Exit Survey

Name: Sarah Anne Jablonski Guagliardo

Site: Cabañas, Copan

Sector: Health

Nicknames: Sarita, Sari, la brazileña, la italiana, la gringuita, Poindexter, Jablonski, Rainman

Biggest accomplishment: surviving.

Biggest disappointment: not actually saving the world.

Biggest regret: Regret? Que es eso?

Biggest fear during Peace Corps: Dying in a bus accident.

Defining Peace Corps moment: Too many to list here.

Things you will miss most: the kids from my street, being part of a community, morning sunshine and afternoon rains, mountains, mangoes, español, reading, Hondu-8

Things you will miss least: manteca, plastic chairs, unfinished cinderblock houses, cohetes, serenatas, and noises of the like.

Biggest Irony: getting hooked on Japanese food in Honduras

Worst illness: roundworm infection- I pooped out a worm that was 7 inches long!

Biggest freak-out: After the bus crashed outside of La Entrada. I saw my life flash before my eyes.

Strangest chisme you heard about yourself: That I am actually a Brazilian doctor that came to Honduras to find a husband.

Most useful things I brought: chacos, ipod, quick-dry towell

Least useful thing I brought: my computer, which crashed the day I got to my site

Favorite activity when bored: writing asinine songs about Honduras

Weirdest thing I did when bored: Once when the electricity went out, a few of us attempted bending spoons with our telekinetic energy. Afterwards we held a séance and tried to summon the Egyptian goddess Isis. Neither activity worked… but the lights came back on!

Favorite Hondureñismo: Vaya pues sometimes pronounced vaya pue or vay pue

Greatest lie I told at my site: That never, under any circumstances, have I ever touched alcohol

Favorite Honduran inquiry: Sarita, ¿verdad que usted tiene sangre latina?

Best Honduran gesture: the simultaneous wrist flip/ chin-up

Favorite CD/song during service: “Sin Documentos” by Julieta Venegas

Song I would be content to never hear again: any Ranchera

Favorite book(s) during service: The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett, Infections and Inequalities by Paul Farmer, and Collapse by Jared Diamond.

Favorite Honduran fashion: The jeans, tshirt, mustache, cowboy hat ensemble. So creative.
Worst jalón: The one where I fell out of the back of the pickup truck.

Best bus ride: any one on the Hedman Alas

Worst bus ride: this is too difficult to answer. Between the hangovers, chickens, vomiting children, and sweltering heat, it’s really all one big, hellish blur.

Favorite food: la baleada

Worst thing I ate: Consomé-flavored armadillo meat. Yum.

Worst thing I smelled: Nances.

Stupidest thing I did in the last two years: At Ben and Kelly´s house, I had accidentally left the gas stove on after cooking breakfast one morning. Then lunch time rolled around and I went to light the stove and KABOOM! Thankfully no one was injured. But my eyebrows are still growing back.

Untrue fact told to you as undeniable truth: “Fijese que es prohibido por Cuerpo de Paz” - for pretty much anything I didn´t want to do.

You know you’ve been in Honduras too long when…: you are pleasantly surprised to find toilet paper, running water and soap in a bathroom.

I never thought I would…: Discuss my bowel movements so openly and in such vivid detail.

When I grow up I want to be…: a CDC Epidemic Intelligence Officer investigating outbreaks of hemorragic fevers caused by unknown pathogens in the jungles of Africa.... Or a housewife.

If I had to do it all over again I…: would.

Favorite Aralen dream: What's Aralen again?

Favorite Ropa Americana T-shirt: There’s an eighty-year-old campesina from a nearby village that always wears a playboy bunny tshirt. She told me that she “just loves bunny rabbits”!… I didn´t have the heart to explain to her what that little bunny actually means.

Favorite animal story: One morning I awoke to find my kitchen in total dissarry. What could this be? I thought to myself. As I bent down to pick up some books on the floor, a strange black and white twitch in the corner of the room caught my eye. And there it was. My own personal Pepe Le Pew! After much deliberation about the appropriate course of action, I eventually resolved to open all the doors and windows in the house and simply allow the skunk to exit at its own will. But my darling neighbors, being as friendly as they are, popped in for a visit. When I told them of my predicament, Don Moncho immediately charged the skunk with a broom in an attempt to scare it out of the house. And, as skunks tend to do when threatened, it of course sprayed its putrid perfume. My house reeked for weeks.

Best habit acquired: Patience, not being so serious.

Worst habit acquired: Tssssing at people to get their attention.

Thing you missed most from the US: family, friends, anonymity, red wine, good food, stimulating conversation, live music

Thing you missed least from the US: materialism, media

Favorite location in Honduras: 1.my site 2. Ben and Kelly’s house 3. The Via Via

Things you’d wish you had known when you signed up: Two years is actually not that long.

Best advice for Honduras 12: Suck it up, it ain´t that bad.

Brush Your Teeth!

I recently implemented a oral hygiene education program in a few schools in rural areas. The program includes a talk on the importance of brushing your teeth, a story, a demonstration and a song. At the end of the program we give out toothbrushes and toothpaste to the kids, with the expectation that after their lunch break at school they will all brush their teeth together.

A big thank you to those of you that dontated toothbrushes and toothpaste - namely Anna Smith from Life to Life Honduras, Lesley Ham who came with a Canadian medical brigade, and to Mary Collins a missionary working in health education. And a HUGE thank you goes to Tomoko Kawamoto, who lived in Copan for 2 years working as a JICA Volunteer. (JICA is like the Japanese version of Peace Corps.) Tomoko wrote and illustrated the children´s story that goes along with the program. The kids love it! I am just said that she is no longer here to see how much the kids enjoy it.

Pictures!

Thank you – Biostatistics Center and the residents of Kemp Lane

The clothing drive was a huge success! Along with the local public health center and the Municipal Women´s Office, I decided to distribute the clothing at the monthly meeting for pregnant women. Most of the women that come to these meetings live in very rural areas, and have to travel more than 3 hours just to get to the closest clinic. We decided to distribute the clothing during these meetings in order to encourage women to come in for prenatal care, where they can recieve valuable information the importance of micronutrient consumption during pregnancy. (The vast majority of women in the Copan area do not have access to such information, in fact many are illiterate.) Because of the distance and cost of traveling, attendence at these meetings has been historically low with about two women showing up on a regular basis. But recently we have had about 20 women coming to the meetings.

We divided up everything so that each woman would recieve two items wrapped up in a plastic bag. (Usually one bag would include an item of clothing and another donation such as vitamins, toys, baby shampoo, etc.) The women were very happy to recieve the supplies! Gracias!

I also gave away the children´s books to a local bilingual school where kids learn English from a very young age. The school, Dos Pinos, gives children from poor families the opportunity to learn English and therefore equips them with the tools they would need to find good jobs in larger cities such as San Pedro Sula or Tegucigalpa. Approximately half of the kids at the school are on scholarship.

Here are some pictures of the event:

People waiting outside the health center.

Here are the donations, which we divided up into plastic bags. That way, people wouldn´t get jealous of one another and could trade items later when they returned to their villages.

The doctor, Cesar Cueva, talks to the women about the importance of folic acid.

The nurses compile a list of all the pregnant women in county.

We called the women up one at a time to pick a plastic bag with the clothing in it.

Two children reading Green Eggs and Ham

Wash Your Hands!!!

Finally, people are starting to appreciate my genius... I am famous! Well, I´m on You Tube anyway. Here is a video of me playing the song that Tomoko and I wrote for kids about handwashing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtnIbgm9O9w

Sing along:

Lavarse, lavarse las manos
Lavarse, lavarse para la salud
Antes de comer y despues del baño
Combatimos los microbios
Combatimos los microbios

Los microbios no se miran... pero!
Hay muchos en el cuerpo
Si no se mantiene limpio
Tendra muchos microbios
Que feo!

Lavarse, lavarse las manos
Lavarse, lavarse para la salud
Antes de comer y despues del baño
Combatimos los microbios
Combatimos los microbios

Gracias por su ayuda!

Thanks to all of you that contributed, this year´s World AIDS Day event was a huge success! Together with Arte Accion, Com Vida, Vision Mundial, Vida a la Vida, and the local health center, we were able to organize a series of events to raise awareness for HIV/AIDS. I personally worked with a youth group (Com Vida) throughout the month of November and trained them in subjects such as gender, stereotypes, self-esteem, and HIV/AIDS prevention. The majority of participants in the group came from aldeas (very small villages) in rural areas and had recieved no prior training in such important issues. The Com Vida kids played a key role in organizing this year´s event, by preparing information stands in the parque and helping to answer questions. I am hope to continue working with them in 2008. Here are some photos and descriptions of the day´s activities:

This is the Com Vida group I have been working with.

We literally kicked off the day with a soccer tournament that lasted until 1pm- we had 12 different teams participate in the tri-county area! Afterwards, we talked with the participants about HIV /AIDS and encouraged them to look at the information stands in the central park.

Later, in the afternoon, we set up tables in the central park with information corresponding to the various aspects of HIV/AIDS, including stands for general information, transmission, prevention, statistics, and a table for the health center. We also had a 25-question "test your knowledge" quiz available at the general information stand. Those that scored above 90% won great prizes such as free meals provided by local restaurants.

The Com Vida murals on display in the park.

We were able to buy tshirts for the Com Vida kids as well as for the other event organizers. The slogan reads "Assume leadership, stop AIDS, keep the promise!"

We held a "mototaxi parade" whereby the mototaxis circled the town of Copan and distributed condoms to the public.

The local health center provided free HIV testing in the park. (Obviously privacy norms are a bit different in Honduras.) The personnel reported that they were able to test 50 people!

Below are the information stands that we set up. It was packed!

The statistics stand. Honduras has about 35% of all AIDS cases in Central America, while it only represents about 17% of the population. Que baribaridad!

People observing and learning! In the background there is a posterboard with faces of various people. Participants had to guess who had HIV- the point of the activity was to demonstrate that HIV has no symptoms and that you cannot tell just by looking at someone.

Here are some kids taking the "test your knowledge quiz". We gave away over 40 prizes for those that scored over 90%.

The Com Vida group put together condom packets with instructions.