day 9 today, we did many things

8/14/2019 Day 9 Today, We Did Many Things.

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Day 9Today, we did many things. A brief rundown of the day, we had a conversation with

Seora Reyes in the morning where we talked a bit about the schools and what theteachers had said. Then, we went to the store [Seora Miques] to call Cesar [it cost abouta $1 a minute] and set up an appointment to call him later in the day at 4:00 pm. We thencame back and ate lunch and then went out to look at the computers in the school and

then to talk to a couple of people in the village the two people who had told us that theywanted to talk to us after the reunion. Ester Gonzales and her mom Teresa GuardadoMartinez. Afterwards, we met up with the promotor, Javier Flores, at the Casa de Salud andthe auxiliar opened up the door for us and was a part of the meeting. Javier could speakEnglish quite well and then afterwards we took a trip with him to San Jose de Castellanos.

There we helped Javier teach one of the families how to build ecological stoves which thatfamily would in the future teach other families how to build. We left La Vaquita at about4pm and got back at about 8:30 after snagging some food from the Chinese restaurant inSan Jose de Castellanos.

Now to details

Morning conversation with Senora ReyesWe found out what grades each teacher teaches and that the students in the

secondary school are not really taught how to use the computer. Rather, they just learn bythemselves essentially how to use the computer for entertainment. She thought it wouldbe a good idea for us to teach the kids how to use the computers. To perhaps get the keysto the secondary school and teach them for one to two hours in the evenings. I think itwould be a good idea as well. Theoretically, we also have 3 computers on our own to teachthem how to use. But, perhaps we should first develop a curriculum and test it. I just askedNancy to develop the rough curriculum, and she said she could by tonight. We can try toteach Carla and Mento tonight. I would be really excited about getting internet to thesecomputers. But Sam also brought up the idea that we could develop a guide to leavebehind so that they can teach future people. Further, we could have the children attemptto teach each other?

In the olden days, apparently to deal with the cold, they had their 2 month longvacation in the winter and had school through the summer. But it has not gotten as coldas it has been recently until last year and this year.

Further, Seora Reyes seemed to slightly discount the effect of family problems onthe education of the children of the community. She explained that a reason one of thechildren didnt go to school for 8 days was because his parents got angry at each otherand his mom took him and went back to her hometown for 8 days. She said that it ispossible that she doesnt know about the problems that other families that are not herneighbors might have, but I certainly felt as if the teachers were just trying to come upwith not real problems so that we would not investigate too much into the teaching itself.

Conversation with Ester GonzalesEster basically mentioned that the main reason she had invited us over was to show

us the costura she had. A workshop of handmade sewing materials had been brought upat the reunion, but Seora Maria had also said that it was not as unique as the plastichandmade crafts, so she had sort of downplayed the ability of success of taller decosturas.


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Ester showed us quite a few of the things that she had made. There was actually awhole closet filled with the stuff that had been made. She said that only three or fourpeople in the village actually knew how to make these things and that her childrensometimes helped her with them. Personally, I though these things would sell better thanthe other things that we had seen, and on Day 10, Sam, Nancy, and I had discussed howcool it would be to find a Fair Trade store that would sell this stuff. We also need to ask

Seora Maria for the phone number of the sister of Sofia who lives in San Antonio who hadmentioned that she would be able to find places to sell this stuff to.

Afterwards, we spoke with her about problems generally in the city. To get somecontext, she has 4 children, a severely mentally disabled brother, other siblings, and awidowed mom in the community. We asked her what she felt about education. Hercomments were:Education

The teachers use the computers and the students do not in the primaryschool

In the secondary, the children do use the computers

The children from the secondary school are not well prepared for the prepa

The people in the family do not speak to the teachers, because they want toavoid problems

The government pays for part of the money for fixing up the schools

To build the bathrooms, the government paid part of the money, and theneach family had to give 155 pesos/child that they had in the school into afund to fix the bathrooms

She also said that the teachers from last year were better than the teachersthis year

She said that the government changed the teachers between the rancheseach year

She also mentioned that when it was too cold, the parents came to take thekids out of school earlier than school actually ended, because they did not

want their children to get sick.Doctors

Sometimes the doctors dont come for the vaccines nor the normal checkupsand sometimes they do not bring medicine.

The auxiliar frequently does not have enough medicine for the people.Sometimes, there is a doctor in La Estrella.

There is also a Centro de Salud in Ojuelos where she said the doctors and themedicines were free for her.

Conversation with Teresa Guardado MartinezAfterwards, Ester took us to speak to her mom,

Teresa Guardado Martinez. Teresa basically spoke to usmainly about her son who is severely mentally disabled.

The Spanish term they used to refer to him ismuchachito descapacitda.invlido. He is 34 years oldcurrently, but he is still essentially the size of a littlekid, and he is not able to converse with people nor is heable to use his hands or feed himself. They kept onsaying that the government did not provide anyempaal or paales for him. When we looked it up in


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the dictionary, paales ended up meaning diaperbut that did not seem to be the contextthey used it in. The conversation was definitely tried our sympathy and patience a lotthelady seems to be in a really hard position. She is a widow now, her husband passed awaya few years ago, and one of her other sons who currently works in the US to send moneyback to the family has submitted many petitions to the government for monetary help orpersonnel help to take care of the decapacitated victim. However, the government has not

responded [a case we seem to be hearing many times], and so the people are at a loss ofwhat to do. We told her that we would look into it, and since I was doing the conversing inSpanish, I definitely told her that it was an extremely sad situation, and that we would tryto help. We definitely are going to try to help, but from what we have heard from otherpeople afterwards, it does not seem like the government is going to do much in Mexico.

The situation is definitely very unfortunate, and it kind of sucks to be in a situation wherewe are helpless to do anything. We come from a country which would have probably hadmedicare for him, but we are trying to help people in a country which does not have theability to do that either.

Conversation with the Auxiliar before meeting the PromotorI think we have definitely developed good relations with the Auxiliar now. She is

always willing to help us, and I am definitely surprised by how much time she puts into thegood of the community, despite the fact that she is doing it completely as a voluntaryservice. I hopefully intend to get her contact information for the future and for future MITprojects.

We mentioned our idea about helping improve the appearance of the city to theauxiliar and she agreed that it would be a good idea. She mentioned that currently somepeople in the city sweep their streets, but that when other people on their streets, theirneighbors dont do their part, they exclaim that it is not their responsibility to sweepothers property as wellHopefully, the trash pickup day will be a successshe said thatshe thought a bunch of people would show upshe just wasnt sure that all the peoplewould show up.

Papilla.I guess that is something that is given to kids who are dehydratednotsure

Seguro de Popular I think that is a sort of phrase like food stampsfor people whohave seguro de popular the auxiliar mentioned that they were the ones who had access tothe free doctors and medicine in Ojuelos that Ester was talking about...Elena [the auxiliar]said that most people in La Vaquita had seguro de popular, but not everyoneI wonder ifthe Reyes have seguro de popular

Conversation with the PromotorJavier then ended up coming in, late actually, to talk to us. Throughout the meeting,

we learned quite important stuff. Below are Javiers thoughts, explanations for the lackingcomponents of the health program of La Vaquita

The little towns [communities] like La Vaquita are too far from the major citiesand the hospital

Thus, Servicios de Salud has programs to bring services to these people.

The team that comes out consists of 4 people, a nurse, a doctor, a dentist, anda promotor.oThey come to the communities 1x or 2x a month and about 20x a year

They are 15 actions/goals that the program has [diseases that the programeducates the people about/ helps the people not succumb to]

1. Family planning


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2. Pregnancies3. Infant/Child care up to 5 years4. Parasites5. Diarrhea6. Respiratory Infections7. Tuberculosis

8. Cancer Detections9. Basic Hygiene10.Water Disinfection11.Building Bathrooms12.Elimination of trash13.Accident prevention in the house [burns, cut, electric shocks]14.Mouth Hygiene

15.Alacranismo scorpions16.Diabetes

All 5 people, the team along with the auxiliar, help with teaching people aboutthis.

They also conduct a census which provides information on all the houses in LaVaquita

1. Who lives where2. How old there are3. Who needs what shots4. Who has diabetes, etc.

The doctor only sees 15 people each visit.

The 10 pesos voluntary fee that the auxiliar gathers from people when theyvisit/get medicines goes to keeping the casa de salud up to do, and to payingfor the water and the electricity

There is a doctor that is always in San Jose de Castellanos

1. 4 miles away free services

2. Also has too many people Doctors make it here < > 20/yr

Vaccination weeks (Feb, Mayo, Oct)1. Go to 15 communities2. Only 20% could be vaccinated with the regular flu vaccine [70]3. La Vaquita did not get the swine flu vaccine

Doctor supposed to come on January 19th

1. Vaccination week might conflict with visiting of the communities2. Lack of communication3. Gov lacks doctors & enfermeras4. Doctors need to learn

Reasons for missing1. Vaccinations2. Doctor is sick (rest still go)

If doctor isnt there, people dont go3. Vaccinations (prometer drives)4. Meetings where they are taught

There are communication problemso Government doesnt have/ give better medicines

No money


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4000 pesos por meso for a doctor de planta

Casa de Salud (en La Vaquita)o Centro de Salud (en Pinos) 5-10 doctos (no specialists0

Hospital(in Zacatecas) specialists

Boss in OjoCalienteso

We got his contact information

Afterwards, the promotor wanted to have the option to help us understand his job a bit

better; thus, he invited us to come to a nearby community with him to build an ecological

stove. The purpose of the stove was to decrease the amount of carbon emission that

stayed in the kitchen. The people of this other community, San Jose de Castellanos,

normally burn firewood [like all the other communities in the area] which is very harmful

for their respiration. It is quite interesting because the stove has similarities with a D-Lab

project. The inner core of the corn is burned underneath the first hole and there are only

two vents for air to enter and leave the stove. One vent is for air to push the smoke

through to the other vent which goes out of the house through a hole in the kitchen wall

resulting in less smog in the kitchen and less burning of firewood. We helped make thestove.

Afterwards, we got some Chinese Food! Yay! And then headed home.

~Sivakami

day 9 today, we did many things

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