Primeros Pasos (First Steps)

I'm trying to keep up on documenting my adventures, but I've been so busy recently that I literally just haven't had time to sit down and write them up. Why am I so busy? Well, in addition to five hours of spanish each day and two online summer classes for nursing school, I'm also volunteering 2-3 days per week at a local non-profit clinic, Primeros Pasos (First Steps)

The clinic - view from the road

We're out in the country - this is the (ridiculously well paved) road that goes by the clinic where we wait for the bus at the end of the morning. As in the rest of Guatemala, if you want the bus to stop, just wave it down.

Countryside - the view across the road from the clinic

Primeros Pasos is located just outside of Xela in what's known as El Valle (The Valley). El Valle is made up of many rural communities located in the valley between the city and the mountains. It is a gorgeous place, but the people here are very poor, and resources for making a living are less than what's available in the city. The clinic is located in the community known as Tierra Colorada Baja, which is actually only 20 minutes or so by bus from the outskirts of the city. However, most of the communities they serve extend farther into the valley, 45min to an hour by bus (it's not that they're so far away, it's that the roads are horrendous and you can't go much faster than 20mph).

The church in the village of Xecaracoj (shey-ka-rah-coh) decorated with bright reflective colors for the town's Feria Patronal - the celebration for the town's name or patron saint day. Xecaracoj is a K'iche mayan name as most people out here are indigenous Mayan and speak K'iche as their first language, and Spanish as their second.

Another view of the Xecaracoj church from across the cornfields

A side-street in Xecaracoj, a short walk from the center of town.

The clinic offers health and dental services for Q40 (~$5) per person per visit. Included in this fee are any medications that might be prescribed - if they're in stock in the pharmacy. The goal of the clinic is to provide health services and health education to the families in these communities at an affordable cost. For folks in these areas, work is often hard to come by and many people live on $2 a day or less. One family we interviewed that is in our nutrition program have 9 people across 3 generations living in one 3.5-room home and around Q1075 (~$145) per month for living expenses. That works out to approximately $15/person per month, or close to 50 cents per day.

I am working with the nutrition program which has identified 26 children under the age of five in the local communities who are severely malnourished and has enrolled them and their families in a comprehensive nutrition program. The families recieve monthly food supplementation bolsas (bags) with such nutrition substitutes as Protemas (a soy protein substitute - looks kind of like ground turkey), Incaparina (a drink additive that can be mixed with milk or water and provides extra protein, vitamins, and other nutrients), and vitamins. We hold bi-weekly charlas (sort of like conferences) for the mothers of the children in the programs and any other women in the communities who want to come. The charlas cover topics from sanitation techniques, to basic health info, to cooking classes where families can learn how to use the new food supplements they recieve. This weeks charla was about nutrition during pregnancy and post-partum, for example, and we're currently planning a charla about family planning. Each month the children have a weight-and-height measurement and every three months a full check-up to chart their progress and diagnose any other clinical conditions that may be affecting their health - like intestinal parasites, which are extremely common in these communities.

View of Santa Maria, the volcano that overlooks all of Xela, from el valle

The neighboring yard to one of the families we visited in Xecaracoj. I liked the colors of the clothes on the line.

While people are mostly concentrated close to the town centers of the ten districts in el valle, the whole area is dotted with houses and fields (mostly corn).

Another one of our families' houses in Xecaracoj. The little shack you see in the middle of all the clotheslines is the sole toilet that is shared between 4 families in the apartment building on the left.

I have been helping out with charting height and weight data, taking role at charlas, and acting as camera person for our home visits and interviews. Every month the coordinators visit 2-3 families in the program to interview them about their experience with the nutrition program, and to assess their living conditions and any other needs the families might have. A lot of families struggle to send their kids to school because of the expenses, for example, and others would benefit from a potable water source or new stove for cooking. The vast majority (all but three, I think) of our families are led by single-mothers, although living arrangements are often with the woman's parents. Today we interviewed a mother of three boys, ages 10, 5, and 3 who all live in one bedroom of her parent's small house, along with a small flock of chickens. Each family we've talked to have all said how helpful the nutrition program has been the past few months for them. The women talk about what they've learned from the charlas and many are starting to see improvements in their childrens' growth. It's been really rewarding to travel to some of the different communities this week and see just how folks out here live; it really highlights the need for this program in these communities.

This is one of the mothers in our nutrition program. She works as a seamstress making traje tipica (traditional clothing), and other textiles by hand. Here she is embroidering a woman's skirt. She lives in a one room apartment with her two children. They share the toilet pictured above with the three other families in the apartment complex.

My attempt at a still life. This is the kitchen table in another one of our families' houses. I loved the shapes and colors.

One of the cutest puppies I've seen in Guatemala (and there are a lot of stray dogs and puppies running around). This little guy was tied up outside of a house next to one of the guarderias (day cares) our nutrition program works with in Llano del Pinal, another village in the valley.

Butterfly sighting! Gorgeous swallowtail who was puddling outside another one of the guarderias in Xecaracoj.

 As a volunteer for Primeros Pasos, one thing I am asked to do is help out with fundraising efforts to keep the clinic open and their programs operational. My goal is to raise at least $250 for the clinic, because a little bit goes a long way. If you'd like to donate and contribute to these efforts you can do so here on the Primeros Pasos website. They accept both google and paypal payments. Even if all you can manage is $5 or $10, it's still a big help down here (for example, $5 is the equivalent cost of a full medical checkup and medication for one client at the clinic. The visits are supplemented with donations and grants, but you can think of it as helping to cover one medical visit). If you need alternative motivation, do it as a belated birthday present to me :) and know that your support is very, very, very much appreciated!