hold your baby like a football

at work i read a selection of breastfeeding manuals and learned about "latch-on" and proper suction and how to breastfeed using the "football hold." they often note that breastfeeding is economical - a point not lost on this cheapion. how crazy is it that you can produce food that can completely sustain another (tiny) person? what a clever system. rather more elegant than just regurgitating food into your baby's mouth. i also read lots of general "omfg there's an infant nestled amongst your guts" and "omfg an infant emerged from you, what now" booklets so i will know what's going on when we do prenatal/postpartum house visits. we visited a new baby and her 16 year old mother. she lives with the baby's father and they are "companions" but not married, and that is fine here. however, he just fell under a bus and that is putting a damper on his ability to work, so she's hanging out at her parents' a bit more.

we also do house visits to see if people are using their water filters correctly, keeping their houses and children clean, etc. it's kind of confusing from a feminist perspective to be reprimanding women for not keeping their houses clean. however, if they aren't being careful, then flies land on poop and then land on their food and things don't go to a happy place from there. nearly all of the kids in the community have parasites, some have more than 3 kinds.

i'm trying to figure out ways to get more involved in san salvador. i'm investigating art/music classes, but the whole dark at 6:30 and dangerous after dark thing is a bit of an impediment. what i need is a friend with a car, or the parts and a few select youtube videos to build a car. potential care package senders take note - i'm jonesing for a sturdy chassis.