Team from First Pres Jackson, Mississippi in Cajamarca

This past week I was in the mountain city of Cajamarca with the First Pres Team from Jackson, Mississippi led by Dr. Danny Story (who happens to be the father of one of my roommates Sarah Story, who is also here interning in Trujillo). The team was split up into dental, medical and VBS teams, and I worked mostly with the medical clinic inside the church. This team has been coming to Cajamarca for the past ten years and really had an incredibly organized system. For anything to go that smoothly you knew many years of trial and error (and a lot of prayer and planning) went in to getting ready for that week! We had a great week of clinic and saw 589 patients in medicine, and probably more…but that was the official number. I was in triage with two other nurses, Emily and Sarah Elizabeth and we each took vital signs and triaged up to 70 patients in a day. I really enjoy triage for several reasons, first of all you are the first person they talk to about their problems, which are often sensitive and personal, and I was able to show some compassion and provide some reassurance that they would be in good hands. Probably one of my favorite things I get to do in my daily work isn’t even related to medicine…I really just like to comfort people and touch them, put their shoes back on, hold their hands, talk about something random or make them laugh to get their mind off of their worries. I find that once people can relax they are much more open to being honest and bringing up real, deeper concerns. Also, on the practical side this was the best opportunity I have had to practice my medical spanish and (attempt) to translate. Its really out of pure necessity that you are forced to do this because there simply are never enough translators. So I was very grateful for the practice and I hope to be translating for the teams that come late in the summer...Although this week I felt completely inadequate, humbled and often frustrated with my lack of knowledge!

We saw a lot of arthritis and associated joint pain as well as infections, coughs, the flu and other common issues. For a number of adults we saw this was their first visit to a doctor. It never failed to amaze me to begin clinic at 8 am and triage a woman who was in for arthritis and joint pain (along with at least 5 other problems, and more if I would let her), yet when I asked her why her hands were dirty she told me she had been digging potatoes in the cold early that morning! (It is literally freezing at night in Cajamarca) To be first in line I know she was there at 6:30 am, so who knows how early she had gotten up to begin work. Peru is like that…all around are constant little reminders of how difficult life here is and the constant fight for survival.

The most common complaint was people just complaining of total body pain, especially their backs, which I didn’t understand until after the first day of talking with them about their problems and lifestyle and watching 4 ft tall women carry a load on their back that was bigger than they were. In the states I saw a lot of preventable issues revolving around hygiene, and although I knew diet and vitamin deficiency was a problem here I never really realized the effects it was having on people. A lifetime of hard, physical labor and a diet that doesn’t include much more than meat rice and potatoes makes vitamin supplements essential here and we always need more. In fact vitamins (pronounced something like bee-ta-meen-as in Trujillo) was one of the first words I learned in the clinic in Trujillo, and to my initial surprise one of the most often prescribed treatments. Back home if I went to the doctor with a serious complaint and he gave me vitamins…well, I would go find another doctor. But here this is a very serious issue that manifests itself in all ages and types of illnesses, and a deficiency is often the underlying cause of a problem.

In Trujillo (and I believe other large coastal cities), it is customary (and expected) to greet everyone in the room with a few words and a kiss on the cheek, and touch effectively establishes instant feelings of friendship and familiarity. After a few encounters I quickly found out this wasn’t so with the mountain people! They are much more reserved and less touchy…probably good from a health perspective! I noticed a whole lot of eyes on the ground this week too. The people from this area have a long history of exploitation by other people groups and are often stereotyped as uneducated laborers. But for me this week was the closest I’ve felt to home in a month! I was right at home with the cows and barbed wire fences and hay….the backdrop of the Andes wasn’t bad either until I thought about how far people had to walk to get somewhere. Another habit of the people in Cajamarca which I quickly picked up on and found very entertaining was their tendency to add “–ito” to the end of many of their words. It is more or less the equivalent of adding “little” to the beginning of a word. For example, one of the MDs was called “Doctorisito” by a lot of little sweet old ladies. Now how many American MDs do you know that like being called “little doctor”?! However this is certainly a term of endearment and only given with good connotations as far as I could tell. I got a lot of “jaaaa hermaniiiita….por favorrr” and “doctorisiiita” which I quickly had to correct with the equivalent of “Ahhh no sister…I am a..Ummm…little student!” This was all very funny to me until in the latter part of the week when an 84 year old woman with one eye, a cane, and no shoes called me "little sister" and cupped my hands in hers to tell me thank you for seeing her. That was quite a moment for me...especially when I looked at her address...she had walked for a few miles on rocky roads to see us that day. How humbling. That gave me much encouragement, two seconds earlier I was thinking how much my back hurt from craning over trying to listen to soft voices for 4 days. I felt pretty ungrateful and ashamed of myself...had to take a step back. Just another day in Peru, ha! I really enjoyed my time with this team, they were so supportive of each other and a joy to work with. I know they are a blessing to the congregation and community each time they come. They also left many things for the clinic in Trujillo, which we are very excited about!