Today was very exciting for two important reasons: 1) No rain AND 2)We got to go out and help with a lecture. Mexico has a really interesting (and famous) welfare program for women called "Oportunidades". (Actually NYC has created a similar welfare program based on the Mexican model called "Opportunity NYC" - how creative?!). It is an interesting program that gives women a cash allowance for doing a variety of things including keeping their children in school, keeping their house clean, having two paps or VIAs a year (talk about over screening?!), and going to one health lecture a month- this is where Mujeres Enlazadas comes in. The doctors and nurses at the IMMS/Oportunidades Clinics in the rural pueblos are responsible for presenting the lectures so they are very excited and welcoming when we offer to present a lecture. Today we presented the lecture "Mujere, Conoce y Cuida tu Cuerpo" (Woman, know and respect your body) twice to about 110 women in the town of Santa Ana. The presentation is a really great combination of physiological information as well as information about how you should love their bodies and how everyone is different but equally beautiful. I think it is a great lecture to bring to women in rural areas because many of them don't have high self worth, nor do they know very much about their bodies- so it is truly educational and empowering! Brenda and Jacoba do a really nice job of making the lecture light hearted, funny, empowering, and educational. One woman came up to Veronica and told her that she had given birth twice, but had no idea how her body worked and now she was going to respect it more- que chido!
Before and after the presentation we administered the birthing practices/ preferences survey that Katrina wrote. It was pretty intense administering a survey only in Spanish especially when there are lots of questions that ask "por que?" (why do you feel that way) but we survived and did about 25 surveys. Overall it was a great, but tiring day.
Highlights from the rest of this week include:
Cooking with a crazy hot pepper.
We got a tiny hot pepper at the market - the man selling them must of thought we were crazy because we asked for the hottest one and then asked how much it cost and he said he would give it to us for free to try out (he was probably thinking - stupid gringas). So we cooked half of it with our veggie stirfry last night- WOW. It was hot, very hot. Our lips were burning the whole time. I was silly enough to wipe my eye (which was watering because it was so hot) and I got hot pepper around my eye - which proceeded to burn and get red and puffy so I looked like I had gotten into a fight or something. Needless to say, we will be using this pepper a little more sparingly next time.
TransAmerica
Quick plug for the movie I watched, TransAmerica. It was very funny, very interesting, and very enlightening. I thought it was great. You should watch it.
Fun facts:
Pandora AND Netflix don't allow Mexican IP addresses- que lastima.
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