Hello everyone! Time for an update.  As promised, here are some pictures from the Tiwanaku solstice celebration. The Aymaras celebrate the solstice as the mark of the new harvest season, and the tradition is to wake up early (or party all night) in order to "receive" the sun as it comes up by raising your hands in the air. Our bus picked us up at 4 AM from La Paz, so we got there just in time for the sunrise! 

Standing in front of the Aymara flag

Tiwanaku ruins

Unfortunately, our project has been delayed and we are waiting on IRB approval to complete focus group discussions in the clinics. However, my team member and I have been keeping busy working on the other aims for the project (food frequency, data entry, etc). In the meantime while we clear things up for our aim, we have been piloting our focus group discussion guide with NGOs and with women recruited from churches. Our first pilot focus group was carried out with an NGO called Caia which works with women and adolescents around La Paz on a wide range of issues including health and financial empowerment for women.  The discussion went extremely well and our guide seemed to work great, so we have transcribed the discussion and made a few revisions. 

This week we are setting up more pilot focus group discussions and also starting to develop our educational materials. To do this, we are collecting information on all the different micronutrients that mothers and children under 2 receive at clinics in El Alto. From this information we will develop a descriptive document containing all the compositions for each supplement and compare these to the guidelines published by the Bolivian Ministry of Health. We will also construct a model to be used at each clinic to help explain micronutrient supplementation to the mothers, ensuring that they understand which vitamin to take when. 

This past weekend we took a short trip to Copacabana (on the shore of Lake Titicaca). I didn't realize how much I missed water! From there we did a day trek on Isla del Sol ("Sun Island"), an island with a gorgeous landscape and many Inca ruins. Pictures will probably do it more justice: 

View of Lake Titicaca from our hostel

Squintin' in the sun

Kids playing in the streets of Copacabana

Isla del Sol!