Nourish and the Health and Sanitation Campaign

Kat Burns—Director of Public Health Programs, micromanager, general, den mother—is fondly dubbed La Jefa, the boss.

Up at dawn with the rest of us, La Jefa stops in the courtyard to check on the month-old puppies between bites of breakfast, making a mental note to take them to the vet in Trujillo next week. As we hurriedly cobble together avocado-and-cheese sandwiches, Kat collects tape measures from the archaeology students staying in the lab house for the day, so that we can borrow them for our health assessments. She leaps upstairs to tell us that the bus is here, to grab scales, surveys and go! We yank our toothbrushes out of our mouths, scooping up bags of rice to give to survey participants. Shovels and daypacks in tow, we scramble into the van.

An hour later, we’re in the valley, having picked up the nurses in the city on the way and dropped off the latrine team in Ciudad de Dios. Indiana Jones hat perched on her curly hair, Kat deftly navigates the roads through the cane fields with a cell phone to her ear. First it’s Kevin: “Who has the key to the schoolhouse where the PVC pipes are kept?” Next its an Engineers Without Borders volunteer: “Can we help the Water Committee set up a payment plan so a family can afford to get on the water line?”

Followed by the van, she drives deeper into the sugar cane, parking her clunky gray sedan in the middle of the dirt road to ask some laborers how to get to Las Cocas. We have a map, but the map has no roads—only houses in the sugar cane, and, occasionally, the names of the families who live there. After fifteen minutes, we’ve finally oriented ourselves. As the health assessment team heads off on foot, Kat hops back in the car.

La Jefa and members of the health assessment team meet at Ciudad de Dios for lunch.

The rest of the morning is spent dropping the visiting nurse practitioner off at Trujillo’s public hospital, finagling permission for her to observe the emergency care unit and talk to a doctor or two. Stuck in traffic, she recognizes the face of a passing pedestrian from Moche and stops to arrange a meeting later in the week. Next, we go to the carpenter’s to check on the doors and discuss the design of a small seat for the latrines.

On the way back to the valley, La Jefa lists the day’s schedule. She has a meeting with the Water Committee at one, then a community meeting in Santa Rosa to ask if we can conduct the surveys there. Then it’s off to Bello Horizonte to remind the pregnant ladies about the prenatal classes next week. She’ll take the EWB volunteers to the airport while we head home.

Back at the house, we organize the completed surveys of the day and use a random number generator to choose houses on tomorrow’s map. The latrine team discusses relocating the third latrine: they’ve hit a boulder halfway down the first hole. We don’t see Kat again until after dinner, when we meet in Spanglish to go over finances, data entry, and prenatal classes. Finally—dusty, exhausted, and tense from the day’s hard work—we goof off for a while and head to bed early.

La Jefa calls every kid in Ciudad by name and breaks up dog fights sin temor. She knows all the right people and draws maps with a rock in the dirt. She coordinates rides, supplies and schedules, and is quick with a joke or smile. Things rarely run smoothly around here, but La Jefa helps us juggle the details and keep the chaos in check.

Kat talks with Andres, the latrine team's go-to guy.