week in review.. with photos

Life as a Peace Corps Community Health Volunteer in Nicaragua has for me consisted of a lot of health education and promotion in my site of San Isidro, Matagalpa, Nicaragua. This past Tuesday, I went from house to house with a brigade of nurses and nursing students in one of the neighborhoods in my site taking a census of people who were suffering from acute diarreal symptoms and giving a brief 5 minute lesson on personal hygiene and how to prevent diarrea as well as how to eliminate mosquito nests to prevent vector borne diseases such as malaria and dengue. Part of the rationale for the health director to demand this census was a result of there being 4 cases of acute diarrea from the same neighborhood. This seemed to be unusual and out of the norm according to the health center director.

On Wednesday I gave a class on the environment, the importance on conserving and protecting sources of water for human consumption as well as a class on the preventive measures of malaria and dengue. On Thursday, I went to Las Cidras, a rural community in the mountains and gave short lessons on how to prevent malaria and dengue. Here in Nicaragua, especially in the nation's capital of Managua there is an outbreak of Hemorragic Dengue fever, which is a virus transmitted by a female mosquito that bites primarily during the day, that is able to cause death, especially in children less than 12 years of age.

On Friday and Saturday I got to know a new location near the department capital of Matagalpa. It is called "La Cartuja" and is a pastoral diocesan retreat center. Here the ministry of health for the department of Matagalpa held a workshop aimed at health educators and community facilitators in all the municipalities throughout the department of Matagalpa covering "preventive health promotion and education".

I will try to post fotos of the department capital of Matagalpa and the retreat center below... Need to scroll to the extreme bottom of the webpage after all of the blog posts to view photos.