Accomplishing

I got to Peru about a year and 8 months now and have been working on a Healthy Homes project ever since with 15 families, in collaboration with various doctors, obstetricians and nurses that arrived for their residencies to our rural, humble health post in Oidor. Each family has completed educational health sessions on hand washing, parasite prevention, drinking boiled/treated water, dengue/malaria prevention, nutrition, correct breastfeeding, early childhood stimulation, household hygiene and latrine maintenance.

I’m proud to announce I’m finally FINISHING this massive project. I can’t believe I get to say this but NONE of the kids I work with are malnourished anymore, and none have had parasites for over the past SIX MONTHS.

As a gift for completing the program, we are building the families latrines, as they do not have bathrooms, and the families are SO HAPPY to finally have a place of dignity to go to the bathroom!

This fulfills me to my core. I am doing the right thing in life and I am EXTREMELY happy myself. At times, this project was a ROYAL PAIN IN MY BUTT because of the low support I first received, incompetent/lazy health professionals, getting sick with parasite after parasite myself, loneliness and many other barriers, but I remained hopeful and patient that this project will work out. It was quite the mental marathon. In return, I have learned A LOT about life and myself in the process.

In the future, I hope you’re all going to know a Dr. Gioconda Zoller, M.D., that’s opened up a health clinic in the middle of nowhere, Africa, Asia or Central/South America. It is my dream to be a lifelong servant, to continue feeling what I feel now in the Peace Corps.