Training in el Campo

Sorry that I’ve been MIA from the blog the second half of this week after starting so strong Monday and Tuesday. We had our menu training in the communities of Cusmapa Wednesday and Thursday, so I was up in the north from Monday night on. I’ll make up for it today though – a double entry, including this really long one about training in the campo.

Monday evening I took an express bus to Somoto, which was a pretty long 3.5 hour ride in an old school bus. I felt a little tricked too, since all the ‘express’ buses I’d taken in the past had been like Greyhounds until this curve ball. School buses were not made for distance travel.

Tuesday morning it was time for yet more fun in school buses, this time riding from Somoto up north to Cusmapa on those rocky mountain roads I love so much. The ride normally takes about 1 hour by truck, so I was quite stunned (and mildly alarmed) to find out that the bus trip was over two hours. It was a slow, hot, dusty ride which left all of us inside the bus torn between opening the windows to get some air moving and closing them to keep the dust clouds out.

Once in Cusmapa, it was time to start planning. Fortunately, the team there is really on top of things, and they somehow managed, in just a few days, to pull together 3 training sessions in the remote communities with nearly perfect attendance– no small feat when dealing with a rural crowd that has limited access to phone, internet, cars, etc.

That led into our first training session Wednesday, which was quite an experience. We packed up the truck around 9:00 am – bringing ingredients to do cooking demonstrations, the cook from Cusmapa, me, my teammate (Mike), the administrator (Sabrina), the doctor (Victor), and a few other miscellaneous helpers. Most everyone had to ride in the back of the truck standing, which I can tell you, after doing it yesterday, is not too much fun with all the bumping around we did. Then, we headed off toward the location of the training and, along the way, picked up teachers, warehouse admins, and a small sample of the various mothers who volunteer in the kitchens. In all, it would be a group of about 25 from 5 different communities, and some of the ones we picked up along the road had walked for over two hours just to get to the point where we met up with them. That’s some pretty incredible dedication, especially considering many of them were volunteers!

Once we arrived at the school, we did a quick overview of what we planned to accomplish, and then hit the kitchen. The ‘kitchen’ that I’m referring to actually ended up being in the home of someone that lived near the school. This generosity also impressed me – people in these communities have so little, yet this family opened their house to us and let us use their water, pots and pans, fire, salt, dishes, etc…for almost 6 hours!

At first it was a scramble to find the things we needed – there were forgotten ingredients (my bad), there was a lack of utensils, and the space felt cramped for the size of the group. However, thanks to the hard work of many people present, we were able to get everything flowing smoothly in no time, and it ended up being a really productive day. We taught all these people about 5 new dishes, fed them all lunch (sadly, there weren’t enough spoons, so we ate the rice and stewy mixture with our hands!), and had time to discuss how they would share what they learned with the other moms in their communities. After all, as I mentioned before, there is no single cook that works these kitchens – instead, there are about 40 mothers that volunteer each month. Therefore, for this new menu to work, it’s critical that the information from this training be transferred to the others. I’m fairly confident it will happen too, because those that attended were really excited about what they learned, and they each put forth a plan for how they would train the other mothers going forward.

There were a few other moments from the day that definitely stuck out to me. First, when we handed out the menus and the attendees saw the dishes we were going to make, they seemed really surprised and delighted to see things like chicken, bananas and flour as ingredients for the menu. At first they seemed doubtful that they would be able to receive these ingredients since they haven’t in the past, but when we assured them that, as part of the new menu, we’d be ordering these things for them, they were really happy. Such a simple change, but I think it will have a major impact.

Second, we bought sodas for the group for with the lunch, and I ended up stuck with the bottles. I was asking if there was somewhere I could get rid of them, thinking along the lines of recycling (or, let’s be serious, garbage, here in Nica). When I said “what should I do with these,” referring to the bottles, there were countless people that wanted them for some use or another. It’s sort of recycling of a different kind, and something that is very common here in Nicaragua.

Finally, at one point we visited a boy in one of the communities who has been sick for over a year with something that prevents him from moving most of his lower half. It was likely a stroke, though it’s not clear because whatever medical attention he has received in the past has been largely lost in translation through parents that haven’t understood, haven’t been able to read the doctor’s notes, etc. Plus, that medical attention has been extremely limited. Fortunately, Mike and others are trying to help this kid get to a doctor in Managua now, but I’m sure there are many others like him out there that are in the same position, unable to get help. Talking to his parents, who talked about the whole situation very matter-of-factly in spite of the gravity of their son’s year-plus condition, it made me realize that this kind of thing is probably just an accepted matter of life out here, where the closest medical specialists are countless hours – and dollars - away. Hard to imagine coming from the broken but still robust health care system we have in the States.

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Day 2 (yesterday) was a lot like the first day but with a longer ride. As I alluded to, this time I braved the ride in the back of the truck both ways, and let me tell you, I’m feeling pretty bruised and battered after the fact. I think we stood for about an hour an a half each way, bumping around on every turn while packed like sardines with, I’d guess, about 30 people plus chickens in the back at one point.

It was another really productive, encouraging training session. Just like the day before, I was amazed to see how engaged and hard-working the mothers were. They were taking notes, asking lots of questions, helping cook, cleaning up dishes, getting huge jugs of water that they carried on their heads, and so on. I couldn’t so much as start cutting a carrot before someone was begging to do it in my place. It was really incredible. I also felt like these mothers and teachers appreciated the fact that we were bringing training to them. They kept reading the recipes and menus we gave them over and over, and they told us multiple times how grateful they were. That was cool to see.

I also felt like this trip was a great capstone on my experience which, although not over yet, is undeniably drawing to a close. It was a really great team effort, with the doctor, administrators (who were just trained on this same menu less than a month ago), and the rest of the team chipping in to really support our messages, talk up the menus, and encourage implementation in some of the most remote communities in all of Nicaragua. I feel good about leaving because I know things are in good hands and while I’m sure some breakdown will be inevitable, I have a lot of confidence in the perpetuation of the menu and the coinciding messages of nutrition and cost savings in the majority of the schools.

In conclusion, after a week that, while productive and rewarding, was also hot, dusty, and exhausting, I couldn’t be more ready for my weekend at the beach.