Babies and Bread

(written two Wednesdays ago)

It´s ten till three on a Wednesday afternoon. I just walked into the health post 10 minutes after a baby was born. I had been with the mom to be the majority of the morning, basically just pretending to do work while I hoped that I would get to see a baby being born. At 1:45 I went home for lunch and by the time I got back not even an hour later, a little baby boy was born. He was adorable. How cool.

This week has been a little slow to say the least. My highlight was Monday afternoon when three health promoters and I made a compost pile. I had been saving up my vegetable scraps and pulling dried grass out of random fields and shoving it into a giant market-bag. The only thing that we all were missing was the animal guano, or poop if you will. I didn´t think any of the other promoters would take it upon themselves to go out and scoop up a bag of it in the morning. So, when Monday morning rolled around, I found myself in my grandma´s backyard, scooping up goat guano with a shovel. However, upon arriving at the house where we planned to make our pile, we realized that the 10 pound sack I managed to bring wasn´t going to cut it. (Side note: I had left the smelly bag with the mother of my health promoter at her house- she had no idea what compost was, let alone that we were making a pile of it in her backyard, when I kindly asked her if I could leave my sack of s$!# with her while her son was gone. Thankfully, she complied).

So the three of us health promoters get to the fourth health promoter´s house with a 1 year old in tow that someone was babysitting- all ready to get dirty. Then we realize we need more guano. So Yoxsy (the only boy health promoter) and I go off and sneak into his neighbor´s cow field to steal some of his manure. We forgot the shovel and since we wanted to pass by unnoticed, Yoxsy and I ended up scooping up the manure with our hands and filling a giant bag before running away. I love campo life.

I have a bit of advice for any volunteer that finds themselves in a tough spot with Peruvians- maybe you got off on the wrong with some of them or maybe you´re too broke to buy their one year old some birthday gift. Or maybe you just want to make some friends. I have one answer that has thus far, solved the majority of my problems; BANANA BREAD. I have made it for birthdays, for health promotion events, for fun, and as incentive to get people to come to things. My recipe follows as is (note Peruvian price too):

-3-4 ripe bananas (costs a little under twenty cents here) S./0 .50

-1 cup of sugar S./ not sure, but cheap

-1 egg (30 centimos)

-1 teaspoon vanilla (like 5 centimos)

-1 teaspoon of baking powder (20 centimos)

-1 ½ cups of flour (S./ 1)

-A pinch of salt (nothing)

I then throw it in a super sketchy and fire-prone bubble oven for about 30 minutes, or if I´m doubling the recipe, for an hour. Don´t touch the bubble oven. En serio.

I made this banana bread for my health promoters after the composting session and once again, I was asked for the recipe. Maybe I should start making for my teen health promoters- then maybe they´d come to the meetings.