What were you eating?

In many of the schools we work with here they don't have sufficient space for the students. In one of this specific schools I am working with here, they were using the school's kitchen as a classroom.

This led to the mamas cooking over a fire in this small room on the floor, which is a serious health hazard. Especially considering most of them cook with their children on their backs, and the kids run in and out of the room to help.

From left to right, the improvised kitchen, the fire they cook over on the floor, and a view of the the actual kitchen that is currently used as a classroom, behind the improvised kitchen.

(click on the picture to make it bigger)

The community and I are currently working on a project to build a new classroom. It's not even worth it to go into detail about how much paperwork and how many headaches we all had filling out the paperwork required to write the Peace Corps SPA (Small Project Assistance) grant. The important thing is that the project was approved and we are in the process of construction. More pictures to come when the project is finished!

I've been spending a lot of time at this specific school, helping the mamas cook snack, observing health lessons, working with a women's group within the community. Recently, one of the kids came up to chat with me. And I could not stop laughing at his face. That sounds bad. But his face was covered in some unknown substance. I asked him what in the world he had been eating. He really didn't understand why I was asking. So I took this picture and showed him. We still laugh about it together.

It's the small things that get me through each day here.