The Epic Health Seminar, Act II
At 6:30AM the PCVs in (and under) my hut started moving, a little slower than the day before. We made what I think was a metric ton of eggs and at 8AM headed out to start ringing the bell. Everyone was assembled and ready to go by 8:15. Well, the participants were. The PCVs were banking on them taking a little longer to round themselves up!
By 8:45 we were ready and started off by teaching them Simon Says. They LOVED Simon Says and we played it 3 more times before the end of the seminar. The plan for Thursday was to go through the 4 main health lessons of the seminar but didn't want them cooped up in a meeting hall the whole time. We divided them into groups of 4. I sent one group with Danielle to a woman's house to discuss Casa Limpia. Ben took a group down to the river to discuss Clean Water (for drinking, the various ways to treat and filter it and for goodness sake WHY IT IS SO IMPORTANT), Chris took a group to the existing Composting Latrine in the community (the only finished one at the time, the one I use at the town office) where they discussed composting latrine use and maintenance, and Andrew met with a group to discuss handwashing where we meet for snacks.
They loved the round robin and moving around the community style of the seminars although we were all STARVING by the time lunch break came around. After a long lunch we met up all together to see just how much they learned that morning.
It was an EPIC game of Jeopardy, dividing them into four teams, coming up with Embera team names (each team name had to be an animal, to answer each team had to make their animal noise) and the questions were intense. We were happily impressed with how many of them they were able to answer correctly with no hesitation, although we did throw in a few tricks. I thought they might throw us in the river at one point! (I asked, which of the 4 Ls is the MOST important? The answer was all of them. They were not amused!)
After 2 hours of intense competition, our winning team was the Michis, the cats, who meow-ed their way to gold medals.
After the afternoon session the PCV headed out to the soccer field to play frisbee with the kids and I went around figuring out the logistics of the next day's meeting, which was rollercoaster in and of itself. Tribal politics, not a fan.In the end I got what I needed agreed to and headed home, where I found 4 students in my hut, waiting for me to help them with their homework.
One of the teachers had made my play part of their homework. They had to do a write up of what they thought of the play, what they knew before the play, and what they learned from it. Pretty complex stuff for some 4th graders in the jungle. Danielle and I talked them through it and sent them away after awhile. Sometimes you just need some space to yourself and when you have tiny hut with 5 people living in it for 5 days, there just is not a lot of room for extra kids!
That evening we had fabulous fried plaintains and guacamole for dinner. I love avocado season. Sometimes the avocados are as large as my forearm!
By 8:45 we were ready and started off by teaching them Simon Says. They LOVED Simon Says and we played it 3 more times before the end of the seminar. The plan for Thursday was to go through the 4 main health lessons of the seminar but didn't want them cooped up in a meeting hall the whole time. We divided them into groups of 4. I sent one group with Danielle to a woman's house to discuss Casa Limpia. Ben took a group down to the river to discuss Clean Water (for drinking, the various ways to treat and filter it and for goodness sake WHY IT IS SO IMPORTANT), Chris took a group to the existing Composting Latrine in the community (the only finished one at the time, the one I use at the town office) where they discussed composting latrine use and maintenance, and Andrew met with a group to discuss handwashing where we meet for snacks.
They loved the round robin and moving around the community style of the seminars although we were all STARVING by the time lunch break came around. After a long lunch we met up all together to see just how much they learned that morning.
It was an EPIC game of Jeopardy, dividing them into four teams, coming up with Embera team names (each team name had to be an animal, to answer each team had to make their animal noise) and the questions were intense. We were happily impressed with how many of them they were able to answer correctly with no hesitation, although we did throw in a few tricks. I thought they might throw us in the river at one point! (I asked, which of the 4 Ls is the MOST important? The answer was all of them. They were not amused!)
After 2 hours of intense competition, our winning team was the Michis, the cats, who meow-ed their way to gold medals.
After the afternoon session the PCV headed out to the soccer field to play frisbee with the kids and I went around figuring out the logistics of the next day's meeting, which was rollercoaster in and of itself. Tribal politics, not a fan.In the end I got what I needed agreed to and headed home, where I found 4 students in my hut, waiting for me to help them with their homework.
One of the teachers had made my play part of their homework. They had to do a write up of what they thought of the play, what they knew before the play, and what they learned from it. Pretty complex stuff for some 4th graders in the jungle. Danielle and I talked them through it and sent them away after awhile. Sometimes you just need some space to yourself and when you have tiny hut with 5 people living in it for 5 days, there just is not a lot of room for extra kids!
That evening we had fabulous fried plaintains and guacamole for dinner. I love avocado season. Sometimes the avocados are as large as my forearm!
Comments
Post a Comment