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!!