Lessons for Chisulchi
FYI: Given the unreliable internet situation, Lila and I have decided to split up blogging responsibilities so that our entries do not overlap. To read about our experience in its entirety, visit ecuador.blogs.rice.edu. Thanks for reading!
Lila and I giving our "charlita" at the school
After Lorena took our lesson posters to get them bound, we set off to give hygiene lessons to the students of Chisulchi Grande and Chisulchi Chico. These are two smalls schools in the communities about 30 minutes away from Planchaloma. On Friday and Saturday, we went with Nicolas to Chusulchi Grande to give the kids lessons on “Cuando y Como Lavarse las Manos” and “Por Que es Importante de Reciclaje” For the handwashing lesson, we have an interactive activity in which we use glitter to represent germs: Lila and I put glitter on our hands and then shook every student’s hand, and had them shake someone else’ hand, in order to show how germs spread. We also had a short sorting game for the recycling lesson in which the kids have a bag of items and have to decide whether each item should be recycled as Paper, Glass or Plastic. On Tuesday, we went to Chisulchi Chico to give the same lessons to a group of younger kids. All in all, the kids seemed to get the message of the lesson and really liked the activities. They were very attentive and engaged. Nicolas has a whole slew of schools that he wants us to visit within the next few weeks, to which we will be giving the same “charlita”, or little talk, to the students there as well.
Me explaining the recycling game
The kids and Lila engaged in the activity
Living in the clinic at Planchaloma has taught Lila and me a bit more about the constraints of the developing world. For the first few days, we had to take ice-cold showers because there was no water heater installed. There were also some electricity problems for the first few days. But we learned to cook and get along with only the minimal light of our solar powered flashlights (great idea, BTB!). Internet is also impossible to come by in the clinic itself, so we venture down the street to a conveniently located internet café. Worst of all: Planchaloma is very cold. We are over 9,000 feet in the mountains and the clinic is not heated. At night, we lock ourselves in our room to keep in the heat from the small space heater.
However, we are still immensely fortunate compared to the living conditions of the people in the community, who don’t have electricity, filtered water, a heater (or water heater for showers for that matter), or the luxury to spend $1 an hour for internet at the local café. Lila and I are by no means “roughing it”, but the conditions have put us out of our comfort zones. This is how the people in these communities live every day, and to us it’s uncomfortable; but to them, its home.