Hello Beautiful Ecuadorian Children!!

Monday was my first day of the "community" rotation where we go out in the "ambulance" (aka old Land Rover to handle the dirt roads) to the rural schools with the organization, Hogar de Cristo. I loved my time in maternity this past week, but I was so excited to go out and be with the kids. It really helped me realize that for at least this point in my life, I think I really do want to work in pediatrics. The kids are so stinking cute.

I don't know if I really explained what we are doing for them before, so I will try to sum it up quickly. Kelloggs, the cereal company, has offered these schools a grant to provide fortified soy milk for the kids here, and they want to conduct a study to see if it will really help these kids grow. So we have been going around to the schools. We will only actually finish 3 schools while we are down here, which is kind of a bummer and makes me want to come back and volunteer later, but even a little helps, right? So for the study, we are teaching the parents some basic stuff about nutrition. I was in charge of the class today, and since it was the first day the class was offered, 90 parents showed up! The class was outside on these bleacher things so we had them all move in to the middle and then I basically shouted at the top of my lungs for a good 20 minutes. I still don't think that they all heard me, but some of them came up to me after and had good questions, so hopefully it accomplished something.

It was funny/sad though because for the demographics part of the study, I had to ask the parents all of these questions. One of the questions was marital status, so I first asked those who were married and about 15 raised their hands. Separated/Divorced? 5 raised their hands. Single? 5 more. At this point I am wondering if they just can't understand my Spanish or what, so I am like, uh. . . what about the other 70 of you? "Unidos!" (together, but not married) a bunch of them yell out at the same time. Oh! Duh! I mean, I guess they are right, that isn't married, nor is it really single, I should have thought of it, but it was crazy to me that seriously 70 out of the 90 are living in that situation. I was talking to one of the volunteers from Hogar de Cristo after about it, and she said that most of them just can't afford it, and others can't talk their "husbands" into getting married or whatever. Sad. I was impressed though by the attendance of the parents to the class. They all have the desires to learn how to better help and raise their children, so that is definitely a good thing. Now I just hope that I was able to teach them something that might stick enough to help them actually apply and practice the things we talked about.

While I was teaching, the other students were setting up our health screening stations. For the study, we are measure their height, weight and blood hemoglobin levels, and then just for their own benefit, we do vision screenings, hearing screenings, basic hygeine assessments and everyone gets a parasite pill. Yay! We don't even check for parasites, they all just get the pill because over 90% of them have parasites and it doesn't hurt anything for the other 10%.

I did vision screenings for the most part today after finishing teaching the class. We screened the kindergarteners, first and second graders today. The whole "Which way does the E face?" was just WAY above all but 2 of the kindergartners heads, and for most of the first graders it was a little bit of a struggle. I can't count how many times I explained the chart and asked the question, "Para a donde van los palitos?" (In which direction are the little sticks going?) They were adorable though so it really was a ton of fun.

We had FHE tonight after we got home and basically had a testimony type meeting talking about all of the things we KNOW because of the restoration of the gospel. The Spirit was strong and it really helped me remember the many blessings I have from being a member of Christ's church, and helped me think of areas where my testimony could improve. I am also just so grateful to be able to talk about these kinds of things in a "school" setting. It is definitely an interesting situation. I love it though. Thank you Mom and Dad for encouraging me to go to BYU. You were "right." ;)