... so I guess I can cook...

So part of my work here in Guatemala is to train health promoters. Basically they are volunteers who are an extension of my job. When I'm not in the health center, or the health center is closed and too far away for medical care, these health promoters are trained to act as a liason between the people in their town and the health center. Right now I am training about 20 health promoters ranging from the ages of 16 to 45, both men and women. I train these health promoters once a month over various health themes. Yesterday, Friday, I had my nutrition themed workshop. Usually the health promoters are split between 2 days, but everyone decided to meet Friday. Anna, another PC volunteer who lives about 30-45 mins from me came to help me out. There is no room in the health center to hold my health promoters so we set up the presentation outside. Well.... it was hot that day. Anna did an icebreaker and then I followed by making a "Live Olla" which is Guatemalan's version of the US' food pyramid. I went ahead and bought everything I could think of as far as fruits and vegetables, rice, beans, eggs, cheese, corn, butter... everything that my town could buy in the local market. Then I had every HP pick 3-4 items and told them to put them in their designated group (energy, growing, protection). Afterwards, when I felt they could place any type of food in either one of those categories I taught them how to read nutrition lables. Yea... a little complicated, but I told them only a few places to look and made it easy for them (ex: look at how many portions, fat, sugar, vit/mins). I also gave them examples of popular canned drinks and bagged chips that the children and adults like to drink and told them how many spoonfuls of sugar as well as how much fat was in each item by using a stick of butter. Well... they were shocked! There is one little bag of chips here, only 14 g in weight that almost contains one stick on butter!! How gross. Then I made them little ribbons with little dash marks so they can measure the children in their towns for malnutrition. The children need to be more than 1 years of age and by measuring the middle part of the upper arm they will be able to determine if these children need help. After all this I cooked for them! I made pasta salad with veggies, cheese, oil, vingar, salt and pepper (very simple... they love using mayo here). I also made apple sauce and french toast. They loved the french toast! Needless to say after all that, and being in the sun for 4 hours... I had a huge headache and was exhausted. But, I was thrilled because I was done with work and I have a great vacation to look forward to!