Oaxaca AMIGOS Fellow Blog

Community Visits with KILO, Oaxaca

bbeeman — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 19:32:00 GMT

Un Kilo de Ayuda Community Visits, Oaxaca

As part of the work I am doing here, I try to go on community visits with our partnership agencies as frequently as is possible. These visits are particularly helpful in giving me a hands-on understanding of the work our partnership agencies do with community members and the personalities of the communities they work in—all of which allows me to better assess which communities would be good placements for our AMIGOS volunteers. Recently I spent a 12 hour day with Un Kilo de Ayuda, one of our partner agencies, visiting communities. Licenciado Marcos Sosa Ramirez and I drove to the mountain community of Tutepetongo in the La Cañada region to give iron tests to the children who are part of the KILO program there. The drive was over 3 hours long through mountains filled with cacti and various types of other high desert plants.

Un Kilo de Ayuda is a non-governmental agency that works with malnourished children throughout Mexico. KILO works in 42 communities and supports about 1,800 families in this part of the state of Oaxaca (there is another KILO office near the Oaxacan coast). Children in the program range in ages of 0 – 3 years old and 3 – 5 years old. Every fourteen days KILO visits communities and conducts various tests to monitor the health of the children and of the expectant mothers in the program. These tests range from measuring the height and weight of the children to testing for anemia through pin *** blood tests. Families that are in the program can then buy "canastas de comida" (food baskets) with essential food items for very discounted prices through KILO. To learn more about KILO go to: http://www.unkilodeayuda.org.mx/

This summer AMIGOS will be working with KILO in 4 or 5 communities. Tutepetongo is a community that AMIGOS has worked with in the past and several AMIGOS murals are still visible in the playground area with the AMIGOS logo and volunteer names (see pics below). I met the host mother of the volunteers from 2006 and she and the other mothers asked for news of the volunteers. Stay tuned for more updates from Oaxaca! hasta pronto...

Thanksgiving Day in Oaxaca

bbeeman — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:27:00 GMT

I had the good fortune of spending the US Thanksgiving Holiday working with Puente a la Salud Comunitaria in a community in the Sierra Sur region of Oaxaca. It was the first time Puente had given a plactica (educational talk) in San Ildefonso Amatlan and by all accounts it was a great success. As a result, Puente plans to work with San Ildefonso Amatlan during the 2008 calendar and I hope to place AMIGOS volunteers there for the summer as well.

Puente Health Promoters Hitzel and Liliana and I left Oaxaca City at 6 a.m. in a Puente vocho (VW bug) filled with amaranth products, plactica materials, and kitchen utensils for the day’s visit. The drive was beautiful—taking us through Oaxaca’s high desert filled with a variety of cacti, passed foot hills and small towns including San Antonino Castillo Velasquez (my AMIGOS community from 1998 when I was a veteran volunteer in Oaxaca). Along the way Hitzel and Liliana and I talked about the plactica we would give to the “padres de la familia” in San Ildefonso Amatlan as well as other things like Lila Downs’ recent concert in Oaxaca City.

When we arrived to San Ildefonso Amatlan we were met by the supervisor of Accion Comunitaria, a municipal organization that helped organize our visit. After inviting us for coffee and pan dulce (sweet bread) at a local home, we were introduced to the Autoridades (local authorities) and taken to the large municipal meeting space where the “padres de familias” (parents of families) were arriving to work with us for the day. Soon, everyone had been given a red baseball cap and camisa (shirt) to promote Accion Comunitaria’s current campagn of healthy eating. After formal introductions by the Autoridades, Liliana and Hitzel began their plactica introducing Puente a la Salud Comunitaria and the use of amaranth to the community members.

Liliana and Hitzel gave a wonderful plactica which included breaking the participants up into 4 groups and drawing what they imagined an amaranth plant to look like. The women especially seemed to really enjoy this activity and then Liliana facilitated a discussion about what nutritional properties were contained within the leaves and seeds of the amaranth plant. The history of amaranth in Oaxaca was also given—the fact that amaranth was once a mainstay of the Oaxacan diet before the Spanish conquest and that over time the tradition has been lost.

What impressed me the most about San Ildefonso Amatlan was the high amount of enthusiasm in which we were received by the community members and the obvious effort they had made in organizing our visit. Not only were the mothers of the families present and participating but also the fathers of the families. Once the plactica had been given everyone joined in to help prepare the comida (meal) in the municipal kitchen. We prepared rice, huevos a la Mexican (scrambled eggs with tomato and chiles), chocolate (hot chocolate), and alegrias (a local tradition of popped amaranth and molasses in a bar). Each item that was cooked included amaranth in various forms. Everyone had a great time and we all enjoyed eating together our amaranth rich meal!

After our meal the large group of about 40 community members and their children walked to the local health clinic. There, Hitzel and Liliana did an activity about how to plant and take care of amaranth plants. We then did a sample planting in a plot within the health clinic grounds.

As the day wrapped up I really couldn’t imagine being anywhere else for Thanksgiving. I felt so blessed to be able to spend the day with the residents of San Ildefonso Amatlan and to work with Liliana and Hitzel from Puente. For a day that is meant for us to give thanks, I had a lot to be thankful for—this opportunity to work for AMIGOS again, to learn new things from our partner agencies, to be around the incredibly generous and loving Oaxacan people and to appreciate their culture. This was truly a beautiful day and one that I will always remember.

The local authorities and our Puente Team at day's end.

The drive home...a beautiful day.

Oaxaca AMIGOS Fellow Blog

twhite — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:33:00 GMT

Welcome to the Oaxaca AMIGOS Fellow Blog. I am the 2007 Oaxaca AMIGOS Fellow, Beca Beeman! I will focus on Latin American youth initiatives and curriculum development among other efforts.
My first weeks in Oaxaca have been full of community visits, partner organization meetings, and investigating possibilities to involve youth in the summer projects. I have also been planning a visit to Guanajuato and Michoacan where I hope to recruit and train Latin American youth for our summer projects.
Besides these work related activities, I have been enjoying getting to know Oaxaca by making new friends, enjoying the food, local festivals, and warm weather. Kate McGuire, Regional Director, and I arrived in Oaxaca during the Day of the Dead festivities. While she was here, Kate and I were able to partake in some of the beautiful traditions associated with Day of the Dead. Below, please find photos of the Day of the Dead.
Soon to come...pictures and more info on my community visits and activities! Check back soon!