Quick Update

Alright, alright I haven’t written in a long time, I know, and I’m sorry.

Writers block is a real thing, you know.

A lot has happened since the last time I’ve blogged and, as usual, I don’t know where to begin, what’s important, what you want to know or are curious about…which also means that I’m thinking about it way too much.

So here’s my unblocking strategy:

I’m just going to talk to you.

My director from the United States visited. Her name is Kathy. She’s from New York, which is apparent (She pronounces the word “human” like yoo-man like some sort of Yankee) She’s brand new to Incarnate Word Missionaries too, arrived at the same time Katie and I were going through orientation in San Antonio. With her being new and all, she felt like it was important to visit the mission sites so that she can have an understanding of exactly what it is we are up to down here.

So, she visited each of our works sites with us. I just realized you may not know what we all do so:

Kyle: You know me. I work with Women’s Global Connection which helps groups of women form productive organizations and I also volunteer with the nutritional program Sembrando Infancia. 

Pusaq Warmi, a group of women WGC works with and I visiting a prospective group in Tangay, Peru.

Katie: I’ve talked about her before in other blogs. She came down here with me. (She’s also from Texas which is important). She’s a nurse and she works with the Hospice program for terminally ill patients established by the Sisters of the Incarnate Word.

Katie and her angry Med. Tech.

Emily: She’s been here for a little over a year now. She’s originally from a really small town called Dodge in Nebraska. She works in the Parish with youth ministry and she also has started reaching out to other parish youth programs to provide support. She also works with the parish theater group. 

Emily with one of her Confirmation students. Also, Daniela.

Kelli: She came down with Emily and is from Isanti, Minnesota which sounds really cold. She volunteers with a program that was started by the Good Shepherd Sisters that helps women who prostitute and their children. She mainly works in an area called La Balanza or “the Balance,” which is a dangerous area of Chimbote. 

Kelli at the Plaza near the harbor.

Fidea: She’s originally from Chimbote, Peru. She’s a cat. She’s orange. She doesn’t cook and she only cleans up after herself, but she’s funny So we keep her around for morale. Her work mostly consisted of loafing around the house all day, eating, drinking, sleeping, but as of Friday she’s a mom of four.…oh, how that tables have turned, Fidea.

Fidea doing one of her famous Katie impressions.

I know what you’re probably thinking now…

“Poor Kyle, living in a house full of girls.”

This is the part where one of my guy friends elbows me in the side and says, “Oh yeah, I’m sure he’s hating it.”

But it is tough sometimes. Just living in a community with four other people in itself comes with challenges—especially because this isn’t like some college dorm where we all happen to share the same house. We have to be a community. We pray together. Eat together. We are growing together, and working towards something.

and it is difficult sometimes when there is only one Yin to three Yangs.

Am I happy?

        Without a doubt.

But I also miss walking into my brother’s room after having a big fight with him, punching him on the arm and saying, “Dude. We cool?” and him shrugging that we are.

Now that’s communication.

Anyway, Kathy really helped us to focus and re-focus on what it means to be a community. 

She gave us the task of coming up with a name for our house and a mission statement. We did, it’s cool, you’ll like it…when I get around posting more about it. But long story short, the name we chose is Casa Manna, because, in our house, the lord provides. 

That's all for now. This doesn't even scratch the surface, but at least I got something out, right?

Kathy with us at the only Mexican food restaurant we've found to date.

Great WGC Video

 A really great video showing some of the great work WGC has done in Africa. Maybe one day there will be one like this about Peru.

Work Update

For the past two weeks Sembrando Infancia has been performing a series of surveys throughout Cambio Puente. The project has just finished its first year and while they are happy with the results of all their hard work, they are also dealing with some disappointments. The data shows a mixed outcome. Some of the children’s health has greatly improved, but many have also showed no change or a continued decline. This is especially frustrating for those families who’ve whole-heartedly believed in the project and have done everything possible to achieve maximum results. How then do you explain to them that the supplements are important? How do you maintain your credibility within the community? 

One of the families we interviewed.

This sent the team back to the drawing board.

Okay, the kids have been receiving supplements and health advice for the past year. But our data shows that there is a certain percentage of children in each sector suffering from a decline in health even though we know they are participating to the fullest extent.

What's causing this?

After an examination of all the data, the team realized that there is a direct correlation between children who haven’t seen positive results and those who suffer from chronic illness, diarrhea being the major culprit.

Did you know that diarrhea killed nearly 1.3 million children in 2008?[1] 

I didn’t.

I also didn’t know that diarrhea kills more children than meningitis, measles, HIV/AIDS, pertussis and injury combined.

Or that it’s the third largest cause of childhood mortality after neo-natal illnesses, right behind pneumonia.

Cholera, shigellosis, rotavirus, typhoid, dysentery and other diarrheal diseases account for 14 percent of deaths in children aged 1-59 months. [1]

Black R, Cousens S, Johnson HL, Lawn JE, Rudan I, Bassani DG, et al. Global, regional, and national causes of child mortality in 2008: a systematic analysis. The Lancet. 2010;375:1969-87.

 Diarrhea is mainly transmitted through water and food born parasites.

It’s no surprise then that diarrhea especially effects third world countries and rural areas like Cambio Puente.  

Although there aren’t any kids necessarily dying from diarrhea in Cambio Puente, Sembrando Infancia believes it is one of the major reasons there has been some backsliding in their results. It’s difficult for a child maintain an adequate level of nutrients if they are in a constant state of dehydration and nutrient loss.  

The evolution of a house, sticks to estera or bamboo then finally to adobe.

 The team decided that, since diarrhea is cause by poor sanitation, they needed to get a better understanding of what they were dealing with in that regard.

We needed to get into these houses.

We’ve surveyed more than a hundred families to feel out the cooking, drinking and bathroom situations that the kids in the project are living with and I think the team hit the bull’s-eye.

First of all, none of the houses have desague, or drainage, for their bathrooms. This means that they are using an outhouse system. 

An example of the most common style of bathroom in Cambio Puente.

 

Inside. The concrete helps to reduce hazardous conditions.

 They dig a deep hole, use it until it’s filled up and then dig another hole close by.

I’ve seen a huge range of bathrooms, ranging from something similar to a bathroom I’d see in the U.S. to the downright disturbing. One thing is clear though: the hole in the ground method is unsafe and unsanitary.

Some families have done a lot of resourceful things to mitigate the negatives. Some have covered the ground with cement so it’s easier to clean, some have placed commodes over the hole and flush it by pouring water into the top. Some of them have installed ventilation tubes. The best thing I seen is a family who dug a giant septic hole a bit of a distance from their home and connected it to a commode in their house, creating something similar to a septic system we’d see in the U.S.

The most widespread problem is that many of the families don’t cover the hole with anything so there is a lot of cross contamination between the bathroom and the kitchen, especially by the omnipresent flies.

Maribel, one of the community agents helping with the survey.

 Another big problem is that many cook with wood on the ground, camp-fire style. While it is cheap and effective, there are some detrimental side-effects. Firstly, the smoke is obviously bad for everyone’s health. Secondly, it’s hard to get water to come to a full boil while cooking with wood. When cooking a pot of beans or boiling water for drinking, few have time to wait thirty minutes to sanitize the water properly. Thirdly, when cooking on a wood fire, regulating the cooking temperature is pretty much impossible. This throws safe cooking practices out the window easily leading to improperly cooked food. 

These findings have framed the focus of Sembrando for the upcoming year. Not only do they need to focus on nutrition, they are also going to have to ensure that the children are living in an environment that fosters these nutritional changes. We plan on incorporating better sanitation practices to the capacity building workshops over the next months.

This has been cool for me to see. Not only do I feel like I’m finally pulling my own weight since my Spanish has gotten good enough that I could perform the surveys on my own, I also got to see the project overcome a big hurdle and respond with an action plan. This is definitely a lesson that will help me in my work with WGC.

Overall, the past week has shown me another side of the people in Cambio Puente. For them to let me into their homes to look at something as intimate as their bathroom was humbling.

“Puedo observer tu bano?”

Their head would jerk up to look at me to make sure I was being serious.

They’d close the door a little and look back over their shoulder as if trying to see the bathroom through the wall to see the state it was in.

Then they’d smile shyly and sometimes ask, “Do you have to?”

 Although there were a few that outright told me I couldn’t come in because they didn’t trust me—which is understandable—the majority were hospitable and patient with my Spanish.

It really motivates me to work harder now that I know the families I’m working on behalf of. Now,t here are faces that correspond to all the tables and pie-charts we’ve been evaluating. 

                                       

Two brothers and their sister playing marbles outside their home.

Black R, Cousens S, Johnson HL, Lawn JE, Rudan I, Bassani DG, et al. Global, regional, and national causes of child mortality in 2008: a systematic analysis. The Lancet. 2010;375:1969-87.4

The Last Quinceneara

I remember the last Quinceneara I was in. I remember dreading every dance practice, every run-through of the ceremony.

I remember thinking, “Kyle, you’re sixteen now…you’re not going to have to be in another Quinceneara for as long as you live. This is the last one.”

That thought got me through all those tedious hours of listening to the Kumbia Kings over and over while learning the steps to the dance the court had to perform.

Now, here I am, twenty-two years old, in Peru, a college grad…and I’m in a Quinceneara.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the idea of the Quinceneara. It’s symbolic, it’s cultural, it’s ritual, it’s tradition, I get it, I like it.

I just don’t like to be in them.

I’m a behind-the-scenes kind of guy. My hobbies include reading, writing, jogging by myself and spending time chilling with friends and family: my life practically spells out the word low-key. My hobbies most definitely do not include learning funky-fresh new hip-hop steps to perform in front of crowds of relatives and friends.

…but I guess God doesn’t push you to do only what you like to do. Where would the fun be in that? (Because I’m sure somebody upstairs is having a pretty good laugh at my expense about all this.)

So when Sister Juanita asked me if I’d like to have the first dance with Luzmila, the girl who she’s the Madrina for, I had hesitations, but agreed.

“It’s just the first dance, right?” I told myself.

            However, after a string of miscommunications, I currently have the honor and distinction of being Luzmila’s Padrino. I found out this interesting little factoid when I was handed the invitation and noticed a version of my name: “Kile Lavis Seymaur” professionally, and permanently, printed on the expensive looking paper…under the Padrinos category.

            “Oh…wow…I’m a Padrino.” I said looking up from the invitation at Luzmila, her mom and dad. They all nodded, smiling.

            I had forgotten all about the Padrino loophole when I made that solemn oath six years ago. “Kyle…you’re not going to have to be in another Quinceneara for as long as you live…live…live…live…” The words echoed in my mind, now sounding like something from that guy who said that the Titanic could never sink.

            Is it really any surprise that I’m in one then?

            So, swallowing my pride, I bowed, held out my hand, and waltzed like I wanted nothing more in the world than to be in the last Quinceneara I’d ever be in for the rest of my life.

1st WGC Field Report

Most of the things I’d heard about, and learned about Chimbote before coming have proven true. I have seen the realities of the surveys. What were once numbers and percentages are now faces and families. The statistics, for instance, are all pretty accurate. Of the 1,000,000 people living in the Ancash region (the state Chimbote is in) 32% are considered to be poor. 17.6% are considered to be living in extreme poverty.

These are, no doubt, pretty shocking percentages.

320,000 people living in poverty.

176,000 men, women and children are living in extreme poverty, which means—according to the World Bank—that entire families are subsisting on about $1.50 US dollars a day.

$10.50 a week to buy food, clothes and to seek healthcare.

What does this translate to in terms of actual realities?

It means that many families are placed in the position of having to decide whether to buy 1 kilo of potatoes, a pair of shoes for their barefoot child, or to seek medical attention for their elderly relative who’s had a fever for three days.

They can’t choose all three.

Over the past two months I have noted what I see as the major problems afflicting this particular population and have divided them into three categories, Healthcare, Education, and Income.

Healthcare – There is not an adequate level of quality healthcare available. The Posta in Cambio Puente is state-run, understaffed and ill-equipped. They are making do with what they have. Their work is commendable but it simply isn’t adequate, and that’s a fact. For a town of over 2,000 people, a medical team of 20 is not sufficient.

According to a 2007 survey by Doctors of the World, the average ration of doctors to patients in the US is about 390 to 1.

In Peru it is around 850 to 1.

In Cambio Puente it fluctuates between 1,000 to 1 and 2,000 to 1. Those who can afford to travel for medical attention do, those who can’t are forced to wait in long lines, they are given minutes with a doctor or staff member and they are forced to take their advice. No second opinions. No questions asked. I heard a woman say that a nurse had been telling the mothers who hadn’t been taking their children in for vaccinations, “Fine. But you’re baby is going to die. Don’t vaccinate them, they’ll die.”

We know that vaccines prevent a lot of deadly diseases, but to use fear instead of education to convince mothers to vaccinate their children isn’t right. The people here need alternatives.

Education – One of the most proven and effective ways to end a negative cycle is through education of a population’s youth. By giving the youth opportunities to improve their own lives and the lives of their families, entire communities can be transformed in a relatively short period of time. Again, just like the problem with the lack of healthcare, there is a lack of reliable, affordable education options. According to Nation Master, the average Peruvian has about 7.6 years of education. Too often I have seen children babysitting children, children accompanying their parents into the fields while they work for a lack of alternatives. Montessori type centers are being created for early childhood stimulation, but this is still an area that needs a lot of work.

Income – With about half a million people, Chimbote is a large city. Like most large cities, Chimbote attracts thousands of people looking for work. Especially people who are living in extreme poverty in the mountains and surrounding rural areas. Many believe that because Chimbote is so large, there must be an abundance of job opportunities. This, sadly, is not the case. Therefore men and women are forced to rely on part-time jobs or resort to working the types of jobs where they are needed, sporadically, whenever there is work to be done, like during harvest time.

These types of jobs almost always include manual labor, are hazardous to ones health, don’t come with benefits and don’t cultivate skills that can help better a person’s economic situation. People working these types of jobs are also more vulnerable to be taken advantage of in terms of pay and number hours they are made to work. Programs which help increase a family’s economic stability would help greatly in the Healthcare and Education categories, as it is well known that an increase in disposable income usually correlates with an increase in healthcare and education opportunities.

One organization’s project in Cambio Puente worked with families to help cultivate small plots of vegetables and was received with much enthusiasm and produced impressive results. By having their own home-grown vegetables, they had more money to spend on things other than groceries, which helped to relieve some of their monetary burden. It was also something that was fun and allowed the families to feel like they were taking ownership of their situation.

While the statistics are troubling, and seeing how these statistics manifest themselves in real life is even more troubling, they don’t paint a completely accurate picture. I have realized that it is unfair to generalize entire populations here solely based on studies and statistics.

There are many problems here, true. But there are also many assets here, especially in the form of human capital. The people here are resourceful and when they work together as a community it will definitely be possible to bring about the changes they desire. Along with well-organized and focused social services, the people here really do have an opportunity to break the cycle of poverty they are in.

Incarnate Word Missionaries: Communication:

Incarnate Word Missionaries: Communication:: I whip out my cell phone and say “Uh-huh” under my breath as I check my email. “Well, what do you think?” my friend asks. “About what?” I an...

A Different Way of Thinking, revised.

 

Now that I’m able to get around town more easily and I understand the language better, and now that it doesn’t take me three and a half days to do my laundry, I have had the chance to learn a lot more about the situation here in Chimbote and Cambio Puente.

I have been able to pick up on things other than language during my time here, too. For instance, now I know the difference between the smell of a cooking fire made from wood and one made from dried corn cobs.

Useful? Maybe not.

Interesting? I guess.

But I have learned, other more valuable lessons since being immersed here for about a month (I can’t believe it’s already October).

The novelty of being in a new place has worn off a bit and now I'm able to work on having a little more critical and objective perspective.

Whereas I used to think that everybody was poor in Cambio Puente, that it was just something that existed across the board, I’ve come to realize that it’s all relative:
 For instance, you can tell a lot about a family's situation just by taking a good look at their house:

Having brick walls is a big deal.

Having brick walls made from concrete instead of mud is an even bigger deal.

Cement floors? You’re on your way up.

Pictures of your children graduating from school on your walls might as well be expensive paintings.

Selling groceries out of your home is an indicator that you are more than likely middle class.

Selling products out of a location that is separate from your home and you’re most likely in the upper-middle class.

You know you’ve hit it big if you’re moving to a home in Chimbote.

 .

Also, just because some women here had never heard of the idea of proteins, carbohydrates and food pyramids doesn’t mean they didn’t know anything about nutrition. They don’t need to know how to read a nutrition label to understand that if their child’s diet consists of cookies, rice and potatoes, they aren’t going to be healthy. 
The problem lies in what we choose to do with the information—just like in the U.S. we know that McDonald’s is bad in excess, yet we still have people who eat their daily.

Is it an economic problem? Of course it is.

Is it unfair that a mystery meat and French fry combo costs less than grilled chicken breast and spinach? Definitely.

This is why programs like Sembrando Infancia are so important. S.I. gives parents the extra information they need to be able to make the best decisions for their families while also empowering them to be accountable for their health. 

The responsibility is placed squarely on the parents—because we all know that if it were up to the kids they´d be fine eating mini-marshmallows and fistfuls of dirt for the rest of their lives—and if there is one attitude that I’ve noticed is the most prevalent here, it’s that parents really do want the best for their children.

—and it seems that some parents just need to hear somebody tell them: "At the end of the day, you are in charge of your child´s health. What are you doing about it?" for the message to really sink in.

 

Another thing I´ve learned is that there is a clear definition between the people we are working with and the people we are working  for. 

We are working with people like Monica. She saw a little boy being neglected, decided that it was wrong, and chose to do something about it. And there are many more just like her in this community, Peruvian men and women who recognize that things should be, and can be better. They are educating themselves and their families, they are going to seminars, forums, protests. They are taking a stand, which is really motivating for me to see because, after my two years are up here, it is going to be people like Monica who´ll have to take charge of the development of their own communities. 

Then there are the people we are working  for.  People like Jesus´ grandpa. 
I´ve been thinking a lot about him lately and time has changed my perspective of him as well. He doesn´t understand what cerebral palsy is. He doesn´t understand why or how it is that his daughter had a son who will be a burden on his family for the rest of his life. I´m not making excuses for him, I´m only trying to understand where he´s coming from. Maybe the way he sees it, just like with the animals he´s worked with all his life, all Jesus needs is some tough love and strict correction. It's no wonder then that he scratches his head in confusion when the giant Caucasian comes to his house to bend and unbend his grandson´s knee—the same knee that bends and unbends quite enough when he drags him to the tienda down the street.

The other day I was trying to help Jesus walk in a straight line during his exercise routine. I held him up by his arms and we walked in front of his house where his grandpa sat watching us through narrowed eyes.

Jesus tripped and fell suddenly. 
I felt really embarrassed that I'd let that happen and I quickly helped him up, dusted him off and looked up sheepishly at his grandpa.

He just stared, unconcerned.

We tried again. Before his third step he fell to the ground.

"Maybe if I hold him better, tighter."

We tried it again, he wiggled out of my grip as if he wanted to do it on his own.

¨Si se puedes, Jesus.¨ I said and let him try.

He immediately fell to the ground.

Then I saw it. 
A mischievous grin.

He was playing what I now call ¨The Falling Game.¨ I sat him down and he laughed as I shook off my frustration. I checked to see what grandpa thought of all this. He cocked his head as if to say, ¨Ah-ha, not so easy, huh.¨

That experience really allowed me to reevaluate my opinion of him. I know that he loves Jesus, and probably Jesus-Jesus too. I know that he probably cares about his family a lot. It is apparent that my presence bothered him at first, but now he seems more curious than aggravated. It will probably take some time, and he may never change, but I´m here for him just as much as I´m here for Jesus—and for me, that simple shift in thinking has made all the difference.

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