January 23
We have been focusing on hand washing as a healthy habit in El Bichito this week, so we have taught lessons on the subject and have devised games involving hand washing. Some of the kids drew signs about "lavando las manos para proteger su salud," and they enjoyed playing various games.
The kids' favorite game, however, involved a cultural event that is currently happening in Cajamarca-- Carnival. Carnival occurs every spring, and it mostly involves enormous water fights. The kids had been begging us to let them play carnival for days, so we decided to incorporate a water fight into our hand washing lesson. We told them that the water balloons were "globos of bacteria," and every time that they were hit, they had to wash their hands to get a new balloon. The game worked for several minutes, but it quickly just turned into a full-out water war. The battle peaked as we ran into the middle of it with the kids' confiscated water guns yelling, "INFLUENZA!" and drenching them with water. They loved this... mostly because they had every excuse to soak me and Anna, the other intern.
We had an excellent water fight, but we were even more pleased with the results; the next day, many of the kids washed their hands on their own before eating, and all of them did after we asked! We hope to keep instilling these types of healthy habits in the kids as we work with them in El Bichito.
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