17-5
A detective story: “WHO STOLE THE GUALAMO JAM?”*
This story is used for helping health workers learn about the scientific method
of problem solving. It is not simply told by one person; rather it is created
together by the student group. You can use drawings to give it more life. The
story will turn out somewhat differently with each group, but may develop
something like this:
Instructor: Who knows what a detective is?
A student: Isn’t it someone like a policeman who tries to figure out who
committed a crime?
Instructor: Right! Well, this is a sort of ‘detective story’ that could take place in a
village home. The mother is the detective.
Let us suppose that
one morning Mama
prepares a batch of
gualamo jam for her
husband’s birthday.
Then she goes to the
river to wash clothes.
In the afternoon Mama
comes back from the
river. She sees that
someone has been into
the jam and made a big
mess.
What is her first
idea about how this
happened?
*Gualamo is a black, grape-tike fruit that grows wild on trees in western Mexico.