Teaching, Learning, and Enjoying Nutrition, among other things!

We ventured out to the pueblo of Colorado today. I think we’re really starting to get the hang of things now. The charlas went smoothly with the ladies of the town, and I learned a lot about the local food availability in their community from our interactive nutrition charla. I had never heard of nopales or quelitas, but have since learned that napales are a type of cactus, and that quelitas are “galletas de los Incas,” or Incan cookies. We had a good system for achieving all of the screenings with better flow between the stations today, which made everything less chaotic and much more efficient.  The women were so sweet in this town, and they even had prepared lunch for us. We were then faced with that careful balancing act as presented to us by one of the UNC pre-departure safety modules: the desire to be culturally sensitive and grateful for the food, paired with the concern of water safety and preparation methods our American immune systems are unfamiliar with… but since all of the food was cooked, we were able to satisfy both. The women had prepared some sort of spicy potatoes in a sauce, and when eaten with tortillas, it was a very nice lunch after a busy morning.

We're becoming pretty well known at that Office Depot by now - another excursion was made there today to print out more health summary sheets (I guess because we've been able to see so many people out in the communities so far!) as wel as to purchase some speakers. Our plan is to incorporate more interactive activities in the charlas, since many of the people have been hearing the same general health information for awhile now from various health organizations and health fairs. The speakers would be utilized during an exercise or Zumba-esque class as a way to teach the people some simple movements to do that can get their heartrates up. We're still in the planning stages, but we're pretty excited about some of our ideas.



Another view of SMA from the mirada



Kelly prepared another knock-out dinner tonight, featuring tacos con papas – potato tacos – then piled high with lettuce, sour cream, and special salsa. Coincidentally, we also had nopales with our tacos! We spent a long time chatting with Alex and Kelly after dinner – again with more philosophical advice from Alex on how to begin writing one’s marriage vows, and several alarming stories about the wild dogs that roam Mexico, eating babies and the elderly. For tomorrow, we are excited to be able to sleep in a little later, and are planning on going out to explore the main part of SMA (“el centro”), including the main churches and the organic market.