Top picture is of one of the thousands of mountains of oranges. Its orange season and they are everywhere.

The second picture is of me and my friend/coworker Sibia.

So we have had a slight bump in the road on our first day of data collection. We began the day early and arrived at the school only to find not kids. The teachers decided it was a good time to have a strike after celebrating Mothers Day. Today and tomorrow as well as this coming Monday through Wednesday is "un paro nacional" (a nation-wide strike). Evidently this is not anything too unusual. It was pretty common about five years ago but things have gotten better. However, my co-workers tell me that it is beginning to go down hill again. Though we were told the strike is a call for an increase in pay, my supervisor tells me it is not much more than teachers wanting to enjoy a longer break.

Despite the suprise and panic, the team rolled with these punches in excelent humor and effort. After buying an extremely large amount of chocolate milk for the students, my supervisor commented to someone "vamos a tener que bañarnos en chicolac" (we are going to have to bath ourselves in chocolate milk).

After calling the schools we were supposed to visit this afternoon we found, two that were not observing the "paro". Above is a picture of one class having their blood tested. Though this will put us behind a bit, we think that things will not be too far behind schedule.

On Monday we realized that I will need to go to La Paz to work with the analysis of the data we (and other Save programs in Bolivia) are currently collecting. Therefore I will leave this coming Wednesday for La Paz. I am happy about this in one the sense because there I will have a specific responsibility and role; whereas here, I am more of a general support and I really do not contribute any specific skill. I am a little sad though because I have become quite fond of my co-workers in Cochabamba. It is also ridiculously cold in La Paz!

So, the real problem with washing clothes by hand is not the effort or the time consuming nature of it, but BIRD POOP!!!! You clean and scrub and then the birds come and poop on all your hard work. As if I needed another reason to dislike birds!

So, guess who is La Vitamina A?????

The second picture is of a group of kids waiting to putting together a puzzle of lots of fruits and veggies with Vitamin A. The promise of a picture is about the only way I have been able to keep kids in a line and not beating up each other or our toys. It is truly a mad house at these events!

I was thankfully able to get out of the city for a bit this past weekend. I have realized how much I need green, fresh air, and movement on something besides pavement. On Saturday I went to this sweet, tranquil, and beautifully decaying colonial town outside of Cochabamba called Tarata. On the way back I stopped at La Angostura (a little lake with several restuarants and paddle boat rentals) to eat a little fish. While walking around the lake path I met a young couple. They invited me to hang out with them and several of their friends. I ended up spending the rest of the day sitting by the lake with them and hearing their life stories. Its was really beautiful.

On Sunday I went hiking with the couple from Belgium (who live the same house as I do) in Parque Tunari, which is in Cochabamba. It was quite a hike, but the views were fantastic. The third picture above is from one of the lookouts.

Today we have been going around to the schools giving out little parental information forms for the children in the upcoming study. However since tomorrow is el Dia de la Madre (Mothers Day) we have run into a few obstacles since many of the schools do not have classes either today or tomorrow. Excluding Christmas el Dia de la Madre is probably the biggest holiday in Bolivia and quite possibly the most revered including Christmas. People here love their mommas! Evidently the system is that each individual school can decide whether to take off the day before or the day of Mothers Day. Either way the kids get two free days, because whichever one of these days is not chosen is filled by elaborate activities. Every school that decided to have class today had some serious festivity going on. Fancy costumes, coordinated dances, and lots of loud music.

The top picture is of a third grade class taking their iron tablets.

The second picture, of my favorite escuelita thus far, Alto Cochabamba, is true to its name. The city of Cochabamba is relatively flat, but climbing out of the valley onto the mountain are the poorer areas, yet all the more beautiful views. This little school sits on top of a hill and the neighborhood it serves is the poorest I have seen here thus far. As I wiped out my camera to take some pictures (I have officially become the program photographer) of Sibia explaining a few details to the Principal, students flooded the office and crowded the desk wanting to be in the picture. Since the view from their little school is so amazing, I convinced them to take the picture party outside.

Next week we begin the first round of the evaluation of the program here in Cochabamba. While I love visiting the schools and health departments and I learn immensely from doing so, my actual contribution to the program is within the evaluation. Baseline data (prevalence of anemia, giardia, parasites, ability to concentrate, etc) was collected on 10 schools with the program and 10 schools without the program before the children recieved any Vitamin A or iron. Now, three months later we will see if the program has made a difference in the schools with the intervention.

This week I have been preparing graphs for a meeting held today with members of Board of Education and Board of Health here in Cochabamba (the program is centered around and dependent upon the collaboration of such national entities). As much as I cursed Stata this year, I would have done anything to have had it this week. The data was in excell and it is just not capable of all those fun tricks. However, we will be using a statiscal software for this coming round of data collection. Ojala it will be one I am relatively familiar!

Todaywas the 89th birthday of Save the Children. We celebrated with some delicious chocolate mint cake and some Bolivianish singing.

Yesterday we visited El Cristo, a statue of Christ that is just over 33 meters and sits on top of a hill/mountain that overlooks the city. You get a terrific view of Cochabamba.

Also on Sunday we went to a parent meeting at one of the escuelitas (little schools) to give a little promo for the program and vitamins that their children are taking. In Bolivia it is customary to have parent meetings on Sundays mornings which often run until the afternoon. I thought this to be a little odd, but its the best day to do it since everyone works during the day and Saturday is used to buy groceries and run errands. It was impressive to see about 240 parents (I know because it was my job to count) at this meeting without any more incentive to come than to hear what is going on in their school and community. Even more impressive was that it was not just moms. There was quite a showing of dads.

Working here has definitely demonstrated to me how much my Spanish is lacking. I fee like I am learning Spanish for the first time. There are so many words they use that I have never heard and so many words they use that they have never heard. Yesterday, my co-worker, Sibia who is Boliviana, was trying to explain a kind of fruit to me "una palta". I eventually realized she was talking about an avocado and said you mean an "aguacate", the only word I have ever heard used for avocado and a word, to my knowledge, very commonly used. However she had never heard of "aguacate" before and kept saying no its "palta". After a 40 minute bus ride of this conversation, Sibia found a "palta" on the street and it was in fact an "aguacate"....just not in Bolivia, here it is a "palta". Something of this nature occurs at least everyday.

This was during one of the school activities. It looks like the kids really like me here, but really they just love the camera.

Katie in Bolivia

So I am here in Cochabamba, Bolivia working with Save the Children on a school-based health and nutrition program. Although located in a valley and surrounded by towering mountains, Cochabamba stands at about 9,000 feet above sea level. I arrived this past Sunday (May11th) and have been running ever since.

A little about what I am doing here:

So the program I am working with distributes Vitamin A and iron tablets to the 50 poorest schools in Cochabamba. The idea is to train the teachers to administer the vitamins and to educate the students on why its important to take them and to eat more foods with these nutrients. The program also meets with the parents, has activities for the children at school, and coordinates workshops with the health departments to promote the consumption of vitamin A and iron.
Getting to many of these schools can be arduous as they are in fairly remote areas and the staff uses public transportation to get there, an adventure in itself. I have been impressed by the comittment that the two managers (Sibia and Crispin) and the one coordinator (Ccoya) have to the project. Each day this week we have worked from about 7:30 am till about 7 pm. Needless to say I have been exhausted! BUT, it has been incredible to go into these schools and meet with the teachers, principles and students!

Everyone (from the staff at Save the Children to those living in my house here) has been so, so incredibly wonderful. The people here in general seem a bit skeptical of foreigners, but once a connection is made, they warm up really quickly and then take personal responsibility to make sure you are taken care of. I have seen very few non Latinos and I have not met anyone else from the United States (except the Executive Director of Save). Its kinda fun cause people seem to think I am interesting =).

I am living in a house with several other folks who are also here volunteering or doing internships. They are mostly from Europe (Belgium, Switzerland, Holland, etc.). I think the owner said I am the first American. It is super nice and cheap and I am enjoying the company there. I washed my clothes by hand today. Despite the time and labor, there was something so satisfying about washing my clothes by hand. You should try it!

That´s all I have for now. I will try to be a bit more witty and interesting next time. Thanks for reading!