Eating Caterpillars, Bathing in Buckets, and a Minivacation, oh my! Part one, because all of it won't post...

Hi all! I'm still alive.  First of all, happy birthday Dad, if you're reading this. Sorry it's a few days late.  Due to more power outages (and nearly two days without water- hence the bathing in buckets), I've had only sporadic internet at best. I meant to spend today writing up my main project, but ended up reading two books instead and getting some ice cream because nothing was working.  Thanks, Congo amenities (or lack thereof, I guess). Anyway, on to last week's recap (and some stuff from the first week).  The pictures of me in the last post and those marked with an asterisk in this one were taken by Erik, the son of the woman who runs the nutrition program (credit where credit is due). Also, a correction: Faith is 9, not 10. Chicks!:

Part of a hand-washing demo (note the kid with the alien head in the background! It was more dramatic from the front. He looked like the pictures you see of babies with hydrocephaly, but grown up a bit)*:

Me with one of the teams (I love their smock things)*:

As promised, some pictures of the nutrition program.  The large pot in the foreground contains a kind of porridge they make for the cooking demonstration.  It contains soy and corn flour, ground and dried caterpillars called chenille, palm oil (bright orange by the way!), eggs, mashed bananas, orange juice, and sugar*:

While the porridge is cooking, the attendees are given given a talk about proper nutrition (along with plenty of singing and clapping, as with most things here).  Many feed their children only carbs like fufu or chikwan, the staples here.  Fufu is sort of a steamed dumpling made of corn and manioc flour, while chikwan is made from fermented manioc flour and stored wrapped in leaves.  It's white and has the texture of clay.  Both are decent, if kind of bland.  Most people prefer chikwan, but I personally like the fufu better. Traditional congolese meals include one of these (chikwan is generally served with fish), a meat, and a serving of sweet potatoes, fried plantains, or a ubiquitous green here that I can never catch the name of. Also ubiquitous is pili pili, a paste made from hot peppers. Because many people in this neighborhood are extremely poor, though, they can't afford a complete meal or don't know what one consists of, and the children end up eating some fufu maybe once a day.  The nutrition program teaches mothers that the children also need protein and vitamins.  Bananas, oranges, eggs, and chenille are cheap enough and easy to get here, so incorporating these items does a lot of good for the children without burdening the parents too much*:

This little girl was severely malnourished but it now at a healthy weight thanks to the program*:

Me trying the porridge (the guy next to me is Papa Moku, the coordinator of all the community volunteers and outreach programs.  He's also been a leading a project to build ventilated improved pit latrines around the neighborhood)*:

It actually tastes pretty good, in spite of the hodgepodge of ingredients.  I called it the frankenporridge in my head*:

Weighing the kids (between 5 months and 6 years old)*:

Measuring the height:

I love this picture:

More height measuring:

They also take the kids' arm circumference about halfway down the bicep.  The chart that shows levels of malnutrition based on weight and height and the arm measuring tape are both color coded. Green is fine, yellow and red indicate malnutrition and the child is entered into the program (which is free).  A child can qualify based on either weight/height or arm circumference. The children receive an allotted number of plumpy nut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy'nut) packets a week (based on weight), and the mothers must bring the empty wrappers back to get the next week's supply (to make sure they are using them).  The children stay in the program until they reach a healthy weight.
The normal reaction I get from kids here: