...y ya cepillamos los dientes. que rico es.

Today we taught our first graders how to brush their teeth! Cogate has a dental program for schools where they donate the tooth brushes and toothpaste, and provide little fun colored calendars so the kids can keep track of how often they brush their teeth. Dental hygiene is hardly existent in the campo and more rural areas of Honduras. Many children end up having their baby teeth pulled out only to find that the adult teeth underneath are also rotted.

This is mainly due to the amount of sugar in the Honduran diet. Kids eat nothing but candies and coke all day. Partially, because they aren't taught about what foods are good for them, but also because coke is cheaper than bottled water in some places.

We were riding the bus one day, and I turned to find a women feeding her baby coca cola out of a bottle. Yep, a baby bottle. And little baby was sucking it all down. Other times, we see babies drinking coffee out of a bottle. Why not water? Because in the smaller aldeas, people are not taught that coke is better than water. And when there is little food to eat for their children, coke provides calories, no matter how unhealthy those calories might be.

Anyhow, the kids were pretty pumped to learn how to brush their teeth. So excited, in fact, that more toothpaste ended up on the ground and on their faces than on their teeth.