The group of 50+ high schoolers left early in the AM. It is now peacefully quiet, which is strange and kind of nice. There is another group of missionaries from Oklahoma that arrived today, but they are all adults and there are only 15-20 of them.
This morning, we got a good start on our aggregate project. For the project, we take a specific population (through a parish organization) and learn about them so that we can appropriately determine interventions to improve the wellness of that group. This culminates in a 25 page paper & presentation on July 17 (in 10 days, yikes). Our group of 5 students is doing our project on Casa Maria, a transition home for young girls and women who are victims of domestic violence. Casa Maria houses two floors of young ladies- one for university students to live during their schooling (1-2 years), these girls mostly come from Madre del Redentor (the girls' home I talked about in a previous post); and one for women who need shelter from domestic abuse (for a couple months, longer if they are pregnant). While the community knows that Casa Maria exists, few know its location for safety purposes. One woman who has been there for a couple months is totally unable to leave the home because her husband is out looking for her and lives nearby. The women are responsible for cooking and cleaning, but have financial help. They receive all of the parish's free services- especially legal, psychological, and OB/GYN stuff. A lawyer and psychologist visit Casa twice a month. My initial thought is that they need way more psych support than they are getting... support groups? coping technique training? meds? PTSD management? We still have lots more to learn and research.
Also, we helped one of the moms give her little baby a bath :)
Some of the women/children and director of Casa Maria
We officially had this afternoon free. However, some of us heard that there were some food deliveries and a clothing drive, so we wanted to go with social services. In the end, we ended up at a construction site, building a chapel in La Legua. At first we were absolutely no help, but we all ended up doing some hammering walls and pouring concrete floors.
How the chapel looked by the end of the day
The fun part of the day was playing with the kids in the area. The scary part of the day was when a 5 year old was bit by a wild dog. From a distance, we heard a scream and looked over to see the dogs way too close to a little boy. He had been running around playing and they chased him. We headed over to make sure he was OK... The dog bit his leg and broke the skin. I cleaned it as best I could with the alcohol wipes available (this wasn't a clinical day so no one really had supplies), put some bandaids on, and told him and his family he needed to go to the hospital to get a shot for rabies. They asked if it was "the pink medicine that goes in your tummy through a needle." So apparently this isn't an uncommon thing in the area- I looked it up after we got back, the vaccine is indeed hot pink and used to be given on the abdomen so as to give several injections in several spots. A few other kids had scars from dog bites. Who knew I would learn something when not in clinical?
I know I post like a billion pics of Peruvian kids, but they are just really cute.
I am now officially up to date on blogging and am ready for bed, we get to sleep until 9 tomorrow!
¡Buenas noches!
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