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 ;)