Hi everyone! So the past few days, we've been working on the nutrition project. Essentially, we go out and find kids who are between 6 and 59 months old. We are looking to see if they are malnourished or not and if Leogane seems to need a nutrition program. We interview the child's mother and ask her questions about the child's vaccines, eating habits, breast feeding habits, education, house type, etc. We also measure the child's height, weight, and arm circumference to determine if the child is malnourished or not. It's been really fun to work with the little kids on this project. Many kids are really nice and smile-y and cooperate with us really well, but we do run into some kids who cry like crazy every time we try to put them on a scale. We try to tell them that there's nothing to be scared of and that it won't hurt (in our broken Creole), but they don't trust us, and who can blame them? Whenever a little kid goes to the doctor for a shot, the doctor always says don't worry, it won't hurt, but then it ends up hurting so I guess little kids can't really trust us when we say it won't hurt. We did 30 surveys over the last three days and did not find any malnourished children, which reconfirms previous findings that Leogane doesn't have a huge need for a nutrition program beyond the smaller, existing ones.
Random story-
Today, we were walking by a house when we saw a woman washing a chicken. We asked if she was washing it in order to kill it, and she said yes! They laughed when we told them that we've never seen a chicken being killed before, and said that we could watch. It was so hard to watch! They plucked off the feathers near the chicken's neck and made a slice in the throat, but didn't cut the whole head off. Then they dropped the chicken on the ground and it flopped around for a while, with the head half off, flopping around. The chicken kept moving for a while because not all the nerves were dead yet and then it finally stopped moving. Watching that poor little chicken die made me really glad that I'm a vegetarian!
Another random story-
We saw a little baby on the ground in the dirt with a bunch of women sitting around it. The poor baby had its legs out but instead of sitting up, it was completely folded over with its head/face in the dirt. He was crying and screaming and the position did not look comfortable at all. The translators told us that the baby was only 4 months old. He probably wasn't able to hold his own upper body and head up yet and sit up, so he was flopped over on the ground. The women around him were just laughing and saying that they left him there so that he'd start crawling, but he seemed to young and uncomfortable to learn how to crawl in that position! They didn't even have a blanket out and didn't have him laying on his tummy or anything. In order to get them to pick him up, we had our translators tell them that we were doctors and that it's not healthy for the baby to be in the dirt like that, and they finally picked him up. I hope they don't do that to him again!
In case you were wondering about Buster-
Buster is doing really well! He definitely recognizes our smell now and always comes to us looking for food. He's looking a little healthier, although he could put on a few more pounds. His friend, Arthur (another little puppy that lives there) is also doing well. Today, we brought Buster and Arthur some milk and cheese, and they ate it all really quickly. It was so cute! I hope we can bring him to a nice size by the time we leave!
I don't have any new pictures and that's all for now! I can't believe that I only have 2.5 weeks left in Leogane! The trip has gone by so quickly!!
Random story-
Today, we were walking by a house when we saw a woman washing a chicken. We asked if she was washing it in order to kill it, and she said yes! They laughed when we told them that we've never seen a chicken being killed before, and said that we could watch. It was so hard to watch! They plucked off the feathers near the chicken's neck and made a slice in the throat, but didn't cut the whole head off. Then they dropped the chicken on the ground and it flopped around for a while, with the head half off, flopping around. The chicken kept moving for a while because not all the nerves were dead yet and then it finally stopped moving. Watching that poor little chicken die made me really glad that I'm a vegetarian!
Another random story-
We saw a little baby on the ground in the dirt with a bunch of women sitting around it. The poor baby had its legs out but instead of sitting up, it was completely folded over with its head/face in the dirt. He was crying and screaming and the position did not look comfortable at all. The translators told us that the baby was only 4 months old. He probably wasn't able to hold his own upper body and head up yet and sit up, so he was flopped over on the ground. The women around him were just laughing and saying that they left him there so that he'd start crawling, but he seemed to young and uncomfortable to learn how to crawl in that position! They didn't even have a blanket out and didn't have him laying on his tummy or anything. In order to get them to pick him up, we had our translators tell them that we were doctors and that it's not healthy for the baby to be in the dirt like that, and they finally picked him up. I hope they don't do that to him again!
In case you were wondering about Buster-
Buster is doing really well! He definitely recognizes our smell now and always comes to us looking for food. He's looking a little healthier, although he could put on a few more pounds. His friend, Arthur (another little puppy that lives there) is also doing well. Today, we brought Buster and Arthur some milk and cheese, and they ate it all really quickly. It was so cute! I hope we can bring him to a nice size by the time we leave!
I don't have any new pictures and that's all for now! I can't believe that I only have 2.5 weeks left in Leogane! The trip has gone by so quickly!!
No comments:
Post a Comment