It´s never just a blister

It was late and I was tired. So I bathed and went to bed. I was all snug in my bed when my foot began to itch. I went to scratch it and felt a bump. So I go and grab my flashlight to examine my foot, thinking I had a clump of mud stuck to it. I look and all I see is a blister. So I lay back down and go to sleep.

The next day I am hanging in a hammock worry free with my feet all up and relaxed when I see a string dangling from my blister. I lean forward to remove it. As soon as I touch it the string retracts back into my foot. It is at that point that I got grossed out. I had a worm of some sorts living in the bottom of my foot. So I go show some people and Kaitlyn volunteers to remove it.

We go outside where the light it nice and bright. Everyone gathers to see this freak show. They even bring along their cameras. It´s even more funny because the families of two of the other SM´s were visiting and just grossed out by what happened to my foot. Anyways, as soon as Kaitlyn cracks open the house of my worm, eggs start pouring out of my foot. Every time we squeezed the thing more eggs would leave. It got to the point where there were not anymore eggs leaving my foot. So we called it quits.

Well, the doctor comes by later that night and I decide to show him my foot for good measure. He says that the egg sac ruptured in my foot and there is still stuff in there. So he goes and takes some sort of clamp things and starts tearing into my foot. It felt like he was pulling out my flesh. And again, everyone gathers to watch. After what seemed like forever, the doctor gets done. He says it´s all gone. I ask him again just to make sure, cause the thought of a worm traveling around random places in my body and laying eggs concerns me. He reassures me he got ¨todito todito¨.

Lesson learned: Always wear tennis shoes in muddly places.

some pics

Well, here are a few pics. One is me in a chacra, the other I am with one of my families and her daughter's birthday party, and the other is the whole group at clinic. ENJOY!!!

La Rosita

I retreated outside the church, running away from the mass of people inside waiting to pass consult with the doctor. I just needed a moment to myself, one little moment. As I escape to a nice quiet place I sit down. However, two minutes later a slightly big shadow comes and towers over me. I turn around expecting to see a tall person, but only see a 4'9" little Peruvian woman. With a big smile on her face she calls sits down next to me and talks. I don't quite remember about what, but that was my first encounter with Rosa.

At the end of clinic Jenni and the Doc were trying to find a pension where Emily and I could eat while we were staying in Ciudad Constitucion. After all was said and done, it turned out that we were going to be eating with little Rosa. She was very gracious and welcomed us into her home.

We were all very polite and the beginning. She would feed us and even wash our clothes. It was great. This woman took her job as our caregivers very seriously. She was very loving.

Throughout those weeks I was reminded that everyone has a little freak in them waiting to burst out, especially Rosa. She had two little parakeet birds that she would treat very strangely. She painted them with nail polish on their beaks and feathers, saying that she could better see them this way. Also, she would hack at their wing with a knife and laugh while doing it. One day she got carried away and hacked off one of the little birds toes. However, on one tragic day, one of her parakeets were eaten and not to long afterwards, Rosa ate the second one. Just kidding. They were eaten by a cat, but there is no evidence that discredits suicide being an option with those birds.

Rosa would also get so excited when she would see us that she would start skipping/running to greet us. It was really funny. She was almost like a big kid. She was always introducing us to these weird men. We weren't really sure why, but we got some fruit out it.

All in all though, Rosa was a sweet eccentric woman who took good care of us.

In a Nutshell

Well, I survived! Six weeks later we arrived safe and sound back in Pucallpa. Before, Emily and I were in Ciudad Constitucion, or one of the biggest hangouts of the crack drug lords. haha. Cocaine just happens to be the cash crop of that part of the country. This campaign was quite the little adventure. We went down there expecting to stay in a nice hostel that was to have our own bathroom and shower. We were planning on staying in the luxury side of things. But like most things, PLANS CHANGE. Where we were staying was up in the air until the very last night and then it was decided that we were going to be camping out for the remainder of our stay. I was a little wary about that, but all was well. Ended up that we got to pitch our tents up inside the church, so that offered some protection against the rain.

We had a plastic tarp where we could take bucket baths from the well. That was actually nice. We had to use Emily's poncho as a door or else we would have put on a little show for the locals. One night while I was bathing I saw three monkeys walk across the power line. Also, the stars were amazing to see from the place where we bathed. It turns out I like bucket bathes, except when it came to washing my hair.

Our bathrooms were a little less than desireable. I would have preferred an outhouse I think. We had a wooden shack that had a tube in the middle of the floor, and that was were we had to do our business. It was really gross and there were a lot of flies and roaches and spiders. But like everything else, it becomes part of your routine and you forget that you are supposed to be disgusted with it.

Our very fist week was the most frusterating. We had to go and find all the people that we made lists of from clinic. This turned out to be a failure. Nobody knew where they lived. The directions we got were not good for anything. We took 2 hours looking for a house that was out in the middle of the jungle. We eventually just decided to go door to door and get people, cause we were pushing our time limits.

We started out with 20 families in the program. At the end, however, we only had 10. According to our director we are expected to only keep 1/3 of the families we start out with, so I guess in a manner of speaking, we went above and beyond what was expected. The families were very precious. We developed some good relationships. I am going to miss them.

We also had a children's program. The kids here were really cute, but little brats. They really tried my patience most of the time. I had to take a moment and say a little pray so that I wouldn't be so frusterated. There were two little girls who were especially adorable but mischievious. They were both 7 and loved to hug us every chance they got. I'm sure I will eventually miss them ;)

It´s Been Awhile

It has been a long time since I have written a blog, I know. But I have been living in a little Peruvian village with internet that would make dial-up seem fast. I promise I will update this blog with more info once I return to Pucallpla in a couple of weeks. So check back in a couple of weeks!

God is my strength...

Well, our first mini public health campaign came to an end today. I would have to say that this campaign was one of the hardest things I have done. It is not in my nature to go door to door and talk with people. Maybe I had one too many bad Jehovah´s Witnesses experiences (j/k). It´s just not my personality. This made the beginning of the campaign really difficult for me. I almost dreaded every day having to go door to door. I was wondering how in the world I was going to do this for 9 more months. It was even harder that my Spanish isn´t perfect and that my side-kick didn´t even know the simple things. I was at a loss. I then realized that I couldn´t do this by myself in a thousand years. But let me tell you, God is awesome. I don´t know why I didn´t go to him right away. I have the problem of trying to do everything myself. I am too independent at times. However, I was at my breaking point one day and just laid it all out before Him. I prayed for God to give me the strength and the know how to get His work done. I also told Him that I realize that I can´t do any of this alone. After that, I felt peaceful. I made it a daily habit to lay it all before God every morning, cause I need Him every day. The rest of the campaign went a lot better. Granted, it still had its problems, but I was in a better position to deal with them. I don´t know why the easiest solution is always the hardest to realize. But now I know.

Attack of the Animals

Emily and I were at 38 on a nice afternoon awaiting the arrival of the rest of our crew who were out at another clinic. They came back and one of the first things said to us is as follows, "Guess what? We got a monkey". All I could think was, "Oh great. It´s going to poop over everything." I can´t quite remember the name of the monkey, but I like to call him loving words like : the terror, the rat, fur-ball, or whatever pops into my head. I will admit that he does look cute, but he´s so dirty. He poops and pees everywhere. They put a diaper made out of a sock on him, which does help, but doesn´t completely get rid of the problem...especially when it gets full. Our Rotweiler, Cheva, almost ate him a couple of times. So we´ll see how long this monkey lives. Poor thing.

Another animal story...

I was sitting on my bed packing up my belongings to move to a different house during this public health campaign. The beds where we sleep at Km38 are bunk beds and I am on the bottom bunk. Well, out of the corner of my eye I see a dark blob. I don´t think much of it at first, but then I begin to wonder what it could be. I get a little closer only to realize that there is a bat sleeping in the corner of my bed. I run out to the main room and tell someone. At the same time, I tell Emily and she begins to scream cause she´s up in the top bunk. Well, we all pile out of the room while our other brave SM, David, puts on some gloves and removes the creature. Turns our it was a vampire bat. I´m starting to wonder if maybe I should have gotten that rabies vacination....

The other animals you see in the picture are our doggies. The big scary one´s name is Cheva. She likes to eat sheep, and aspires to one day get the cat and monkey. The other cute dog is Lola. She is just a silly little things that likes to jump and play with the sheep. I need to put a picture up of the cat, Joey. He likes to jump on peoples heads and just chill there for a bit.

why is my tongue furry?

What have I learned in Peru? Well, let me tell you a little equation I picked up. It goes something like this... (doxycyline) + (metronidazol) = THRUSH.

I was sitting at the dinner table one night and was eating popcorn, lemonade, and some fruit. My tongue felt weird. It felt as if it was doing what your foot does when it falls asleep and begins to wake up. That´s what my tongue was doing. Then it also felt like it was a little swollen. I thought I was just allergic to something, like the new type of sugar we bought. I just decided not to eat that sugar in my drinks. However, this weird feeling continued everytime I ate something. It didn´t matter what it was. It wasn´t until some random passing by a mirror that I saw my tongue, cause I was talking. I looked at it, and was grossed out. It had a coat of white looking mold on it. The first thought that popped into my head? THRUSH!!

Well, the first round of treatment that was recommended was Gentamicina Violeta. It´s a purple liquid that stains. We (Oh yeah, Emily was on some antibiotics too and got it)were told to paint this on our tongues twice a day. So we complied. We had purple tongues for a bit. However, this did not work. We still had the nastiness on our tongues. We then had the doctor look in our mouths. He told us to take Fluconizale 150mg and Vit C daily for 7 days. This seems to be working. The fur is beginning to recede. haha.

These pictures are me painting my tongue with the Gent.

Adventist Faux Paus

Well, my day started out like any other. I had my pureed food for breakfast (no time to explain that one), and then we set off to do our public health visits in the community. This is where faux paus number one ocurred. We went to visit one of the houses. We knocked on the door, came in and sat down. There were cups on the table filled with some drink already. They offerred us the drink. So Emily and I were trying to be polite, so we kindly accepted. As the glass came closer to my face I smelled the stench of what only alcoholic drinks have. I didn´t know what to do, I was caught practically mid gulp. I didn´t want to be rude since we were still in the developing relationhips stage of the program. So I thought I would be clever and just take some and spit it back into the cup. However, why were they watching me the whole time? So I ended up swallowing some. It then occurred to me to say that my throat hurt, but thanks for the drink. That seemed to appease them. Later on that day we went into town to do some internet and talk on the phone. We ended up staying a little late and decided to eat lunch there. I, of course, wanted some pizza. So I went to a little pizzeria and order a vegetarian pizza. As I was wolfing down the whole thing I was wondering where all the spicyness of the pizza was coming from. So I lifted up my cheese, lo and behold, the under part of the cheese was layered with pepporoni. At the end of the day I cracked up laughing. Ahh, such is life.

And Then Came the Diarrhea..

Well, I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later. I didn´t think I would get it so fast, especially while staying in a house. What did I get ? The inevitable diarrhea. I think it´s because we are staying in a dirty house, or possibly it was from the water. Who really knows. Anways, I told the lady we were staying with that my stomach and I didn´t feel too good, so I wasn´t wanting to eat her food. She got this very concerned look on her face and then told me to go to bed and lay down. So I did just that. However, she followed me into the room with some olive oil and two rocks. I was wondering what was going on. She then explained to me about her rock therapy and how people come from miles to receive this rock therapy she has. I figured it wouldn´t hurt, so I conceded. She first prayed a long prayer over me. It was kinda weird. I felt like I was about to be anoited or something. Then she rubbed the olive oil all over my stomach. She said olive oil is better because it has a lower fat content. I don´t know what that has to do with anything since I wasn´t eating it, but I held my tongue. After she was done rubbing it all over my stomach, she put some on the rocks and began to rub that on my stomach. She did this for about 20 minutes. While it felt good, it did not cure anything. I am currently taking Metronidazol for my diarrhea after talking with Jenni and the good doctor. haha. The diarrhea has stopped, but I still feel a little weak. So hopefully my strength returns.

Just Some Pictures

Well, here are a few pics of this past week. As you can see, I was out of it for most of the week!! We were so tired the whole time!!!

La Clinica!

This week was our first clinic. We were in a little barrio outside of Pucallpa. It was a very poor community. The first day of clinic was really stressful. We were a little disorganized and were trying to learn how we could manage the clinic successfully. Unfortunately, I got stuck doing triage with my meager Spanish speaking skills. It took me a couple of days to get used to their slang and what they meant when they said certain things. It was hard to understand their Spanish not only because of their slang usage, but because they didn´t have education. Everyone complained of their kidneys hurting when in reality all they had was lower back pain. A veces they would acutally have a UTI or something, but that was infrequent. We also saw a lot of people with intestinal worm problems. I think I have become an expert with diagnosing worms. You can probably assume everyone had it anyways, especially the kids. They all had their round-hard tummies sticking out. There was one really sad case of a guy who had his large intestines hanging outside his body in a sack. It was so hack´s idea of an ostomy I guess. Anyway, we are raising money for him to have the surgery to repair the mess that stupid hack of a doctor made. It cost about 2000 soles, which is about $600 in American money. So if you are interested in helping out email me!

It was a really stressful week, but I feel like I learned a lot. Now the group has separated, or should I say that Emily and I have been separated. We are living with a local Peruvian family for 6 weeks. We begin our health program this week. We still aren´t really sure what all is going to happen. Gotta love great organization! ha! So we really need your prayers. It´s a little stressful and weird to be out of our little support group. Granted this will only be day 2, so I am assuming I will adjust in a few more days....hopefully.

So far I have loved my experience in Peru. I like that I am learning my way around the city, and can almost get back to the plaza from anywhere. Peruvian life is very laid back, except when free medical care is involved..haha. Oh yeah, people would start lining up for the clinic at like 3am, and clinic didn´t start until like 7-8am. So we would hear them talking really loud in the morning. Anyways, all I can say is ¨so good so far¨.

Fires and Earthqukes

Today started out just like any other day. I woke up, had worship, ate breakfast, and started some laundry. However, I would later find out that this was no ordinary day. The first occurrance was a fire. The guys had stupidly started a fire to burn the tall brush on a hot and windy day. The fire started to blow and spread. It wasn´t a raging wildfire, but moving brush nonetheless. So we got some boards wet and started to beat the burning embers. I´m not sure if this was effective or what exactly stopped the fire. But it slowed down.

Next occurrance-supper. We had bowed our heads to pray and all of a sudden I started to feel dizzy. I opened my eyes and saw things swaying. I was scared cause I thought I was really sick. After the ¨amen¨was said everyone started to comment on the swaying. Turned out I was experiencing my very first earthquake. It didn´t last too long. Maybe for a minute or two. We were lucky that there wasn´t any damage in the area we live.

The final occurrance-before bed. Kaitlyn had come back from the shower saying she saw smoke and a fire. We then got some shovels and loaded into the back of the truck to check out the back part of the property. Turned out the fire was back. It was about 4 meters away from this one guy´s thatched roof house. He told us he didn´t think anything about it because God was coming back soon. Anyways, we continued to fight this fire by beating out the hot embers and throwing dirt over the flames. We finally got it under control.

I thank God that he protected us during this time. He really does watch after us!!!

Masisea

Well, out of the blue we went to a little place down river called Masisea to check out a new church that was started. We left on a Peke Peke to go there. Which is basically a big canoe like boat with a wooden roof. We had to sit on some wooden benches with our stuff all in the middle. It wasn´t very comfortable.

On the boat there were sellers that kept on trying to sell their goods. ¨Gaseosas y panes¨ they kept saying. I wanted to buy them out just to get some peace and quiet. haha.

It took up about 4 hours to get there. We had to stop many times along the way to get people and drop people off. I just read and played Sudoku the whole time. So it wasn´t too bad.

We stayed at a little hostel, or hospedaje, run by Adventists. Two of us had to bunk up and share rooms and one single bed. That wasn´t too bad. What was worse was hearing the rats run around. That was gross, but I was too tired to care. We just wrapped ourselves up in the mosquito netting. Also, the place was next to a bar that kept playing techno all night. That was very annoying.

On Sabbath we attendd church located in a house. There were only about 15 memebers. It was really nice though. I gave the children´s story. After church we were going to board the boat back home but it started to rain, and they don´t run boats when it rains hard. So we had to take the 4 am boat that next morning.

We woke up at 3 am and headed out. Brent rode with the Bible worker on the motocicleta and 4 of us girls went on a motocar, while the rest had to wait for another one for a while. Well, brent was too heave for the moto so he had to switch with one of the girls. So we were on the motocar when the driver stopped in the middle of no where and told us to get out. He said he couldn´t go on farther cause the road was too bad. So the four of us were standing in the middle of a jungle dirt-muddy road in the dark. We had no idea which way the port was. We were hoping the others would catch up soon, but they didn´t. After about 20 minutes, Jenny showed up and we had to walk in the mud for another 20 minutes to get back to our boat in the dark. It was a crazy night-morning.

But we finally made it!!!

Next week we start our first medical campaign. So that will be fun.

I have a few pictures of us on a peke-peke, and some sunsets.

This and That

After not getting sick for over a year, I finally got sick. I now have a cold. It sucks. My nose was all stuffy and I was sneezing all the time. My nose is still stuffy, but it´s not as bad. I wish I had brought some cold medicine. I´ve just been toughing this one out. haha.

I got to drive in Campo Verde the other day. It was so fun passing people left and right and honking my horn. I got great enjoyment out of it. The mission has this manual Toyota truck.

I guess I really haven´t explained a typical day for me, so I will. I start out the day waking up at 630. I read a little something for my personal Bible study and then I get up and help cook. We usually have this very liquidy oatmeal. It´s kind of gross, but I´m getting used to it. We then wash dishes and have morning worship. Afterwards, we have been having talks and just organizing everything. We get to have little outings to the market every now and then. We then cook lunch and supper later on in the day. Lunch usually consists of rice with some veggies, supper usually has rice, but with just fruit and popcorn. It´s the lighter meal of the day. I´m kinda getting sick of rice, but I´ll live. The cooking is really tiring. I don´t quite like cooking. haha.

I¨m going to post a few pictures. The first one is a bigger view of the place I´m staying. We stay in the house on the left.
The next one is one of the Peruvian workers with the doctor´s kids. This is how we light the house when it gets dark. It´s like Little House on the Prarie.
The other pictures are of a boa and some sort of big cat we saw en El Parque Natural. It was like a zoo.

Descansa

Well, I got to go to another internet cafe. I am grabbing every opportunity I can, cause once everything gets up and started I am not going to have as much accessibility.

La vida en Peru has been good. It has been very relaxing. We are waiting for the other people to get here and then we start orientation next week. It´s kinda nice not having electricity and only using candles. It´s very peaceful and serene. Every night I end up going to bed at like 930, as opposed to like 2AM. I wake up usually around 6AM without an alarm. I LOVE IT! The nights here are so beautiful. I can see so many stars. Who knew they all existed. I don´t have all the punctuation commands figured out so everything is going to end with a period for a bit. haha. Anyways, I can see the Milky Way stretched across the sky. It makes brushing my teeth a really fun experience.

We are spoiled and got a shower and toilet installed yesterday. So I had a shower as opposed to a bucket bath. And now I don´t have to walk to the edge of the jungle to my three walled maggot filled hole to take care of business. hehe. However, I took a shower this morning, and after I was all lathered up with soap I ran out of water. So I ended up having to take a bucket bath. It was okay though. Except for the bee that kept stalking me in the shower.

We went to the market yesterday to buy some vegetables and fruit. It´s kinda cool to go to the market. We don´t have a fridge or anything like that to store food. So we have to go to the market everyday to buy fresh veggies and fruit. I´m sure I´ll eventually get tired of that, but it´s fun for now.

In order to get into town we have to start walking on the highway with the hope that a taxi or moto comes to pick us up. The moto´s are so fun to ride on. They are these motorcycles that pull a cart that you ride in.

I am going to try to upload as many pictures as I can. The ones I loaded are of us girls, our bathroom-shower, and the inside of the house, and the inside of my room. I have the bottom bunk.



I will have more to come later.

We have arrived

Well, it finally happened. I have arrrived in Pulcallpa, Peru. We got to Lima yesterday really late. I left early yesterday morning to the airport and then took a short flight over to Atlanta. Unfortunately, I had a 5 hour layover there, so it was quite boring. I slept a lot. I met up with a few of the people there so that was nice. When we arrived in Lima we waited a long time for our luggage. I was beginning to lose hope. Luckily, it all arrived for everyone. We ended up leaving the airport around 1 am local time and got to our hostel around 130. the hostel was fairly nice. all 5 of us slept in one room with like 6 beds. the bathrooms weren´t too great, but the showers were so nice and hot. i even had to turn on the cold water to cool them down. i didn´t sleep too well that night. it was really cool and humid. so it was like sleeping outside with dew on you when it´s cold. not really the best of experiences, but i survived. we woke up the next morning and left to go and eat some breakfast. we went to this little restaurant and had rice, beans, platanos, and tea. it was good. we then boarded our flight. it was so awesome flying over the Andes mountains! that was definitely a great view. when we arrived in pucallpa, ansley and carly were already there to meet us. So we loaded up the truck and headed out to the camp. well, i have to leave the cafe now. i will continue with my story later!!

T minus 45 days and counting

Well, it is June 17 and I am already getting excited and anxious about going to Peru for the next 10 months. I have done everything I think I am supposed to do. I have arranged for my malaria drugs, got my international driver's permit, gathered my vaccination records, registered my trip, and even just got my flight itinerary. There are so many other things I need to do though. I am sure that I don't have all the right equipment and clothes. I hope I don't end up overpacking, but I am not going to count on that.

I have a few concerns though. After looking at the pictures on Ansley's blogspot I am concerned about the bathroom. There was a wooden toilet, with a nice seat. However, the toilet was only partially enclosed. There was a wall missing. I am really hoping that they are just working on it or something. I guess we'll have to wait and see. But it would be strange to have to take care of business where anyone can see. It's a little disturbing, but I guess that's life in the jungle. haha.

We'll see how all my careful planning in these last 45 days turns out.