I´ve been eaten alive by the zancunos y insectos! Muy iritable!
Today is Saint San Juan´s Day. In celebration of the patron´s saint, they´ve been setting off bombas and partying all night in different parts of the barrio. They were setting off fireworks right in front of our house! Needless to say, I didn´t get much sleep.
This past Sunday, I rode the caballo and had an exhilirating time! Only my second time riding the horse I got the loco caballo and we fought our way through the journey. Once she bucked and kicked all the other horses, then she took off while the others were waiting and refused to stop until I yanked her reins with all my might. But I have to confess it was fun!
Anyway, for the past week and a half I´ve been shadowing nurses in different areas. I´m mostly trying to follow the vectorial infection disease technician into the different barrios where he´s been teaching the malaria health volunteers how to test for malaria. What baffles me is that malaria is hardly prevalent here and everyone has been crying out to me for dengue prevention and resolutions. Because unlike malaria, dengue doesn´t have any vaccination or cure. Currently we have had two deaths and about 36 suspicious cases. As I follow the technician around, he has barely educated these health volunteers about dengue except with miniscule pictures from a calendar.
I´m currently working on a project to develop dengue fever materials for the schools and health center. Unfortunately I lack certain artistic skills to make them more appealing. And I´m considering educational campaigns in schools to promote discussions about dengue fever. Kinda wishing my espanol was mas bien.
It´s been a little frustrating. I can´t believe I wasted five years of Spanish in high school and lived eight years without speaking a word of it. And now everything that wants to come out of my mouth is in Chichewa. At least now I know that I´m fluent in Chichewa!
Oh yeah, a hilarious story. I was sitting with my host family and my host mother asks me how to prepare a certain dish. She runs into the kitchen and she brings out rice noodles from China! (Which she received from her cousin in Canada of all places!) Then she asked me if it´s ok to prepare it with ¨salsa¨. After choking for a bit, I told her that no, we don´t eat it with salsa or tomatoes. Then she asked ¨But no salsa¨ and she runs into her kitchen again and brings out ¨Salsa China¨! After I stopped laughing, I told her that yes, we use salsa china with the Chao Ching spaghetti.
Adios amigos! The tortillas are calling my name now!
