Pictures

Annoying Animals

This morning I was doing the daunting task of hand washing my laundry when a wasp decided I was prime for the stinging. He did a suprise attack on my lip. So now I am sitting at my computer with a lip about 3 times as big as it´s supposed to be and I´m going to tell you about all the creatures that drive me crazy.

Wasps
It´s only fitting to start with the wasps. We have come across numerous wasp nests as we clear out trees and brush. Sometimes we get lucky and see it before getting to close. Unfortunately all to often they see us before we see them. Once, actually twice now, John has been stung by the eye causing some incredible swelling. More recently Jackson and I were clearing brush when all of the sudden Jackson started running away swinging his arms around. He would stop and then run some more until finally a quarter mile later he was out of harms way.

Mosquitos
These guys are everywhere, but it´s truely amazing how many are out in the jungle. I will be hauling a tablona and look down to see 10-15 mosquitos hovering in front of my shirt. These mosquitos are different than the ones in the states though. These suckers are bigger, faster, and meaner. Bug spray is pointless and they attack through clothing. There isn´t much we can do but just sit back and accept it. They win.

Chiggers
I used to think that mosquitos caused incredible itching. But they come second to chiggers. I´m not sure if I´ve actually seen a chigger. I have seen the results though. It looks similar to a mosquito bite but they itch more and you never get just one. I get tons at a time and they find me way to frequently. In fact I don´t believe I´ve been chigger free since being in Peru. The worst thing about these critters is that they attack the ankles and around the hips. It just wouldn´t be appropriate to scratch there when at Wed. night prayer meeting.

Roosters
Thankfully our rooster is gone, but there are plenty more throughout Peru. I grew up learning that roosters crow in the morning, but that´s not the full story. They make noise all night long. If they can´t sleep neither can you.

Ants
Another annoying insect. Tons and tons everywhere. In our food and on our bodies. I will be hanging up my clothes to dry and all of the sudden start dancing around slapping at my feet. Tiny red ones all over me. These get me more often, but there are some big black ones too. They have conveniently decided to make a home on my shelf. When they bite it feels like a wasp sting, sometimes they draw a little blood.

Turkeys
Our turkeys are also gone. They just gobbled randomly. I think what was so annoying about them was how ugly and stupid they were.

Fish
A few times we have gone swimming in a little lake near here. There are plenty of fish here too. They enjoy nibbling away at me while we try to take a break and enjoy ourselves. I just wish they would learn that my nipple is not food.

Rats
We have some mice and rats around as well. Tearing into our bags of food and taking as they please. We caught one, but there is always more. Including one living in John´s shelves.

Pigeons
In the guardians house, which is where we have had the kitchen up until now, has a bunch of pigeons in the rafters. They share their feathers and even their poop with us.

Dogs
We have two dogs. Beloved Lola and stupid Cheva. Cheva barks at the moon at night and Lola barks because Cheva barks. However these two dogs are probably the best in Peru. There are dogs everywhere. Skinny, underfed, parasite covered dogs wandering the streets. There is a huge problem with the dog population.

Cats
Couldn´t leave out cats. Although it´s really just one cat. Jenni has a cat that absolutely hates me. However, the feelings are mutual. We attack each other all the time. I have the size advantage, but he has some serious claws now.

Snakes
I haven´t had much of a problem with these guys but I´ve seen a few. They still scare me more than all of the other things here.

Bats
Jackson and I share our room with a bat. I have a mosquito net, but Jackson does not. Once in a while I will get to here Jackson squeal after a bat brushes up against him at night. He hates bats. I actually get enjoyment out of his suffering.

Gnats and flies
Like the states, but worse. Hovering in front of my face despite numerous swings at them. They also have found our toilet (hole in the ground) a nice place to live. I come up to the hole and hundreds of these suckers emerge ready to pester me.


One thing I look forward to about being back home is being done with these creatures. The truth is, that despite it all it doesn´t make me want to leave in the least. The work and people here awesome. I love Peru.


*Mom and Robert. Don´t worry I´m sure these things won´t bother you when you´re here :)

A River Trip

Recently we decided to take an "SM Trip". Unfortunately Doctor Richard, Jenni, Karen, and Anthony couldn´t come so it became a trip for us five (John, Jackson, Alex, Ansley and myself). To much happened over the entire trip to write about everything, but here is a brief summary.

We arrived at the launch (boat) in the morning so we could get good spots on board. It was supposed to depart that evening around 5:00. It didn´t leave that night so us guys just spent the night on board because we didn´t really have anywhere to go. Finally around 9:00 pm that night we started down river. Only a delay of about 28 hours.

Our first stop was in Inahuaya. It´s a small little river city where Jenni had done a clinic a long time ago. For the most part we just hung out and relaxed. One morning though we headed out to some hot springs and waterfalls. It was really strange to swim under a hot waterfall. Unfortunately our boat couldn´t get started to get us back to Inahuaya so we put it onto a peke peke. To make a long story short we had a long (about 4.5 hours), cold, wet (raining the whole time), dark ride back to where we were staying. It got cold enough that at one point Ansley leaned over and told me that John and Jackson were spooning in the back for warmth. Sure enough they were in the chalupa together trying to survive. I stayed warm by bailing water most of the ride.

From Inahuaya, John, Alex, and I took a boat to Iquitos and Jackson and Ansley took a boat back to Pucallpa. Iquitos is a fairly touristy city in Peru that can only be reached by boat or plane. We spent a few days there. One day we went to Belen which is basically a poorer version of Venice. Riding in a little canoe around floating houses. Another day we went to a little animal preserve type place. John made things interesting when a monkey stole his wallet and ran up a tree with it. He proceeded to unzip everything and take it all out. After a while of climbing trees, searching on top of huts, and making trades with the monkey we got most everything back. The other excursion that we went on was to a Bora village. Basically some Peruvian Indians that were lacking in the shirt department. Little John´s eyes were exposed to way to much skin. After a few tribal dances we headed back to catch our plane back to Pucallpa.

This is a very brief summary of everything, but I don´t really feel like writing a lot. John and Ansley have posted some blogs about the trip so check their sites out. The links are at the top right of this page.

A Day of Clinic

This last week we had a medical and dental clinic in a poor area just outside the center of Pucallpa. We were there from Sunday to Friday. This blog is just about a day of clinic.

March 6, 2007
Every morning we begin by having worship together before heading to the clinic site. It was supposed to start at 7:00 am, but it didn´t quite happen that way. Jenni and Ansley were gone and had told us guys the night before to start without them. However we just kinda kept sleeping until they got back. Thus began another typical late start to our day. We have been staying at an Adventist church. We´ve paid a lady to cook for us this week and she is awesome. She´s a funny little lady that can cook some good Peruvian food. It only costs us 5 soles a day too (about $1.50). After breakfast we throw on our scrubs and start packing up the equipment in the truck. We have enough supplies to completely fill up the bed of the truck, and then some (yet somehow we never seem to have enough at clinic). Because of the lack of space a few of us have to ride back in the truck bed. I found myself a little corner spot where I could squeeze in. I just had to let my legs dangle outside; my arms were the only thing truely keeping me in. A short drive later and we´re at the clinic site. For some reason this area is a dump yard for wood scraps. As we drive through, we see a bunch of kids playing amongst all the wood and mud. Not exactly the safest or cleanest of playgrounds, but it works for them. We pull up to a small house and start filling it with our supplies. Somehow we maneuver our way through the crowd of people and each department begins setting up their section. Once everybody gets what they need we begin seeing patients. One of my first patients was a little kid with a loose tooth. Probably the easiest case this week. After him things got much more difficult. People came in with teeth to rotten to grab, mouths to small to reach in, and to much fear to hold still. Other problems surrounded us as well: the floor is crooked (thus wobbly chairs), kids try to peek in from various holes (some even climb up a ladder and look down from up above), and the house isn´t exactly rainproof either. We make do with what we have and help those we can. After seeing about 20 patients in dental we take about 45 minutes for lunch. Two of the afternoon cases in dental were especially difficult; and they came in at the same time. My patient was a larger lady with a bad upper molar. Anthony had a little boy that was about nine years old. The boy didn´t really have hard teeth to pull, but he was to afraid to let Anthony work. It took him a long time to just do the anesthesia. My lady wasn´t scared, or at least she didn´t show it. Her tooth just really did not want to come out. I went through the three steps: numb up the mouth with anesthesia, clear away the gums with the elevator, and then pull with the forceps. I was pulling with all I could while staying in control at the same time. Slowly getting it to wiggle more and more, but still not much. I did this for a long time, until my back became sore from standing over her. After Anthony got his screaming kid out he came over and gave me a break (I always dump my problems on him). He took over for about 10 minutes and then had her tilt her head back so he could pull out and away from her bottom teeth. He gave it his all and the rest of the tooth broke free, sending Anthony´s hand flying back. It was finally over and we could send her on her way. However she was asking me something that I couldn´t understand. I had Anthony translate. She wanted us to perform liposuction on her. We didn´t do it though. Throughout our time working on about 40 dental patients each day, the others are doing medical. Doctor Richard sees about 150 people each day. Today was no exception to that number. Each patient first gets checked at triage (blood pressure, temperature, etc...), then a consult with the doctor, and finally get medicine from pharmacy. Two specific individuals also stood out in medical today. They both need surgery that we can´t perform. A 4 year old girl with a birth defect in which she lacks an anus. A fistula developed and causes infections all the time. It´s a fairly simple procedure that in the United States is fixed at birth. For those without money here in Peru, it may never be fixed. The other patient is a lady with a tumor on her uterus. It is life threatening yet she doesn´t have the money to get it removed. Sadly our project doesn´t have the money to help either. We did however have one surgery tonight. It was a circumcision on a 12 year old. It was night time and we didn´t have electricity so it was performed under flashlights (that´s actually how surgeries usually are for us). As I stood there holding the flashlight I in no way envied that boy or the pain he´s gonna have for the next few days. Afterwards there is a childrens program followed by an adult meeting. Unfortunately I haven´t gotten to go to many this clinic, including tonights. I took some time to go into center and call home, but like all the others I was tired and ready for bed. We need the rest we get so we can wake up and help more patients. Never for a second regretting or not wanting to be here.

*The following morning we got a donation from Karen´s church that provided the money for both surgeries.

*Surgeries during this clinic included: 3 circumcisions, 2 hernia repairs, and tumor removals (from a lip, wrist, and a leg)

Church out at "The Land"

Since arriving at "The Land" we have become more and more involved in the little church here. It has between 20 to 30 people in it. I remember one sabbath morning I walked in and was immediately asked to play the piano. Someone had let the secret out. They have a rinky-dink, out-of-tune piano that looks and plays like it should be in one of the small hidden rooms in my church. Since they asked me to play, I´ve spent all my Saturdays sitting at the piano. It´s been a fun, and yet a little stressful, experience because it´s quite a bit different than what I´m used to. I go in for sabbath school and just go straight to the piano. I have no clue what they want me to play until they say it from the pulpit. Thankfully I am starting to understand numbers in Spanish pretty well so I can at least find the hymn they want to sing. It´s pretty much assumed that we sing all verses every time. That clears up some confusion. The hymns they have are different than those in English. We either don´t have the song at all in our hymnal, or the notes are slightly different to make the words fit correctly. Either way, I´m not used to any of the songs. But we begin anyways and the fun starts. I play an intro and usually they know when to come in, but on occassion I have to play a couple of intros before they start. Once a few people begin singing the others join in. The people don´t know how to read music, and they don´t have music to read anyways. So throughout the years they have kind of passed on the melodies and made their own variations and tempos. So as I´m trying to figure out the right notes to play I am listening to the loud lady in the back that is singing entirely off key and changing speeds randomly to adapt to how they sing the song. Quarter notes become whole notes and C´s become D´s. Finally the song ends and the voices kind of trickle away. After a few hymns, we might have, what seems to me, a spontaneous special music. Someone will hand me a piece of music and ask me to accompany them. A new Peruvian guy, Adan, has come back to Peru from the states. He brought random sheet music with him. So they put the music in front of me and we begin making a joyful noise. I poke out the random notes that I sight read, often hitting a few wrong ones along the way. But the truth is, it doesn´t make that much difference because the piano is so far out of tune anyways. Usually by the third verse I´ve got the song down just as it comes to a close. Afterwards we have our lesson, which has been on Ecclesiastes this quarter. I never know when I´m gonna play next so I just stay at the bench and pretend to listen even though I don´t understand much of what´s being said. Finally Sabbath School ends with another hymn. It begins all over again with church. In the States that would be the end of it. Not here though. There are still two more programs on sabbath. A program led by youth and then one to close out the sabbath. Let´s just say by sundown I´m more than ready to leave the piano.

As much of a pain as it may be for me, I do have fun with it and the people love it. I was recently talking with a couple of the church memebers, Jose and Oswaldo. They were incredibly appreciative of me playing the piano. They said that nobody else in the church knows how to play the piano. It´s just been sitting their for a long time. Now that I´m playing they are able to learn songs in the hymnal that they had never known before. Even though the music is far from CD worthy, the people here love to sing. Occassionaly as I work during the week I pass by where Oswaldo sells his sugar cane juice on the side of the road. He will be sitting there with a hymnal in hand; singing in different keys at random tempos, yet the whole time doing it to praise God.

Appendicitis Guy

I should start out by explaining "Popeye in Peru." There isn´t much of a story behind it, but it´s my nickname here. Doctor Richard started calling me Popeye and has kept it going. Today as I was working with some Peruvians I realized they were calling me Popeye and didn´t even know my real name. I have plenty of stories to try and catch up on, but I´m gonna start with a copy of an e-mail I wrote to my family within my first two weeks here. We were doing a medical clinic in Tarapoto.


A lady came into the clinic a few days ago with a back tumor. When she was with the doctor, he realized that she was going through more than just medical problems. He found out that her husband had just left her and their four kids. They also didn´t have money or food. The SM´s got together and bought her a bunch of food that will last her for a while. She was incredibly happy about it. Her parents also live in the area. Her father has been sick since about Monday and was just waiting to die. However her daughter went to them and told them that there is still hope. To talk to the American doctors. After one of the nightly meetings the mother/wife came to talk to us. We went to his house where he was lying in bed and started him on some fluids. For the next day and a half or so we gave him medicines and more fluids. He hadn´t been able to keep down anything so this was the only option. He had diarrhea, vomitting, and abdominal pain as well as a fever. Throughout this time I was able to help out by taking blood pressures and exchanging out medicine and other fluids. For a little while he got better but then his condition worsened yesterday and we went to see him. We had to go get the doctor and he decided that we needed to get him to the hospital. He had appendicitis. Unfortunately the doctor had to stay with the clinic and Jenni needed to stay beside the patient. The only other people coming to the hospital besides Jenni and the patient was Beto (the doctors brother), Jackson and myself. Jackson has an international drivers license, but I don´t. However I still had to drive because I know how to drive stick shift. So I illegally drove the patient to the hospital. To get him there we had to put the patient in the back seat lying down. There was an IV still connected and it had to be held in the air outside of the truck. The first hospital we got to couldn´t help him right away so we went into Tarapoto. There we could have paid about 400 US dollars to rent out the OR room and perform our own surgery. Originally we though we would do this so I had to drive again so Jenni could stay at the hospital. Beto and I got in the truck and started driving to go pick up the doctor back out at the clinic, but Beto had to make a couple stops along the way. Beto is a pastor in the area and he was rushing back for the night meeting in order to make some baptisms. I am still unsure of how to get around Tarapoto so Beto had to tell me the directions. It was pretty crazy because he would just loudly shout out, righta, righta, righta, righta, lefta, lefta, lefta, fronta, fronta, fronta. It was fun though. Driving here is far different from the states though. Robert and Chad, you guys would´ve been impressed with my driving. I was driving fast, passing people, and driving on the wrong side of the road. There were many times where I had to park illegally as well. One of the times I had to reverse up a hill into traffic, a little tricky with stick shift. Our last stop before getting back out to the site was to pick up somebody Beto knows. I don´t even know who he is. He rode shotgun while Beto got in the back. Beto was still shouting out his repetitive directions and telling me rapido, rapido. However the guy beside me was clearly uncomfortable with my driving. It was funny to hear him when I was driving head on into oncoming traffic to pass a slow moto. Beto just encouraged it by telling me I was the best driver ever. We finally got there and they got out. Then the doctor got in, this is when my driving experience finally ended. We went back to Tarapoto and decided that we would go back to the original hospital. We got there and had him admitted. The wife was with us at this point and was stressed out alot. She hadn´t eaten all day and she was exhausted. Jackson and I went to a street vendor and bought her a meal. Then she left to go home and sleep. However somebody needed to stay with the patient overnight at the hospital. Of course it turned out that Jackson and I were the volunteers. So we stayed at the hospital last night and got very little sleep. His appendectomy went well and he is still there recovering. His wife is with him now. Everything is fine now. This is why Jackson and I took the day off and took a long nap. It´s nice too because we were exhausted even before staying at the hospital. It´s pretty crazy to think that this man was destined to die in his bed because of appendicitis. The people there just don´t have enough money to pay hospital bills. And the way they do it is that you have to pay up front. You even pay for all the surgical equipment needed up front. In fact they needed more sutures during surgery so Jackson had to run to a pharmacy to buy some for them.


This story is probably a little choppy and doesn´t flow well. I wrote it quickly in an e-mail. It turns out that he has healed well and is doing fine. Will write more soon.

AMOR PROJECTS

I´ve finally gotten around to creating a blog. It only took me almost two months. I figured the first one could be a brief summary of the project here. Amor Projects currently is in charge of a large plot of land. This is where I live right now (without electricity and running water). Eventually, after clearing the land, we will have a large orchard, fishery, bee hives, and others. This will be used to educate people in the area on ways of making a living. We will teach them important trades in which they can return and introduce into their small villages. There will also be a 100 bed hospital/clinic. We will offer medical care for "cheap." Basically, the doctor here won´t get paid, but the patient must pay for supplies. Which here in Peru, is still drastically cheaper than in the states. We also go out about once a month to do short medical and evangelistic campaigns in various cities in Peru. Through this project, many people may be educated in trade and health. Most importantly though, they may be introduced to Jesus Christ.

My plan is to write stories periodically about the happenings in Peru as this project develops. Every single day something happens. Sometimes good, sometimes not so much. However we are reminded all the time how much God is with us and protecting us.