post Puebla

We are back in San Cristobal (of course). We spent longer in Q than expected, and our mothers' reacted in full force--mine called John, and Chris' called the hostel searching for their children.

We stayed in Q in order to finish up a good week of work. We have completed filters and spirometry in Q and in Puebla. Puebla is about 50 very rocky minutes from Quexalhukum. It is a "colonia" so it is semi-urban. There are tiendas everywhere, and the houses are close together. The fact that they are closer together has helped us--we were able to turn over filters quickly--but it also means we got lazy. We had days where we only had 2 hours of work, and then nothing for the rest of the day. On Saturday and Sunday, though, we worked hard. We did spirometry on 5 women in Q and 24 women in Puebla. We only have 8 more houses to do in the next community--Chuchtik. We are starting there on Wednesday at 8 am. It shouldn't take more than 3 days. Fortuitously, we met Tomas, the health promoter in Chuchtik, this morning at Medicos del Mundo, and arranged to meet him at the cooperative tienda on Wednesday. Everything here seems to happen sort of magically--people appear when you need them, and things somehow get done. I don't quite understand it.

Our latest next challenge will be getting stoves across the border. We are working with the administrator of Medicos del Mundo. He is amazing. He does everything so quickly and efficiently. He knows how Mexico works, and calls up lots of people (e.g., customs agencies) and fixes everything rapidly. But, he also has the patience to wait for an email to arrive and chat with us about our lives, and how he has seen San Cristobal change over the past several years. He also knows a lot about Las Abejas, but because he is not part of them, just assisting them, he can tell us what we need to be concerned about. We all have the same interest--assisting Las Abejas in their work--but he has more inside knowledge than we do, so he can warn us of any missteps we could potentially make. He also speaks Spanish a mile a minute, so I have to pay close attention to figure out what is going on.

All in all, we have had a pretty impressive week. The people in Puebla have been amazingly hospitable. They gave us at least one meal a day, at least. We ate lots and lots of eggs and beans. LOTS of eggs and beans. We try to replace as much as we can with beans and rice and vegetables. The children area also fabulous. They are very gregarious and like to say my name and follow us around and carry our bags with machines. The name Anna is very useful here--everyone remembers it easily and calls me Ana all the time. They pick it up faster than Chris, Jackie or Farah.

Spirometry has been a challenge, but also really cool because we get to spend more time with the women, and see them interact with each other. It is really hard to explain how they have to breathe in and then exhale as fast as possible and not breathe back in. In some ways, they are happy to do it, but some just don't really get it. The older women are troopers--they give it their all and it usually works. Its impressive. It is shocking how young some of the women are. Many of them are younger than I am and have several children. And many of the women in Puebla didn't know their birthdate at all--they just gave us a rough estimte of the year.

We have some great pictures. I have some regular ones, but Jackie has some spirometry in in action shots. I'll try to post them sometime soon.

Some of my favorite moments from the week:

1. Playing "bs" with Fernando and Eriberto. We had to tell them that we didn't play cards for money, and then they were happy to play with us. We called it "mentira (liar)," and we played it on the porch of the casa de salud while waiting for the rain to pass. They were both terrible liars, which was wonderful. We also learned how to count to 10 in Tzotzil. I practice my numbers every day with the sisters who live down the hill from us.

2. Playing string games with our neighbors. There is a family who lives down the hill from the casa de salud where we live. They have lots of daughters, and one son who is 2 years old (Juan Alberto), and who rides around on the back of one of his sisters. The girls are Margarita (9), Juanita (8), Angelina (5 or 6), and Senaida (4). They love to watch us. They are getting bolder and bolder and even peep through the cracks in the wall to watch us. I found some string and play cat's cradle with them. They also teach me their own string games. They are pretty complicated and mine never look quite right. On Friday, a brigade of vaccinations came to Quexalhukum. I somehow remembered how to make oragami balls out of construction paper, and played with Fernando's children with the balls. They put them all together to make batman.

3. Doing spirometry. Spirometry is really hard. Its stressful because sometimes we can't get repeatable tests, and we feel horrible making the women blow into the tube over and over and over again. But its also amazing because we get to interact with the women on a one on one basis. We take their height and weight and blood pressure, so we are physically closer to them. Then we demonstrate the test for them, and we try to explain everything that is happening on othe computer. We taught Eriberto and Roselia how to use the program, so they know what to look for, and they can explain to the women in Tzotzil. The women try really hard. Some of them won't give up until they get 3 repeatable tests, others just can't, so we ask them to rest and try again if they want. Usually they will come back and try. Some are sick, so we are going to go back and try again next week if they are better. One of my favorite ladies was older--probably 65. She was ready to go, though. She stuck the nose clip on her nose, and everyone laughed, even she. It was great for everyone to laugh together--probably about 20 of her children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, etc. Then she just took a deep breath and blew out as hard as she could.

4. Music--Eriberto lent us his CD of Mana and DVD of Vicente Fernanez, who is a classic. He says his dad likes Vicente Fernandez, but he doesn't. In exchange, we make him 4 CDs of our favorite music. He says he likes all the CD's equally (rock, hip hop, alternative, and misc), but I think he may not like any of them and is just being diplomatic!