Ñanta

So I have a month left. Wow, time has flown by! I have been working at Ñanta since January and am really enjoying myself. The clean hand contest is over but I am still trying to encourage cleanliness among the kids. A lot of them have taken to cleaning their hands and coming into the infermery to cut nails. Right now I am working on several different things. Next week, Heike (the german nurse) and I will be giving a presentation on sexually transmitted diseases to the boys in Ñanta´s dormitory. Should be interesting since they range in age from 14-18 and most of them are not what you would call mature. Last week we gave a brief talk on parasites since most of the kids have them. We taught them about what they were, how you get them, how to prevent them, and how to take the medicine. I am also putting together a list of kids who need to see the optometrist. On top of that I have been talking a lot one on one with some of the older girls who have boyfriends on safe sex and how to prevent pregnancy. I think we will give some group sex ed talks in the beginning of April to all the older kids in Ñanta. Besides all the new projects, I am still in charge of bringing the kids to the dentist and still doing all the minor medicine in the infermery (cleaning minor wounds, wart care, and treating colds).

¿Quien tiene las manos mas limpias?

I have started a contest at Ñanta. Who has the cleanest hands? Since I have been in Bolivia I have noticed that hygiene is not at the forefront of peoples minds. From an early age, children in the states are taught about cleanliness. Scrubby the bear says, “Don’t get sick! Wash up quick!” Now, as adults we hardly think twice about washing our hands before and after we eat but for Bolivians it is an entirely different story. This is why I have decided to start the clean hand contest. It will be held on every wednesday during the month of February. The kids will come in and show me their hands. I will judge on shortness of nails and cleanliness of hands. There will be a prize every week for the kid with the cleanest hands. The prizes will consist of sponge bob toothpaste and mickey toothbrush, hand sanitizer with a book worm cartoon on the front, soap, and nail clippers with a flower design on them.  May the cleanest hands win! 

Trabajo

Psicopedagógico Hospital San Jaun de Dios

I have now completed my first couple months of work at the hospital. It has been challanging, rewarding, as well as a little frustrating. The kids I am working with at the hospital are between the ages of 2 and 7 years old and all of them have pretty serious handicaps. These children have been taken in by the hospital becuase they either have families that can not care for them or they were abandoned. The other kids who board at the hospital have gone home for the holidays and do not return until feb. About 20 remain and these are the children that I work with. There are a lot in wheelchairs and a good amount of them can not communicate.

At the beginning of my volunteer work I decided to work full days (from 9am-12pm and 2pm-5pm) three days a week and half days (0nly 9am-12pm) two days a week. The first day of work I was able to help one of the physical theripists who was helping Adelida (age 6 with spastic quad cerebral palsy) with her morning exercises. I really enjoyed learning about what is that the PTs do at the hospital with the children and Ade was a great sport while we stretched her arms and legs.

The next couple of days I took the time to try and learn all the names of the kids and to spend a little time with all of them. I played ball with some and walked others around the playground in their wheelchairs. It was a little hard to figure out what exactly to do with those that were both immobile and could not communicate but I did my best.

At the end of the week another volunteer and I decided to take a group of five kids in one of the classrooms and we did art classes with them which included making butterflies out of toilet paper rolls, doing finger painting, and cutting snowflakes out of paper. The kids we were working with were able to do the projects for the most part with little help. They mostly had a.d.d, anger issues, and other social dissorders.

I have grown to love the kids at the psicopedagogico hospital but I get very tired of just supervising. It is hard to communicate with the majority of the children as they are mute so I do not feel as though my Spanish is improving. Although, I really enjoyed helping the PT my first day I have not done that again. Unfortunately, I think the staff has more need for me in other areas that are less stimulating for me.

Ñanta

For some time I have been trying to look for another job to do alongside the hospital work. Before christmas break I met a girl, Nicole, my age from New Mexico who will be going to Physician Assistant school in June. She told me about where she was working. Ñanta, is a non- profit organization and is kind of an afterschool for the kids who live and work on the streets of Sucre. Ñanta in Quechua means “of the street” and the kids come from poor backgrounds and range in ages from 6 to 18 years. Nicole is working in Ñanta´s infirmary and said she would love the extra help becuase there is a lot to do. Most of the medicines are donated from volunteers from various countries so it is a huge job in itself just to sort through all of them and find out what does what. There is a doctor that comes in twice a week to examine the children who have some of the more serious problems and Ñanta works with a hospital that sees children that have medical emergencies for free.

I started working in Ñanta yesterday and so far it has been busy. There are a lot of kids coming in with verrugas or warts and sarnas (sores which could either be some sort of staph infection or impetigo). For the warts we have wart medicine that we apply but the problem is the kids need to come in everyday to get treated and usually that does not happen. As for the sarnas there have been around 4 or 5 cases so far. Chino, a 6 year old boy, and his older brother, Joel, both have sores (impetigo). We clean them with iodine, apply antibiotic cream, bandage them up, and tell them not to scratch. Not all the kids have them but those that do seem to start with one and then they spread to other parts of their body.

Nicole leaves in three weeks and then I am on my own in the infirmary. Even though I don´t have a lot of experience with wound care I am glad I will be there to examine and talk to the kids that come in. If anything serious arises, I can always call the Bolivian doctor to come in or consulte my mom!

So far, Ñanta has been an adventure and I really enjoy it there. The atmosphere is very relaxed. Kids can come and go as they please and are able to take a variety of classes from cooking, to music, to art, etc. In february they will go back to school in either the mornings and the afternoons and come to Ñanta either before or after their classes.

So now I will be splitting my time between Ñanta and the hospital. I will work at Ñanta every morning and go to the hospital in the afternoons, three days a week. Its a lot but the kids I work with are completely worth it. I have really grown quite attached to them. Finding Ñanta has really balanced out  my volunteer work. Now, I feel like a am getting some good experience and I can continue supervising at the hospital without feeling like I don’t have anything else going on.  I really look forward to the next 3 months and I am very glad to have found Ñanta!

If you are interested in reading more about Ñanta, check out their website here