Escuela de Enfermeria

Today was an introduction to the community. After a short ride to the outskirts of the city we loaded onto a big yellow school bus. It looked a little different than our school buses - more like a charter bus but yellow. A 40 minute drive took us from paved to dirt road passing by shops covered by tin & rocks. Raw meat hung from wooden shacks on rusty hooks - from fish to big cow feet. The cement painted stores were stuck close together and people lined the road walking around.

The scenery was beautiful there! Rolling hills of greenery surrounded the area. We pulled into a cemented school building that was big and were welcomed by some volunteers there who spoke English! Yay! Hogar de Cristo is a great organization that has done a lot of work to build bamboo houses for the poor in Ecuador.

Like this!

They work to empower the people with the resources they have. Micro-loans are a program they've started for the women there giving small amounts of money to help them begin their own small business in a skill such as sewing. The women are very good at paying the money back and it has helped thousands start a productive life.

BYU Nurses have been working with this organization for the last 5 years as they've worked with the children to help improve their nutrition. A study done last year on several schools showed Anemia in 30% of the kids. That's a lot. And it's pretty much all related to nutrition.

To help change this Soy Milk has been created for the kids to buy and shown to the communities. Our job this year is to test the kids again - age, height, weight, and a little finger prick for blood - to see how things have been improving. We will also visit the homes of those who haven't been improving to see if their are other factors going on that effect their nutrition.

I tasted a vanilla flavored soy milk today - and it was actually good. Better than at home!

I will be there tomorrow. And Viernes y Jueves.
This is meeting some of the kids after they got out of school. We sang some songs with them.

We visted the Guayaquil University this afternoon and went to the escuela de enfermeria - or the School of Nursing! It was really fun to meet the students there. We share a lot in common. They thought nursing school was rough too.

Beth and Kirsten talked to them as well as alumni and did a great job! I got to pass out BYU pens and say hello :) These are examples of their uniforms. They had mini style on the wall - I think it looks like American Doll clothes.



The nurses dress really nice here - the women in the hospital often wear skirts and we see the nurses cap. The colored are for the students and the year in school wears a certain color of scrubs. It's always all white uniforms for the certified nurses. I like it - it looks very professional.

But probably not as comfortable as our scrubs :)

My shirts are all wrinkly. We don't have an iron.

At least the humidity helps :)

Oh! And we went to Cafe Rio today!

ok, not quite the same as home. But still good. I ate fish.


And Beth ate pollo. And papas fritas and rice and frijoles