habas, yuca, y aji - oh my!

Well, it’s already been a week since we (Erika and I – the public health portion of the Quito Project) have returned to the United States from a whirlwind of a trip in Ecuador and we’ve been swamped since! Erika is fortunately able to work again and has been since Wednesday morning and I am still recovering from Ecuador withdrawal, but I am still glad to be back ☺ So to recap all that happened for the time we were in Ecuador, I’ll have to start from the very beginning since we had no time to blog while there in Quito (I have been spoiled by cable-speed internet and 56K modem does not bode well with me).

Even when I was unable to be there for part of the time, we spent the beginning of the week of 7/3 meeting and discussing with our foundation’s director, Adriana. From our gathering, later in the week we then went out into the community of San Martín and conducted a needs assessment of the neighborhood. We learned quickly that the plans and ideas we had construed in America way ahead of time (i.e. possibly opening some sort of market) would be drastically changed and we had to adapt and be flexible to the plans and ideas that needed to implemented right away. And so, with questionnaires in hand, we started conversations with “What do you like to cook?’ and “What do your kids not like to eat?” [to provide just a few examples] so that we (public health and social work students/graduates) were able to gain a greater understanding and fuller comprehension of the health status of the people. Walking from morning until late afternoon going house to house, we gained a deeper and more complete picture of the community looking at the houses and their animals, listening to mothers’ concerns while hearing kids and the TV in the background, taking notes at a tienda and observing the produce and junk food they have to offer. Our next step: mission – to start nutrition classes in order to initiate a grassroots enthusiasm for health awareness and nutritious living.

The following second week, we prepared, discussed, advertised, planned, and prepared some more for our nutrition classes that we held on Thursday, 7/13 and Friday, 7/14. Before those dates, all four of us public health/social work students again trekked house to house now following up our questions and inquiries with a tangible means to serve the community – providing an avenue for education and collective concern and discussion as a community. As a lure as well as a exemplary model, we slaved in the kitchen each day before our class to prepare veggie burgers for the Thursday class and soybean burgers for the Friday class so that the women can sample and guess the recipe. Overall, we all agree that the classes were a success!! Hooray! 35 attendees on the first day and 15 the next, but most important of all we believe that we accomplished the goal of finding people who are possibly and hopefully invested in seeing the improvement of health and nutrition of their own community. Although Erika and I had to leave before the next set of nutrition classes for the month of July, we know and trust that not only are the social work students carrying along the final set of classes, but that Adriana will be the one sustaining and continuing this vision for nutrition classes all through the upcoming months when all of us Quito Project volunteers are not there. I am happy to declare: mission accomplished!