marjorie will be so excited when I show it to her on Monday. What pride she will feel when she sees her artwork on a beautiful piece of stationary!

Thank you, Minette and Melanie, so so much.
Holly

Questions for Holly AND Meet Summer Session 1!

The next (and last!) PD interview is with me, Holly. As much as I was trying to avoid it, outside pressures have forced me to reposition myself in front of the camera instead of behind it :) I know the housemates are going to get back at me for their interviews so please, if you have any questions you'd like to ask me don't hesitate to submit them (so they'll balance out the embarrassing house-fueled questions)!

You can submit them either as a comment, to me directly (holland.c.ward@gmail.com), OR to Dana Conway if you want to be secretive (danamaraconway@gmail.com). The deadline for question submissions is THIS SUNDAY, MAY 31.

And now, meet Summer Session One!

Interview a PD: Seth Harlan

The Seth Harlan interview is up! This time around we received a wide variety of questions, from the hilarious to the serious, the wacky to the contemplative. Seth did an incredible job with his responses, so much so that I couldn't help but include more footage than usual.

In response to a question from Johanna, one of our dearest Ecuadorian friends (and Seth's girlfriend), Seth answers in both English and Spanish, so be sure to stick it through to the end if you want to brush up on your Spanish comprehension :)

And now, the Seth interview!