Vaccination Campaign and Fiesta

So I guess the fact that I haven’t posted in a while shows that I am settling into normalcy here in Corinto because I don’t have something new and exciting to post every other day. Anyways, the last two weeks have been pretty interesting and exhausting.

As far as work goes, last week was the National Vaccination Campaign in Nicaragua. This means that the health workers all throughout Nicaragua go door to door through their communities vaccinating children under 5 against polio and any other vaccines they still need. Also, they vaccinate kids and adults against tetanus. So, since I am now a health worker here in Nicaragua I went out with a team of nurses to give these vaccines. Mostly I just did some of the paperwork involved and carried around the cooler of the vaccines. Although they would have let me, I did not inject anyone because it is against Peace Corps rules and I’m pretty sure that would break some sort of medical moral codes. The polio vaccine is actually just droplets that you put into the baby or child’s mouth, so I did helped administer those.

Overall it was a very interesting experience because I got to go door to door and see a lot of different parts of Corinto. Everyone of course was really nice and invited us inside so I got to see the range of houses here from shacks made out of tin to big super nice houses (probably paid for by a relative working in the U.S., or at least that’s what a Nicaraguan friend told me). All the little kids were really cute and it was amazing how some kids took it with a smile, and then some kids would try to run away screaming and crying. I’d say the crying was much more common.

An interesting cultural thing was a belief about the relation between bathing and vaccines. Most of the mothers would say, “But my child hasn’t bathed yet today, won’t the vaccine cause damage because of that?” Most of the mothers believed that if later in the day the child bathed after the vaccine it would somehow cause harm to the child. But Nicaraguans have a lot of interesting beliefs in regards to hot and cold liquids. For example, you shouldn’t take a cold shower when you’re really hot because it will cause harm. And you shouldn’t drink a really cold drink when you are really hot because it will cause harm. As a result sometimes they will serve you coffee on a really hot afternoon. I haven’t experienced the coffee one much in Corinto because it is a bigger city and these beliefs are generally much stronger in the rural areas. Anyways, it’s easy to think these beliefs are stupid, but us Americans also have our own beliefs that are based on no scientific fact…it’s just another one of those fascinating cultural differences.

The vaccination campaign was really cool to participate in but exhausting! Walking from door to door all day in 100 degree heat was a bit tiring. I’m glad I participated in it but I also glad its over (well almost, we are going to the high school to vaccinate on Wednesday).

This past weekend was a Seafood Festival to benefit the Old Folk’s Home here in Corinto. It was delicious! It worked sort of like the Taste of Chicago where you bought tickets and then went to booths that were selling all sorts of different types of seafood dishes. For example, fish tacos, shrimp pancake type things (sounds gross but delicious), shrimp cocktail, fried fish, shrimp paella….and much more. I was really impressed by the organization of this fiesta. I’ve been to a couple other fiestas in other cities in Nicaragua and they seemed to be haphazardly put together, but this was very well run. Congrats Corinto! The fiesta is continuing all week which means that Tuesday and Thursday no one has to work which is nice. There is a concert this Friday and other activities throughout the week…should be a good time.

The final news I have to share is that I’m almost positive that I found a house to move into! I am required by Peace Corps to stay with my current host family until May 12 and then after that I can choose my own housing situation. I am anxious to live on my own after almost 4 months of host family living. The house I found would be far away from the center of town so it would be a smaller neighborhood feel, which is what I was looking for. I want to live in an area where I can really get to know my neighborhood; the center of town just doesn’t have that super friendly feel like the smaller neighborhoods have. I’m going to decide for sure where I’m living tomorrow so I’ll keep you updated.

That’s all for now. Hope everything is good with everyone at home. Its graduation season and the weather is probably nice, enjoy it!