Who Doesn't like Public Mineral Baths?

This week's guest blog comes from Shawn Fagan... you probably best know her for her blogs about baseball and DVDs (don't worry, she goes back to the DVDs at the end of this one). But we in the Manna house associate her with the New York Times daily crossword puzzle and as of late, someone who whips out Phase 10 to play with the volunteers at any given moment. Please enjoy as she re-caps the first trip of the summer, Shawn-style:


"Good afternoon, Ecuador blog enthusiasts. As mentioned in previous posts, the house has been pretty crowded for the past few weeks, and will remain that way for five more weeks, upon which the new set of 2010-2011 Program Directors arrive to this beautiful country. In other words, there will be no more alone time for the current PDs. Not to worry, the new bunch is amazing, and took their first excursion this past weekend to Baños, a touristy city located just under the shadow of a very active Volcán Tungarahua. Many PDs joined the group on their trip, and had a blast hanging out with the newbies. (An interesting side-note: my mom informed me that she actually met one of her best friends in Baños, sitting in the main plaza, in the 1970’s when she was traveling around South America. It was a small enough town back then that two Gringas could actually stand out in a crowd of Ecuadorians and bond over their foreignness).

Baños is jam-packed with activities, and a two-day trip was barely enough to sate our adventurous appetites. We participated in canyoning (rappelling down waterfalls, basically), bike riding, go-carting, four-wheeling, mineral baths, massages, party-busing, discoteca dancing, sun-burning, sleeping in, and bonding. It was a legendary (for lack of a better word and yet another “How I Met Your Mother” reference) weekend, and here are some pictures to keep you entertained and amused.

Shawn all geared up for canyoning

Shawn and Sarah get serious next to their go-kart

On a personal note, this IS the guest blog of one Shawn Fagan, and therefore I would like to take the time to address those readers who have been following my blog posts and are deeply concerned with the progress of the recreation of my Brooklyn movie collection in bootleg Ecuadorian DVDs. It has not been an easy task. Most video stores here compete to be the first with the most brand-spanking-new movies possible, and therefore having a classic collection is less than a priority. Mike and I have so relentlessly bothered our favorite DVD lady that today I finally encountered and purchased the first season of “Mad Men," a series virtually unknown in this country. Kevin Smith will have to wait for his time.

Love, as well as a love for cevichochos,

Shawn"

Dr. Patel on the PHC

(Today's Guest Blog comes from Senorita Sonia "Pricing" Patel. Sonia spends her time coming up with wildly creative art projects for the kiddos every Friday, pricing any and every object you can think of - from bookshelves to blenders, making sure the library is functioning smoothly, and being co-in charge of the up-and-coming Preventive Health Center. Her contagious laughter can be heard pretty much anywhere in the house... and sometimes we're even lucky enough to sneak a listen to a Sonia's renditions of 90s pop hits. Be jealous.)

Sonia and the smallest orito banana ever

"In some ways Ecuador’s healthcare system is years ahead of the United States’. Here a visit to a public hospital entitles free x-rays, emergency care, vaccinations, and anti-diabetic medication, and although some services require out of pocket pay, the fee is minimal - $4 for a pap smear. In the United States on the other hand, state elected officials, say from (cough cough) Georgia, are still arguing over the constitutionality of the passed healthcare reform. While people continue to lose their houses over medical bills and take on thousands of dollars in debt after a few nights in the emergency room, these state officials are standing on podiums bellowing out succession rhetoric.

This isn’t to say that Ecuador’s healthcare system is ideal. In my opinion, the implementation of Ecuador’s universal healthcare system began before economic theories were ever seriously considered. Because of the absence of economic incentives - short hours, high wages, and benefits - there is a lack of medical personnel in the public hospitals and subcentros (free health clinics). This combined with the fact that members in our community have to travel at least 30 minutes by bus to receive free care have led many to utilize physicians as a last resort, only when they experience physical and/or severely debilitating symptoms.

Since August, Shawn, Sarah, and I have been working to broaden our community members’ definitions and understandings of prevention. Our goal was/is to carry out Serena’s, a 2008/2009 PD, idea to open a preventative health center (PHC) in the fourth floor of the Centro. Through a series of focus groups that began with Serena and ended with us, we saw that community members were eager to take charge of their health but felt like they lacked the tools and knowledge to do so. We envisioned a resource center that hosts health book and a computer with internet for research, a health promoter to answer basic health questions, monthly charlas, cooking classes, and a resource manual that lists where free health services can be accessed. We have spent the past 10 months fulfilling this mission.

Through a series of connections and meetings with the MOH, we solicited the help of an already trained health promoter. He has helped us write a health questionnaire (that will give us an overview of our communities’ physical and mental wellbeing as well as help us understand how to best equip the PHC), work towards the completion of 100 questionnaires, and made us aware of a nutrition organization called Alimentate Ecuador.

Alimentate first visited Rumiloma at the end of April. Since then they have been training 10 dedicated women as nutrition promoters. This Wednesday will be the culmination of the program and hopefully the start of their nutrition campaigns in our communities. In April we also initiated cooking classes. Each week, Sarah and Erik teach students how to make healthy meals with local ingredients in our newly installed fourth-floor kitchen.

The summer volunteers have brought more helping hands. As they shadow in hospitals, they will gather information about the locations of free health services for the resource manual. In their remaining time, they will utilize the fertility beads Serena left us for a reproductive health charla.

Until recently, our efforts have been less about opening a center and more about creating a health-focused atmosphere. We have reached a critical point now that necessitates the consolidation of all those efforts into a small purple room upstairs. We have purchased 34 health books, a laptop, and a desk. On June 1^st we will have a physical space that our communities can use to access resources, learn how to care for their health before getting (and while being) sick, and lower the cost that Ecuador spends on preventable illnesses.

-Sonia"

The weekly Alimentate Ecuador nutrition charla

Presenters from Alimentate discuss various nutrition topics

Questions for Haley! / Cotopaxi Pictures

It's time to submit questions for Haley Booe's interview! You might think we're jumping the gun a little bit since we haven't posted Chet's interview; with all of the excitement of summer programs, Sarah and I will now be tag-teaming the interviews. Hopefully I don't butcher it too badly as I attempt to learn imovie next week...

Please send any questions to me (jmw8387@gmail.com) or post them via comment right here on the blog BY MONDAY (como mid-morning). Questions can include anything and everything ranging from:

- how badly she wants to adopt Justin Bieber
- what it's like to teach women's exercise 4 times a week
- how exactly she has a choreographed dance memorized for every song
- how often she watches She's the Man in her bed
- what she's doing in this picture below

As per request, here are a couple of pictures from Mike and Chet's voyage up Cotopaxi from a few weekends back. They were so so close, making it just past the ridge you can see in the picture down below, but unfortunately they started late and had to turn around due to time constraints. Still, we are so proud of them and all of us stared in awe and how incredibly beautiful the view of Cotopaxi was from Quito that day.

Mike and Chet somewhere around 3a.m. while climbing Cotopaxi

View of Cotopaxi, taken by Mr. Chet Polson

- Jackie

Summer Vol Intros: Part 2

Now that we're all back and sunburned from our long-weekend excursions, it's time to introduce you to the second batch of summer volunteers!

Trevor Burbank just finished his second year at Vanderbilt University, studying community development. He's working closely with agriculture, especially looking up new composting methods and starting to wander around Conocoto looking for cow droppings. He's also been spending time with Erik in search of Mingas to participate in and local government connections.

Lisa McCorkel comes from Penn State and grew up in Pennsylvania. She spent last summer with MPI in Nicaragua and will be with us for the full eight weeks of summer. She enjoys reading Spanish kids' books (see above) and will be working on teen center and San Juan English. According to Chet, she also has an abnormal tolerance for cold water, which she demonstrated this weekend in one of the pools of Baños.

Stephanie Ceranec hails from just outside Chicago. She just graduated from Eastern Illinois University and will be attending graduate school at DePaul in the fall for counseling. She's been a fantastic person to reminisce about Illinois with, as she's from the town next to where I spent a good chunk of my childhood. She's involved in San Juan English, teen center, and organizing library programs like the literacy class.

Ja Lee comes from North Carolina and is a pre-med student at UNC. She's been helping us with our Aliñambi nutrition class, women's exercise, preventative health and library programs. She is pretty brave on a number of levels: firstly for rappelling down 42-meter waterfalls and secondly for and wearing Chet's snuggie last night while lounging in the living room.

Allie Morris (second from the right above) is going to be a Senior at Vanderbilt University and is studying Latin American and Religious Studies. She's working on women's exercise, library, and adult English B. She studied abroad in Chile; her kickin' Spanish skills make her a great teacher and compañera in the library amongst the kids and teens and her contagious laugh can be heard throughout the house.

The entire good-looking crew near mitad del mundo (the equator) during Spanish class

Cheers,
Jackie

new kids on the calle

As promised, our house has been completely infested (in a good way!) with summer volunteers for session one. It seems like ages ago when we thought fleetingly about what life would be like in a house full of 19 people for 2 months straight; so far it's been refreshing and without a dull moment. This past week was full of bike tours in Quito, strolling through the Sangloqui market, shadowing classes in the centro, gigantic family dinners and dozens of overlapping programmatic meetings. I can also tell you that these vols are not slackers; many are involved in four or more different programs and a few of the girls went straight from an 8a.m. women's exercise class to three back-to-back meetings for the library, health, and art class, well into the afternoon.

Since we're already backed up a bit on PD interviews (Chet's WILL be posted next week), we won't have time to film and edit summer interviews. However, we will to introduce you to the ten wonderful additions to MPIE via photos and social/programmatic updates throughout the next month!

Intros: Part 1

Jenni Adams from Denver, Colorado is our resident pastry chef (She and Stef made all three of Jen's beautiful birthday cakes on Tuesday). She is a 3rd year pre-med student at Clark University in Massachusetts. Jenni has a lot more than sweets on her plate as she is participating in Adult English, Agriculture, Women's Exercise and running library programs over the next few weeks!

Sonia and Jenni before Adult English in the centro

Sonia Savani and Drew Kittrell both just finished their first year of medical school at Southern Alabama University. They'll be working on health-related projects such as preventative health center research and shadowing our MPI family doctor, Lance, once a week. Sonia is also involved in Children's English, San Juan English, teen center, and falling asleep anywhere and everywhere (even in Pobre Diablo) Drew is teaching San Juan English, Adult English B and can be found reading in hammocks or being one of the most entertaining new catch phrase players.

Chet, Claire, and Drew man the front desk of the library

Claire Mueller, one our eight-weekers, hails from Nebraska and is going into her Sophomore year at Pomona University in California. She is a fantastic cuarenta player and is prominently involved in the teen center and is helping with library projects like painting chalkboard paint for the kids to draw on instead of gluing coloring pages to the wall - a new pastime they embarked upon last week under our noses.

Jen Weidman (yes, we are related and no just because she is a foot taller than I am doesn't mean she's older than me) just finished her Freshman year at Cornell University. She's studying Environmental Engineering and will use her skills to help plan agriculture projects and build planting boxes and other things for the library. She is also participating in San Juan English and Women's exercise and will be with us for all eight weeks as well.

Celebrating Jen's 19th birthday!

Get excited to meet the second half of the group next week and hear all about their 3-day weekend trip to Baños!

- Jackie