My Community Diagnostic

So these last three months, my first three months at site, I have not been allowed to start official Peace Corps initiatives. This period has been set aside for volunteers to do interviews in the community, learn more about the people, gain trust with these people, understand their needs inside and out, and to better learn the best way you can be an affective volunteer I the next two years. In my community there are about 80 houses and 300 people. Water does not come to this community and this community has 4 wells to use water. Electricity is in the majority of Tierra Prieta. The central of the greater municipality, Hato del Padre, es closest to San Juan, the closest city. In my dianostic of the last three months with interviews and disccusions I found out that high blood pressure is a very common problema in my community. 36% of the houses in Tierra Prieta have people with Tierra Prieta. 4.6% of the houses in my community have diabetes. Also, the security and cleanliness of water are problems in Tierra Prieta. There are many groups in my community with lots of motivation, but not too much has been done recently in these groups. For future work I plan to start three groups. Two for women learning about cleaning a healthy house and family (one in Tierra Prieta and on in the neighboring community). I am also going to start a youth group about how to prevente the transmission of HIV/AIDS nd pregnancy in young ages. THe majority of houses in Tierra Prieta have wall with cement, no floor (or floors of dirt) and roofs of tin. 100% of the houses have tin roofs. 62.5% have walls of cement, 21.9 walls of wood, 12.5 with walls of cement and wood. 51.6% of the houses don’t have a floor. Almost all of the houses have latrines but many of these latrines are not in good conditions. Hato del Padre has 13 hours of electriciy every 24 hours. Every 15 days this Schedule changes. The members of the ocmmunity tranpor water from the wells by food, on a donkey ,or on a motorccle in plastic gallons. THere is not a paved road in all of Hato del Padre whichcan be dangerous especially when it rains. The majority of Tierra Prieta uses chlorine to purify their water and at times they buy 4 gallon potable water. Only two houses said that they do not use chlorine and do not boil their water befote they drink it. In contrary to this, I have observed many homes that do not purify their water befote they drink it. No one said that they boil their water to drink. Many people know that they should say that it is ipmortant to wash their hands befote they eat or Cook and alter they use the bathroom to prevente sicknes. But on the contrary many times peoepl don’t wash their hands at these times. There is not runnign water andi t is very difficult to wash peoples hands with running Walter. Hato del Padre Central and Los Portugueses have acuducts but Tierra Prieta without water. The wells are done in approximatley 1983. Before theis time peple used the shells of a plant called higuera to carry water from the river of Tierra Prieta. No this rio is dry. If a well is broken it is the responsibility of the members of the community to pay to fix the well.

This week I am in the capital to present the results of these last three months in my community and to plan for the future. I have traveled to a retreat center with a woman from my community, leaving at 5 in the morning, lit by the stars we traveled 5 hours to the capital to meet with the other volunteers in my sector. When I return to my community I can finally start working with my two women's groups and my youth group. I am so excited to actually start working with initivites and teaching health topics.

The Following are some figures from my final paper outlining my diagnostic of Tierra Prieta, the community I will live in for the next two years.