Pucallpa!

Pucallpa was so great! (minus the 26 hr bus ride!) aaaand to be a bit more specific we weren't actually working in Pucallpa. We stayed the first night there, organized and packed up all of the food equipment and supplies and loaded up two boats and headed upriver for 8 hours to a village of Shipibo Indians called Alfonso Ugarte. We set up our tents in a clearing on the edge of the village and some of the local young men helped set up showers (aka plastic stalls with garbage cans full of cold well water!) and they kindly macheted (whew..spelling?) the knee high grass in front of the school outhouses...which one of the girls would soon find out was full of bats down below! I believe the kids knew about it before hand but "forgot" to tell her...I think if anyone in the village wasn't aware before, they were after that scream. We smoked them out and covered the holes with platano leaves to circumvent reinfestation but trust me I was very cautious all week! Later cooked dinner, set up hammocks and got to know some of the locals before crashing. The next morning we got up early to set up clinic and I started translating only to find out that most of the patients didn't speak Spanish! They teach Spanish in the schools there but all of the older folks speak Shipibo. So to communicate our boat driver Wilfredo translated from Shipibo to Spanish. It takes 210 soles worth of gasoline to get a boat to Pucallpa and just to ride is 15 soles so most of the kids had never been to town. The village grows jungle fruits and imports them to Pucallpa by boat so many of the men speak Spanish.



I was walking around one morning and heard a chainsaw and went to go check out where it was coming from. All of the village men were building a boat...but the local carpenter was making the cuts with a chain saw!! They will use this boat to send the produce to market.

The experience working with this team was amazing, it was different than any other campaign I had been on. I was glad to have been able to go to Moyobamba (another jungle city---but up north a bit) on other occasions because I could recognize fruits, understand thick accents and anticipated the zancudos (big mosquitos!). I also very much enjoyed the opportunity to learn about this people groups way of life and culture. It was such a privilege to learn from and serve them although it also saddened me to see all of the damage that western culture has brought. I use the word damage because in so many ways it is the most accurate. Yes, modern advances have occasionally brought medicine, machetes, t-shirts and TVs. But it has also cut down the forest, destroyed the possibility of living life in harmony with the environment, and left whole generations bitter and feeling left behind by the rest of the world. But this is reality for the majority of the people in the world isn't it? Globalization doesn't make us all winners. We should look back in history at what has happened, but we must look forward as well as we work in the present to provide people the tools and knowledge to use their resources effectively...and also help them to look past this life to the hope that we know is in Christ.








You can find all of the pictures here in my Pucallpa album on Picasa

Ready for the Jungle!

Well...I am ready to go!

Tonight I am getting on the first of several buses that will take me to a jungle city on the other side of the Andes-Pucallpa.

I will be helping/translating for a team of dentists and dental students from the LSU Dental School. I got a huge bag of vitamins, bottles of parasite meds, toothbrushes, other creams, meds, a BP cuff and my stethoscope. I don't think there are any medical staff going so hopefully I can hold my own.

Please pray for safety this week for all of us at it has been flooding all over Peru. Also for Lima that I will be able to find a bus and not have any problems with other folks who might not have the best intentions.

I'll update in a week or two!

When it rains here, it pours...

Well at least the Trujillanos think so....but being from Louisiana I feel right at home! It has been raining all over Peru for the past few weeks. There have been billions of dollars in damage and countless people without homes or shelter. The tourists had to be airlifted from Machu Picchu. Water s/10 a bottle and crackers s/6. And I am still going to the jungle Friday...and they are definatly in the rainy season now...

The rain has come to Trujillo as well and the streets are flooded and everyone’s roves are leaking. Because we live in the desert most people were not prepared and their homes have suffered damage. Even the clinic, which the summer got its roof repaired, had a ton of water when we all arrived this morning. Everyone worked for two hours and eventually the rain stopped for a bit but we really need to do some work on the roof later today.



On another note...Terri and I just got back from a visit to Hospital Belen (a 500 year old hospital in the center of Trujillo). We went to the Pediatric ward to visit Dr. Florez who is a friend of the clinic Obstetrician, Sonia. Dr. Florez is helping us out with a patient in the CMP who needs some special attention. The inpatient pediatric ward was a little worse than I imagined. Having been in ER at Earl K in Baton Rouge I thought I had seen it all. Belen is a big important hospital in one of the biggest cities on the coast. I wasn't ready for bugs on the floor, water leaking from the ceiling (well…it is like that in all of Trujillo right now!). They had 2 ventilators and 2 pulse oxs for the whole floor. The other children that needed ventilators had a medical intern with bag in hand manually ventilating. That’s a normal reality. Every 2 hours they switch. This is a 24/7 job…. manually ventilating each breath. The hospital has no portable Rayos X so if they need that they have to move the kids (with all their equip) to the other side of the hospital to do it. There is one 14 yr old boy with renal failure who can’t get dialysis because the hospital doesn’t have it. Literally it’s not available. One thing he really needs right now central line catheter (7 French). Its 156 soles…that’s like 50 bucks. Insurance doesn’t pay for everything and if the family cant pay….then the kid just sits…and waits. The docs and nurses and interns sometimes get together and hacer una cancha (a collaboration literally cancha is popcorn which is a common snack here…its like everyone throws in a bit to buy the stuff) to pay for a drug or treatment. They literally only have 2 pulse oximeters for the whole ward which is sometimes 24 kids. Its not that these physicians are at fault…they are working so hard (manual ventilation…it doesn’t get tougher than that). Sometimes you just don’t have what you need and you just have to deal with it and do the absolute best you can. Unfortunately even with the best doctors this can mean a death sentence for a patient.

We are trying to see if we can come up with the funds to buy that tube, we are supposed to be going back soon to visit the neonatal unit and maybe do a night shift in Peds. Hopefully we can get the line for him, it’s just hard when you are surrounded by so many needs. Who do you help? How do you decide? We are working in the morning, lessons and devotionals together in the afternoon, taking patients places and running errands in the afternoon, then dinner and then go to Starbucks to get internet and do stuff at night. I havent gotten a good nights sleep in a week! Always fun stuff to do and its great but I am tired!

As I have been here for a few months and gotten to know some of the folks in the community and patients in the clinic I have become a bit involved in there stories…visiting them at home and arranging doctors visits, formula, nail clippers or medicines. Whatever it is that they need help with. I have found the balance of trying to help but also maintaining a healthy distance difficult. For example, today I was asked to be the madrina (godmother) of a baby from Clementina that is going to be baptized Sunday (her picture is below). As much as it is an honor to be asked to take on a responsibility like that it one also has to think about consequences and motives for entering a relationship like that (on both sides). It is a big deal here. In this case I do know the family and am involved, but honestly don’t feel like I would be able to fulfill that role (or pay for the fiesta!!). Oh to be a gringa….

Speaking of being white, I have been painfully aware of my skin color, nationality and socio-economic status the past week or two. Perhaps it was highlighted by the team being here and all the attention we got out in the communities. The differences are pretty stark. I try not to be to cynical, and I realize that our countries are continents apart but I cant help but feel frustrated by the lack of educational opportunities/medicine or you name it. An example is Ana (see picture below). She has a number of serious medical problems (almost every one were preventable, and probably wound not have happened stateside) and because she doesn’t have insurance her case has fallen through the cracks. She has gotten lost in the system and shuffled about from one person to another. From the day of her birth until now a series of unfortunate circumstances and coincidences has led to her current situation…and red tape, time and money stands between her and a cure. Thankfully many Peruvians have stepped in and volunteered to get involved in her case! Private (and w/o insurance EXPENSIVE) pediatricians, an orthopedic specialist, and a physical therapist have waived their fees and seen her. But others aren’t so lucky…I wait for the day when we will be equal, all things will be new and the color of my skin wont get me any favors.

Here are a few that have been on my mind lately...

Ana
Señor Leon
Valeria Antoneli
Señor Jose
The thought of leaving in May saddens me because I am just really getting into peoples lives here and can actually talk to them and get to know them and now I am about to leave. But I am also excited to get back to the states and move to Birmingham and start school. I have so much to learn! I feel so blessed with all that I have been given and I hope that I am being a good steward of what has been given to me. I have been feeling for some of these folks lately. There are no magic fix-it buttons here in Peru...things take time and money and patience. BUT THE LORD has put so many people (peruvian and american) in our paths that are willing to help these folks. Together we are making progress with each one of them!

Salmo 9:9-10
9 El Señor será refugio de los oprimidos,
refugio para el tiempo de angustia.

10 En ti confiarán los que conocen tu Nombre,
por cuanto tú, oh Señor, no desamparas a los
que te buscan.

Well the last few weeks have been packed! This week we had a team from Independent Pres in Memphis come and work with us. In one week this team of physicians, dentists and other medical personnel went to the barrios of Manuelo Arevalo, Parque Industrial, Wichanzao, Clementina, as well as a sugarcane farming community—Mocollope which is 40 minutes north of Trujillo. We saw hundreds of patients and had a great week working together. I had such a fun time translating (mostly with the dental team!) and hope to use everything I learned in another upcoming dental campaign that I will be involved in next week in Pucallpa with a team from the LSU Dental School.