My flight back to California leaves from Tuxtla this afternoon, so I have to say goodbye to San Cristobal around 10 am today! I already left Quexalhukum yesterday...it was hard to leave. The only consolation is knowing I´ll be back for post stove measurements at the end of the year. But still, this has been an amazing few weeks and I´m sad to see the adventure and learning experience end.
This week in Q was hectic but very productive. On Wednesday, we started working in Chuchtik. It´s not as far as Puebla but the houses are very spread out, so more walking is involved. One house was so far I left to place a filter and didn´t return for two hours. We basically went up and around a mountain and then crossed a valley. How are 11 cement blocks and various stove parts going to make that trek? They call such houses ´tiradito´which means thrown, and they literally seem like they´re thrown in the middle of a mountain range. But the important thing is that just as planned, 8 filters were placed in 8 homes in Chuchtik, and 8 vichins (young women) came for spirometry on Thursday. Amazing! All that despite the fact that the health promoter from the community mysteriously failed to show up one day and left us without a list of names of stove recipients (our translator on Wednesday forgot to tell us that the promoter was going to the city for a couple of days...fantastic).
We also placed the very last filter and redid some aberrant spirometry tests in Q, and tried to do some spirometry on women who had been too ill to perform the test last Sunday in Puebla. Unfortunately, two women were still sick, but one was able to give us three repeatable data points, so we considered it a small victory.
Jackie and I got back to San Cris last night and finally got to eat Tacos Al Norteno which is my new favorite thing in the entire world. I´m so sad I can´t eat them every night until school starts again...they´re that good. There is nothing like carne asada! Then, we came back to Junax to have chocolate cake that Anna and CB made...we had a little bon voyage cake cutting for me, which was really sweet. I think I ate half of that cake--with extra frosting--which in my book is excusable, considering the dearth of chocolate all week in Q (it was really only 3 days, but whatever). Then we went out to celebrate another productive week!
I went to bed at 3 am but I´m up early to go to the bank, get coffee, and do a little bit of last minute shopping before I leave for Tuxtla. I´m already nostalgic for Q and this whole experience. One of the things I will miss the most is definitely my three Chiapas family members: Anna, Jackie and Chris. One of the absolute best things about this trip is working together with them. Good luck with the stoves next week you guys! Like I said, I´m photoshopping myself into all the stove party pictures once the installation is over!
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