Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Volcano: Take Two

Group pic at the top
About a week ago I started off from my community with my youth group on our third adventure. We had planned on spending the night with the other two thirds of the group in a national park near by my site. But we had to adjust our plans as one of the other volunteers involved in the project said her kids could not get permission to travel so far and stay the night. This is not too surprising as her community is the farthest away from the park. I mean I was having some trouble getting permission from my kids' parents and we live close!

So we hmmed and we hawed thinking up other excursion ideas. Eventually we settled upon hiking Volcan Santa Ana, or Volcan Cerro Verde. It is the tallest volcano in the country and located in between Alex and my communities and Natalie's community. My kids were pretty devastated when I told them we would not be going to Monticristo National Park, and were slightly skeptical when I told them about the volcano hike.  But they are good sports and agreed to give it a shot.

We got the the park entrance early, not really knowing what to expect. We got there and paid the first of four entrance fees. Yes four. You have to pay to enter the park, then you must pay for your guide. Next you have to pay to enter onto a portion of private property that must be crossed to get to the top. And then you have to pay again, but by that point I stopped paying attention to why. We were accompanied by a park guide and a police officer leading the way and another set bringing up the rear. Hiking is known to bring out hiding robbers here in El Salvador, so it is best to go with armed escorts.

Kick Ass Youth Group
Not all of the kids from our three groups were in the best of shape, but they all made the 3 hour hike up to the top of the volcano. For that I am immensely proud of them. They could have quit, but they trudged through and made it all the way up. This hike was so much better than the volcano hike I did when I was in training in San Vicente, Volcan Chichontepec. I learned a lot about myself on that hike and I learned a lot about my kids on this hike. 

Awesome crater and sulfur lake at the top
My feet after the hike...

We made it to the top and the view was stellar. We were on the rim of a huge crater. There was a green, sulfur lake in the middle.  Lago De Coatepeque was visible in the distance. We snacked on chicken sandwiches and reveled in the beauty around us. This was meant to be the last big trip for my youth group, but they have really run with this project. I am more than happy to support these kids as long they are willing to participate. 

Alex, Natalie and I
We are already starting to plan a fourth trip, the one we had to cancel. Also we held the first of several movie night fundraisers at my house several nights ago. The kids have decided to raise money to buy trees and re-forest part of our community. We broke even and then some last night. Every little bit counts and my kids are proving that every day! 

Saturday, December 15, 2012

La Dieta

Congratulations! Welcome home! You must be exhausted, I mean you did just give birth to a healthy, happy baby. That is hard work! I hear it is one of the most physically taxing events your body can go through. I mean you have just spent the last nine months carrying and nourishing another living being with your own body. Then after hours and hours of being in labor, in pain, you have pushed that small child out of your body and into the big scary world. That is heavy stuff right there. Might I offer you a cup of drinking chocolate? Some cheese? A tortilla?

Many women in El Salvador, especially those who live in the more rural areas, adhere to what is known as 'la dieta' (or the diet) after child birth. This is a very strict diet that consists of chocolate, cheese, tortillas and sometimes chicken. I am not kidding, this is a real thing. They must follow this diet for the first 40 days of their new babies life. And interestingly enough, if something goes wrong and the baby does not survive, the mother must still follow la dieta.

Most women in my community follow la dieta after child birth. It can be hard to see these wonderful happy babies and know that these mothers are not properly taking care of themselves. It is too easy imagine what kind of nutritional deficits these kids are starting out with. Women have told me that the chocolate is consumed to help bring the milk when the mother starts breast feeding. As for the other foods I do not really know what their significance is. I have heard la dieta is followed in order to control odor, but I think many of these women are just blindly following their traditions. Salvadorians can be quite superstitious.

It is very interesting to see women who believed in something like la dieta, but have since had their minds changed. For instance a woman in my community was told that she could not get pregnant while she was breast feeding. That turned out to be false, and now now she has two daughters 10 months apart. She no longer believes that superstition, but puts all of her faith behind la dieta. Many women here also wear red bands of fabric around their waist during pregnancy. They believe that this wards off the moon which can, during a full moon, cause your child to have birth defects. They believe that the moon 'eats' the part of the child that comes out deformed. Cleft lip, for example, is often blamed on the evils of the moon.  

Some of these women are not very educated, but some are. It is hard to believe that so many people follow beliefs like la dieta in during this day and age. The world is so advanced, with so much information at our fingertips on the internet, that it is shameful to see so many women hurting themselves and their children in this way. Women get defensive if you try to even talk to them about alternatives to la dieta. They raised their children that way, their mothers raised them that way and their grandmothers raised their mothers that way. This is what they know, and change can be intimidating.