Culture, programs, and nutrition oh my!

So these past 2 weeks have been quite adventurous! With things calming down a little (well actually only very slight) these past few weeks, we have been able to enjoy some of what Ecuador has to offer such as hiking ridiculously high volcanoes, climbing to the top of a beautiful old church in Quito, and experiencing a Quito futball (soccer as we call it is the US) game!

So first off, a few weeks ago 5 of us decided to hike one of the highest mountains in Quito known as Pichincha. We took a gondola-type ride known as the Teleférico up most of the way (to about 12500 ft) and then we took in the amazing view of Quito from there. From the top of the Teleférico, there is a trail one can hike to the summit of Pichincha which is 15,696 feet!! Pretty freakin crazy huh?! The hike allowed for AMAZING views of Quito and it's surrounding valleys. But, due to the elevation and my lack of preparedness for such increase in elevation, Jackie and I didn't quite make it all the way to the top. Though don't you fret, we are training our lungs to get used to the elevation and are planning a Pichincha Volcano hike take 2! But needless to say it was an awesome experience and I could really just sit up there and take in the view all day long (if only it wasn't so cold and windy up that high!)

Jackie and I on Pichincha!

About to take on the volcano! Good thing we know

which direction to go!

Last weekend the girls of the group decided to be tourists for the day and go explore a church in Quito known as the Basilica. It is a beautiful old church found in the Centro Historico part of Quito. People can climb to the top of the towers and once again take in amazing 360 views of Quito and its surrounding areas! But in order to get to the top we had to climb some rather questionable sets of ladders and walk across chicken wire floors.....definitely worth the scariness though! Once at the top, there are "ledges" that one can sit on and dangle your feet over and enjoy the sun and views. But beware these ledges are not for the weak stomach and those scared of heights! If you ask me, the amazingness is soo worth it (though me and heights are friends so)! :)

Hanging on the ledge taking in the view of Quito!

Don't worry mom I'm alive!

Finally this past weekend one of Quito's more popular soccer league teams, Liga Deportiva Universitaria de Quito (aka. Liga), played another local Quito team and we went and got tickets for $6.50 and was able to enjoy a once in a life time experience! (ok so maybe not once in a lifetime, but still a rarity for those in countries were soccer does not rule life) It was awesome! It was just like being back in Texas at a football game with everyone on their feet chanting cheers and songs the entire time. Some of us even managed to understand some of the words being sung and got to join in on the party...."L-I-G-A Liga campeon!" or...."esta noche tenemos que ganar" (tonight we have to win!), etc. It was an awesome experience and just got me excited to go to Ecuador's World Cup Qualifier game against Uruguay in October!

Jackie, me, and Chet...the newest addition to the

Liga Fan Bandwagon!

Jackie, me, Sarah, Haley and Sonia getting rowdy!

LIGA!

Other than the cultural festivities we got to partake in, school here have started which means our programs at the library have also started this past Monday. This year I am teaching Adult English with Chet on Mondays and Jackie and I have started a new Natural Science class this year for the kids that take English classes at the library. So far, Adult English has not been successful with no one showing the first week but we have spoken with some adults and have figured out that our time just wanted congruent with their work schedules so I think we are going to try and change class time and hopefully that will do the trick! Jackie and I's Natural Science class was a great success on Friday! We made lava lamps with the kids and taught them about water and oil and why they don't mix and how oil can be devastating to the environment such as in oil spills. They seemed to really enjoy it and fingers crossed, learned something!

Finally, this past week we took measurements of the students at Aliñambi because we are in the process of developing a pilot Nutrition Program to implement at Aliñambi and then upon its hopeful success spread it out into other schools in the community to get these kids healthy and eating right.

So other than doing analysis on the Aliñambi data, teaching English and Natural Science, and working on finding grants for our Health Program, I am just hanging, enjoying the last we weeks of dry season and trying to learn as much Spanish as I can!

Hope everyone's weekend was fantabulous! (even though the Chargers lost :( sadly)

peace + amor

Krysta

Salud is for everyone!!

Hey everyone,

So I apologize that it has been weeks since my last post. The past few weeks have been absolutely nuts for me. Basically since I moved into the house I have been attending meetings with Julia at Aliñambi to discuss the nutrition program we want to start to implement starting with the children at Aliñambi and then hopefully with the success of that program, expand it on into the communities to improve the over health of children. I had also been meeting with Julia about the clinic we put on on August 28th and 29th, and finally, have had meetings to finalize the contract between us, Aliñambi and HealtheChildren (the US based organization that is funding the Aliñambi clinic expansion and nutrition program). Even though it was a crazy few weeks and lots of work with meetings and poster making and everything, it all really paid off in the end!!

Me in front of my Nutrition posters with some fruit in hand!

Our clinic was a great success. Over the 2 days we had 133 patients total (we had hoped for a little more but it was great to meet and help the amount of community members we did). The clinic consisted of 2 doctors and 1 PA (which was amazing for me to see that PA's can come down here and do amazing health work! Now I really cant wait to become a PA and start doing this kind of work!) and we had a pharmacy with tons of medication that all Manna volunteers have brought down over the past couple years and lastly Manna, us, put on a dental interactive talk where we taught kids the proper way to brush and floss their teeth!  Many people down here don't realize how important brushing and especially flossing are to one's health. So our charla (that is what a little 'talk' is called down here) went amazingly and we gave out a toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss to all the kids that participated. It was so adorable to teach all of them and have all of them so eager to learn. I also made nutrition posters that consisted of specific nutrition facts based on Ecuadorian fruits and made a food pyramid catered to Ecuador and finally we had Health Jeopardy where patients could win t-shirts for right answers while they were waiting to see the doctors. It was truly an amazing experience.

Me and Jens in front of the dental charla posters!

Haley and I with our dental charla audience!

2 girls from my group maintain the Manna Ecuador Blog that is for anyone and everyone who has donated, supports or is just curious in the happens of MPI. I wrote the guest blog this week about the clinic so here is the link so please check it out! (and not only for my blog but also check it regularly because they write bout 5 times a week about all the stuff we do so...they are better than I am ! Sorry :) ) Oh and here is the link: http://openhandsdirtyfeet.blogspot.com/

So anyways, back on track....The clinic was a great experience and being so involved first handedly and being actively involved in it set up and creation made me really see this experience differently than free clinics I have done in the past in Mexico. Being so involved and having so much contact with the patients made me realize how much "power" we have down here solely for being Gringos. It was crazy to see how these people would just walk into our clinic and put their trust and lives in our hands without knowing anything about us, without knowing our credentials, and accepting that we knew more and could take care of them because we are Americans. They assume we have X amount of knowledge about medicine and about health that they don't ask questions along the lines if we are qualified to be giving health advice and care. It really took me aback and made me so happy that we are able to help these people because we do have more basic knowledge to share about health but at the same time it kills me to see how they perceive us and that we have so much 'power' to help and change how these people live and hardly anyone acknowledges it.

Being able to see how a PA can work down here in South America has really given me more passion and excitement that I have chosen the right career path for me. I cannot wait to be able to be in the position to help people on a greater level. YAY!!

Jens and an eager patient!

Haley and I sporting the t-shirts I designed and got made (my first Ecuadorian project and success)!

So now that this clinic is over, I am starting to work with Julia and Aliñambi on getting their nutrition program and hopefully soon will start working on Aliñambi's clinic expansion.  Schools down here started this week and so we are starting programs at our library next Monday the 14th. I am helping out with Adult English as well as starting a new class with Jackie to teach kids about science and natural sciences/environmental science. So my weeks of business are going to continue for awhile and since our kids natural science class is a new proposal, we are just crossing our fingers that kids come and enjoy it so we can continue it throughout the year!

Well, that is about it for now! Sorry for the late and sparse updates!  We will all be getting into more regular routines now so that will be nice. I will let you know how are classes begin next week! 

Hope all is well in your respective parts of the US and that you had an awesome summer! (so sad its coming to an end) And I heard it was Labor Day up there today so I'm super jealous of ya'lls holiday haha!

Salud + amor

Krysta

My new future career path...radio!

So right now, and for the past 2 weeks, Manna has been running a teens camp through our library where we do all sorts of activities from basketball, to video games and hiking. This past Wednesday was my day (because all the PDs switch off between teen camp in the morning and the library in the afternoon) to help out with the teens. So Seth (one of the original Ecuador PDs), who knows a contact at the most popular radio station in the Chillos Valley, took the camp to this radio station for a tour. The Director showed all the kids around and they got to listen while the radio was on the air. It was really cool. Then he said who wants to say hi to all our listeners and of course all the kids were very shy and said no. So he ended up picking 2 randoms kids and they all went into a room and each sat at a respective microphone as the director proceeded to interview the 2. Then he made all the rest say something as well and then finally, since he was talking about Manna Project and the summer camp with the kids, he got Seth on the air to talk a little bit about Manna as well. All while this is happening, a fellow PD Sarah and I are quietly sitting in the corner encouraging the kids on trying to make them not so nervous as well as trying to blend in with the wall so the Director would forget about us and not make us talk on the air haha. Well, our conspicuousness needs some work. He called Sarah up to the microphone and she was so nervous she could barely get a word out. Damn public speaking! So then he calls me up and I actually wasn't that nervous because well, I couldn't actually see the people of the entire Valley listening to me speak my botched Spanish so it was alright. He asked me how I liked Ecuador so far and how I liked working with the summer camp. I responded saying Ecuador was awesome, naturally, and that working with the kids was awesome and that I was also going to work in community health. He also asked me how long we were going to be in Ecuador and past that I think my nervous got the best of me and I forgot everything that happened after haha. But, in the end, I can now say that I have been on the Ecuadorian radio!! My moms reaction was....."I have a celebrity for a daughter!" :)
So just thought I would fill you in on one of the more exciting parts of my week! Otherwise, my week has been full of doing HOURS of research on Positive Deviance (you should google it, its actually an amazing program that can be applied to needed things) in preparation for my meeting with Julia at Aliñambi this morning to talk about the Nutrition Program for the kids there and how we can start to go about improving and sustaining their health (and just to fill you the meeting went really well!...I think I am growing on her)! And for the next two weeks I will be preparing a charla (like a talk) about Nutrition that we will present at the 2 day Open Clinic we are putting on on August 28th and 29th! Super busy but I am really enjoying learning about health down here so it's great!
Until next post!
Hope you all are having a great summer! I am savoring every last "summer"/dry season day here before the wet season starts soon and doesn't stop for...oh about 7 months!

besos!
Krysta

Viva Ecuador!!

Hola a todos!
Soooo we finally moved into our house in Conocoto and have been living here for a week! And thus so begins my year of maybe warm, maybe not showers, cooking for 10+ people, shopping for 10+ people, a house that echos all voices so sleeping past 9 is out of the question, and internet connection that doesn't work if anyone is on Skype or watching videos on YouTube! Woohoo! It has been an absolute crazy week but a fun one. As the old PDs are slowly departing, we started with 16 people living in 9 rooms.....madness! I current have 2 roommates and will share a room until my actual room becomes vacant in a few weeks. So we are living in nice and cozy close quarters! It's been quite an adventure! I am going to go around the house with my camera perhaps tomorrow and take a video of everything so you can see our lovely Manna House!

The view of part of the Chillos Valley from our rooftop! Just imagine
San Diego sunsets over these mountains...BEAUTIFUL!

As we are starting to divide up programs and duties, I already have all my duties and am off to a very busy start. I was selected for various reasons, one being that my spanish is more advanced, to head the program working with a school called Aliñambi that houses orphaned kids as well as provides schooling for children in the surrounding communities. Last year measurements were taken of these kids because many of them are malnourished and the analysis of those were just done and the results were that just about 63% of these children are malnourished. So, I had my first meeting with Dr. Julia last week, who is the main physician at Aliñambi, to start figuring out why these kids are not getting the nourishment they need form home as well as devising plans to change their habits and get them healthy. We have decided to provide 3 months of vitamins to these kids and do home visits with each of their families to view how meals are being prepared and identify possible areas were changes can be made to improve these childrens' health. It is going to be difficult because we have to be careful not to offend the mothers whose primary job is taking care of the house and children. Should be an amazing experience and a challenging one! My rusty Spanish skills are really being put to the test already!!! Yikes!
Also, I am currently working on putting together a free Clinic that will happen August 28th & 29th at Aliñambi for all the surrounding communities. There will be a Dr. there to assess people and we will be interacting with the communities members and doing "triage" and trying to establish a relationship and trust with them. I am really excited about this clinic and getting a chance so quickly after getting here to really start making a difference!
So other than working on the Health programs, I am also in charge of establishing a new Scholarship Program for kids here in the Valley. We want to start out providing money for 2 students to go to college. It will be about $100 a month and schools here are 5 years and so for 2 students to go to college for 5 years would only be about $2400! Pretty crazy huh?! For just a little pocket fundraising change, we can provide individuals here with lifetime dreams that they never would have thought possible. The hopes for this program in the future is to be able to establish a strong fund where we can provide scholarships for all areas of study to numerous individuals. So I will be working with Manna on getting this money and selecting 2 students to receive these scholarships, as well as drafting up a contract that these students must abide by during their schooling. Pretty exciting!! We already have one potential candidate...she is 27 and really wants to go to school for Nutrition and start here own nutrition clinic. So we really have a chance to do something awesome with this program...we shall see!
So, one last little story and my novel of an entry will end. Today (August 10th) is Quito's Independence and so last night there were HUGE festivities in Quito, so we naturally went into the city to celebrate! We got to see the symphony play, were about 20 feet form Ecuador's President Correa, a few people got their bags/jackets sliced open by robbers, and some of us danced like fools all through the night! It was really awesome to see and experience. We were of course the obnoxious crazy gringo dancers but after a little, the Ecuadorians got jealous of our skills and decided to join in!! Needless to say it ended with a big dance train around the plaza with older ladies jumping in to join! :)
Viva Ecuador!
Oh, and my camera died in the first 5 min so this is about the only pic I got of the festivities!

Plaza Grande...Feliz Cumpleaños Quito!

Oh, and PS...it was my 23rd birthday this past Friday and my awesome Manna family had made me an awesome card and bought bagels for the occasion (bagels are a very special treat here in Ecuador) and put 23 (the #) candles in it as I woke for breakfast!! I love my Manna Family! :) Thanks guys!!

peace + amor

Christina (my Spanish name because Krysta is way too hard for them to pronounce haha)

The 'honeymoon' period is coming to an end....

Soo, as I start my last week of living in Quito with my host family, and taking spanish classes, and not having to think about, well, much of anything, many emotions are starting to flow!  I am extremely anxious to move into the Manna House in Conocoto to finally really get settled in and start to make a life here for the next year.  But at the same time I am nervous because moving into the house means we actually have to start taking over these programs from last years PDs and start working and making connections within the Ecuador communities! Nerves!  For the past week and for the following week, we have been meeting and will meet with each of last years PDs as they give us the run down on everything about the program each have been in charge of and their past successes and failures and where they would like to see the program go.  My main interest, the Health programs, seem absolutely amazing.  I was nervous to begin with because there is 5 of us that are interest in Health mainly and so I was worried about how much I was going to be able to contribute to the Health Programs.  But after the talk it seems awesome that we have 5 people because there is sooo much to do within Health field and so many projects going on at the same time that it will be awesome for each of us to focus on one part and really really advance our respective programs fast and also unitedly open a Prevention and Awareness Clinic in building space that we have above the Manna Library!  There is so much potential that is should be amazing. I am completely stoked!  The Health people are getting more details later this week so it should be really interesting.  

So as for learning spanish, learning the Manna Programs, and a little weekend traveling, my time here so far has been awesome! I can't believe I have already been here for 2 weeks, but at the same time it feels like it has been so long!  2 weeks down, 55 more to go! :)

Hope summer is treating ya'll well!

Peace + amor

Krysta

Life, Love, Community

Hey all!
Soo, I just wanted to put up a quick post of a picture of a chinese proverb that was written on the wall of the Guayasamin museum (Ecuadors most famous artist--we went yesterday :) ) that I thought was amazing and gave me goosepimples....yes I am nerd. But I just thought it was a great way to think about life, especially in times like right now...so enjoy and hope everyone is having an awesome start to their weekend!

"I cried because I had no shoes until I saw a boy who had no feet"

peace + amor

Krysta

oh and PS...

The awesome new Manna Ecuador group!

My first few days in Ecuador!! :)

Hola todos!

I just want to put this out there first thing: I have never written a blog before or know how it should be done so I am just going to ramble and be informal and dish about my life down here ok! So after much anticipation and preparation, I am finally in Ecuador!! I am soo excited! I am currently in the capital, Quito, staying with an Ecuadorian host family while we take language school for 3 weeks to either learn for some or improve our Spanish. Then we will move out to Conocoto and move into the MPI house and pick up where the current Program Directors (PDs) left off in helping the communities!!

It has been an adventure thus far I have only been there for two days! Our flight from Miami to Quito required us to where masks the entire 4 hours because of the swine flu. Many Ecuadorians believe that it is running ramped, like seriously everyone has it, in the United States. So after that, I finally reached my host family and they are the sweetest ever. I couldn’t ask for a nicer family. And no surprise to me they treat me like a true child of theirs. I just love the culture and warmth down here! US has so much to learn ;) On our first day we went out to the MPI house in Conocoto and had a BBQ with the current PDs (program directors) that will be leaving soon and got to know them and more about their life here for the past year and what to expect. The house is awesome and I can’t wait to move into it! The view of the Valley where the communities are from our house is amazing. Mountains surround Quito and Conocoto and they are beautiful grassy green knolls almost. Amazing. So anyways, then today we visited the HUGE market that we will be doing a lot of our shopping. I have never seen such an amazing market. The fruit and veggies down here are to die for and they have some of the craziest fruits and veggies you have ever seen. One of the other PDs bought some fruit (never got the name of it so I will get back to you on that one) that was red and spiky and you peeled off the outer layer to expose this oval, clearish, almost gummy eyeball textured fruit center. You just popped the whole thing in your mouth and gnawed on it. I am so glad I have grown out of my “it if looks weird I’m not eating it” phase. It is so fun to just sample anything and everything here (well to some extent, I think I will be leaving pigs skin and feet and cows skin off my list ;) ) In the market I tried some of these circular pancake looking things that they were frying up right there in front of you. I had no idea what they were but come to find out it was a mix of potato and onions and they were amazing. The meat market was insane. Any part of cows, pigs, chicken, its all there. I will spare you most of the details since I think you can imagine haha.

So yeah. That has pretty much been my first 2 days! I feel like I have been here weeks already. I am already starting to forget how to say words in English and my Spanish is coming back slowly but surely. I cannot wait to move into the MPI house and start working with these communities and start making a difference. Even though this site in Ecuador has only been here 2 years, they have made so much progress and it has sooo much potential I just can’t wait to see where it all goes and how I am going to play a role in it all!

I will write again soon and I will post a few pictures of my first few days (if I can figure out how)! And these were the only pics I have so far but I will post more when I get them from other people and take some more!! I will post one of me and my Ecuadorian family because well they are adorable. Thank you again so much for your support!! Finally being down here and seeing everything makes me so happy and grateful that we can provide for these communities and make a difference for those who truly appreciate it!

Hope all is well en Los Estados Unidos!! Until next post!

Besos!

Krysta