All good things must come to an end...

Today marks the end of my Aliñambi Nutrition Education Program. :(  Though it has been a rough few months full of long nights and sore throats after class, I am going to genuinely miss some of those kids!

We spent the last two weeks of class playing jeopardy and taking one last trip per group to the garden and the kitchen. Though the garden is still in it's growing stage and not quite ready to be cultivated, the kids really enjoyed planting and taking care of their respective plots. Hopefully Bryan, one of our kids who lives at Aliñambi, will be able to pick some of the crops over the summer!

In the kitchen, Haley and I made a recipe book for each of the kids full of all the recipes we did in class as well as about 25 more recipes catered to their household cooking abilities. I wish I could have captured all their faces of excitement when we told them about the recipe books! Priceless. Surprisingly, I think the boys were more excited than the girls haha.

The kids will take the diagnostic exam that they took the first day to gage how much they learned, as well as to see how they each responded to the self-efficacy questions (hopefully positively!). When they first took the diagnostic prior to learning anything about nutrition, the average score was about a 50%. To deem the program successful and hopefully carry on another year, we are hoping for an increase of 25% or an overall average of 80%. We shall see next week when we get back the exams! I'll keep you posted! I'm crossing my fingers, yet again, that this program can continue next year and expand to include the families to promote more permanent change within households.

And now, the best of the Aliñambi Nutrition Education Program...

One of the posters I made for the 

hand-washing charla

Some of the girls soooo excited to give

their interviews at local tiendas! 

Such eager students!

Sayuri and Jessica crying. From the onions

or because they're having so much fun? Guess

we'll never know...

Enjoying the fruits of their labor!

Our final class. :( Captures them perfectly...

I was so sad to be ending the class as I probably will not see many of the kids again because they are out on summer vacation now. Though a few come to the library, so I will have a couple more days before the big goodbye.

besitos,
Krysta

'Tis the Season for Money!!!

After months of work, a 12-page document, days of editing, and 'self-efficacy' becoming my new favorite word, my Coca-Cola Grant request is officially submitted!! :) CELEBRATION!

I submitted a grant request to the Coca-Cola Foundation for Manna's nutrition and health programs. Currently our budget is at about $200, and lets just say that doesn't go too far when you're trying to purchase new Women's Exercise equipment, run a nutrition class and trying to open a Health Resource Library. So, for months I have been working on this grant so the next year Program Directors are not held back by money.

My money request came to approximately $17,516.32. Now do I expect to get all $17k? Perhaps not, but even a small chunk of that would do wonders for the nutrition programs and that is the least I can hope for! The budget included things from aerobic steps to photo copies to health conferences for Manna PDs and community members to a weight scale and blood glucose monitor. Channeling the true nerd in me, I am so stoked at the possibility of getting sweet, new medical equipment!

I believe the turn around on notification is 6 to 8 weeks so hopefully by the time my contract ends with Manna in August, I will have heard some (great) news! I will fill you in once I hear something!

I'm so nervous I'm biting my nails...

(This was actually taken in Venezuela after Jackie

and I  got the last 2 seats on this overnight

bus to catch our flight back to Quito!)

Hope you're enjoying the start of summer!
Finger- and toe-crossed Peterson

Summer Library Sprucing!

Two weeks ago 10 eager college students arrived to live in the Manna House (yes, there are currently 19 people living all together in the Manna House) and work with us on our programs and do things us PDs just simply never have time to do.

Haley and I have 2 awesome girls helping us with Adult English and they are already planning and teaching part of the classes. Our awesome students have of course welcomed them with open arms and it's definitely a load off of us during a very hectic time of the year! But it's going great and Sonia and Jenni (our TA volunteers) are doing a fabulous job.

Sonia and Jenni teaching vocabulary!

I also have some volunteers helping me paint the very worn down clinic at Aliñambi. But more will be told of that in a few weeks when we finish, so stay tuned.

One of the biggest changes as happened in the library. When Tulane was here for Spring Break, they painted an amazing mural on one of the walls in the library. Tulane left it up to the PDs to fill in/paint all the bubbles....well it never got done. So we recruited the summer vols to finish it for us and within 2 days, it was transformed! It looks fabulous all completed!

The completed mural! (I painted the Ecuador flag :) )

Apparently finishing the mural wasn't enough and some decided to take on a new project of painting other parts of the library as well. The library really needed some color on its ugly pale yellow/tan walls and its getting the star treatment! It is really starting to look like a library with continued book donations and character being added by short-term volunteers and a wall now devoted to the kids reading club. Its incredible to see what we been done since we arrived last July.

Jenni and Claire working on the 

plant/outdoor themed Adults Corner!

I am sure there will be more to come of the library space with these vols around and a new group coming in in a few weeks so I can't wait to see what else springs up!

Disfrute,

Krysta

The Next Food Network Stars!

With the start of June, we will be heading into our 4th and final month of our pilot Nutrition Education Program at Aliñambi. I can't believe it. We have completed all our cooking classes and garden classes with the kids and are now onto more difficult curriculum here in the last month.

In the kitchen we cooked 5 meals including Honey Chicken with Rosemary, Fruit Salad, Rice Salad with Spring Vegetables, Acelga Soup with Vegetables and the always-a-hit Zucchini Bread. As those recipes were just the tip of the iceberg. Needless to say we cooked up a storm with these kids and they all seemed to love it! Each week we assigned ingredients to each kid that they were responsible for bringing. We wanted them to start to gain a sense of responsibility in the kitchen and start them on the track towards self-efficacy in their nutritional lives. Many didn't know what a lot of the ingredients were so by having them have to search and discover new fruits and vegetables, they will *hopefully* now start to realize the healthy variety available to them!

Cooking with Valeria, Sasha, and Jose!

(I apologize for the scary looking black eye 
I'm sporting...soccer)

Jackie did a great job with the kids in the garden. Group 1's plot is sprouting some carrots, lettuce, and herbs beautifully, though much to the regret of Group 2, whose plot isn't looking too hot. Jackie taught them about the negative effects of pesticides and how they effect our health as well as about composting and she even took on the carbon cycle!

Group 1's flourishing garden on the right, 

Group 2, not so much :(

Many days with this project we get overwhelmed and frustrated. Needless to say we have learned a lot about Ecuadorian school systems and discipline and even a few cultural clashes here and there. One day in the kitchen when we were almost at our whits end after suspending 5 kids from the kitchen the week prior, something amazing happened. I was talking to Jennifer, one of our best students, while she was eating the beautifully prepared meal for the day. In the midst of talking she informed me that she made Potatoes with Rosemary (one of the first recipes we did with the kids) in her house with her dad for Mother's Day. She said she cooked and helped her dad and her whole family loved them! I was so excited and so touched, I was at a loss for words. That day made the entire past months of hardships worth it. If we are even affecting the lives of one of these kids, than it has all been worth it. That piece of news Jennifer gave me made me again step back and appreciate why I am here and how amazing it all really is.

Jennifer giving her stellar interview!

Today was the first Friday on non-kitchen and gardening activities. On Tuesday, I taught the kids how to give an interview and how to professionally conduct themselves. Today, we went out into the community and each of them conducted interviews to food-store owners. Despite their nervousness, most of them did fabulous and it was great to see their sense of accomplishment when they were finished. This is just the beginning of a serious of activities we have planned for the kids in their quest towards self esteem and self efficacy in their lives.

So, only one more month until we wrap up this pilot program and assess its success and possible future. Yikes! I will keep you posted upon its end!

A warm Ecuadorian embrace,
Krysta

One-of-a-kind Interview!

Hey all,
So after much anticipation from many people, my PD interview is finally posted on the Manna blog!  So I'm awkward and don't do too well with public speaking and so interviews on cameras are right along those lines as well. But I did my best to answer everyones questions, which thank you all of those who sent some in! Thanks to fellow PD Sarah for an awesome edit job, I hope you like it and perhaps learn something about me!

Check it out at http://openhandsdirtyfeet.blogspot.com/2010/05/after-many-weeks-of-anticipation-i-am.html!

Enjoy!
Krysta

A Travel Back in Time

About 2 months, Jackie started an annex program for Agriculture in which monthly, she would take kids on paseos (adventure outings) to various museums, parks, etc to give the kids opportunities to experience the agricultural/science side of Ecuador a little more. They have been very successful and this past month we took a very excited group of 15 kids to an interactive Dinosaur museum in Quito, and lets just say, it was so horribly awesome. This interactive "museum", and I use that in the lightest sense possible, was more of a gloried life-size Jurassic Park puppet show (complete with the Jurassic Park soundtrack playing in the background).

The 25 minute tour included a guide that walked us through different scenes of dinosaurs and mega-beasts with varying moving parts and features. I didn't take the whole "interactive" part seriously. When we first walked in, we were standing around listening to a recording about dinosaurs and I was busy watching over the kids and not really paying attention, when all of a sudden a foam boulder came flying at me that a puppet dino flung from over a wall. I screamed louder than any 5 year old there. Needless to say we quickly learned that these larger than life dinos moved and sprayed water, scaring the **** out of many of the kids. As we moved from set to set, kids were hiding behind all of the profes and one girl, Leslie, refused to take her fingers out of her ears the entire time (see pic below).

Overall the outing was great. I personally thought it was so horribly awesome and wouldn't trade that day for anything haha. But after the tour, they had 2 dinosaur rides that the kids throughly enjoyed for the better part of an hour. Here a few snippets of our awesome kids and the awesome museum...

This dino sprayed water at us...didn't see that one coming!

Cowering from a giant moving relative of 

Sharp Tooth (The Land Before Time anyone?)

Our favorite, and one and only, set of twins, Ronny and

 Samantha, fearlessly riding the dinos

Samantha being eaten by her dino!

Exhausted on the bus back home! 

(One's faking, can you tell?!)

Only 3 months and 1 day left of Manna....pretty crazy/scary! It's going to be so hard to leave these kids!

Until next post,

Krysta

Home away from home

In March (yes, I am a month late on this one), I did a home-stay with a member of our community. Back in January we decided to start a home-stay program in which Manna PDs would live with community members for about a week. We wanted to present ourselves with the opportunity to get to know community members outside the Community Center setting and on a more personal level, while at the same time offering community members a chance to get to know us as individuals rather than simply as part of the Manna team or as Profes (what the kids call all of us at the library). Many people have already lived with families and more are to come in the following weeks before our summer volunteers get here. So far for everyone that has done a home-stay, it has been a great experience being able to be part of an Ecuadorian family within our community and see how they live their everyday lives.

The family I stayed with is a family of 4 with 2 kids, Ivan and Emilia, that are frequent visitors to our library and previous students of English class. Emilia also happens to be the smartest 4 year I have ever met. She can read in both Spanish AND English and can put things together that no 4 year old should be able to. For example, one night in home-stay, I was talking about my family and how I had an older brother who was 2 years old than me. Irina (the mom) asked how old he was and I said 26 (because he is almost 26) and then Emilia asked how old I was and I said 23. Emilia's response..."He isn't 2 years old than you, he is 3. If he was 2 years older than you, you would be 24." I stood corrected, by a 4 year old. 

It was an awesome experience to live within the community and see day to day workings. I even got a chance to spend the weekend with the family and experience a typical family involved Saturday with numerous extended family members living in the area. There are so many community members that we are close to and I just wish I had more time here to get to do another home-stay, but unfortunately, Summer Volunteers arrive in just about 2 weeks and then the day they leave in July, the new Program Directors arrive! Scary how fast time flies! But, I wish cherish the time I did get to spend living in the community.

Emilia and I showing off her 

splatter paint work of art!

Ivan in the process of creating his
one-of-a-kind!

Hope all is well and everyone's getting excited for summer (or in my case the dry season...its been down pouring continuously since last night here)!

Saludos,

Krysta