Day 13 Packing up and going home!

Nice weather, no rain!  Time to pack everything up and head back to headquarters.  Water is up to the tent as expected.  We are going to leave our tent for Raul to thank him for all the translating he has done for us.  Everyone in the group will probably be leaving clothes as well.  These people appreciate anything they are given.  We will take the suitcases and bags back on the dug-out canoe.  At headquarters we will take showers and head to the airport this afternoon.

This was our home away from home for 13 days.  This was a donated tent from Cost-U-Less for the On The House Breakfast we do each month in Tuolumne City.  So it was new, and totally water-proof!  Instead of donating it to the homeless at home, we are giving it to our interpreter, Raul.  Notice in front:  flip-flops, and knee boots; these were worn most of the time.  Inside we had our two sleeping bags, daypacks and pads and fleece sleeping bags.  I slept on top of my bag most of the time.  We couldn’t hang our towels or bathing suits outside because of the unpredictability of the weather, so those were hung inside.  But, it is a 4-person tent, so we did have room for all of our stuff.  Oh, the new tent did keep the rain out, but not the chiggers.  Finally, you can see the water coming up from the back.  When we took the tent down, it had already started to go underneath.

Finally, next to us are the leaders of the team.  Krystalynn and Steve Martin.  Krystalynn is the Pastor and Chaplain of Rio Lindo Academy, and her husband, Steve, is the Community Services Director.  They have organized and led these mission trips for 8 years.  This is Gloria’s 5th trip; my 4th trip with the Martins.  Yeah, we get along!

 

As we leave Peru, yet another monsoon comes in.  An incredible experience.  Living and eating with the people we were ministering to.  Five wells so that one tribal village and four families can have fresh water.  Six days of dental services to relieve pain and cure infection.  Worshipping a God that shows no favoritism. Experiencing raw life.  Celebrating simple things.  Sharing blessings.  Watching love.

Thanks, Peru.

 

Charlie McKelvey

Day 12 Relaxation!

Last night was probably the warmest.  It seems after a deluge of rain, it always warms for a few days, each day getting hotter.  Then another big rain.  Chigger bites continue to plague all of us.  They just keep going up your legs and they itch like crazy.  We are all resigned to just dealing with them until we move back home again.  Relaxing day today.  Late breakfast, then in the headquarters to relax a bit before going to the local zoo and a lake.

We ate lunch down the street at a local restaurant.  Very similar to the one we ate at last Saturday night.  We found out that Chinese have come into the are to open restaurants.  The food is similar.  Fried Rice, french fries, coleslaw and chicken.  We looked around at what other people had ordered, they all had the same!  But everyone was full and lunch cost us around $2.60 a piece.

The zoo is pretty basic.  Again, typical of 3rd world. Cages are too small, pretty dirty and smelly.  Lots of wild big cats; all are pacing.  Made us all uncomfortable.  They did have an Amazon dolphin, interesting to see one up close.  Lots of monkeys and birds, turtles and alligators.

The lake was huge, and fun to swim in.  Really warm.  Nice place to relax and eat ice cream.

Back to camp for our last night.  Water has now risen to our tent, it is time to leave tomorrow!

Day 11 Last clinic day and last well

As we arrived at the clinic around 9:15 there were another 25-30 people waiting for us.  We are in a pretty good routine now.  Sheri triages all the patients, Gloria takes most of the extractions, I the fillings.  Any tough extractions; I work with Gloria to get them out.  Fillings are a bit stressful in that all the decay is very deep; the decision is always: too deep to save, (no root canals here), very, very deep, so I put in a sedative filling, or deep but restorable; I place a composite filling.  Never ideal, but better then leaving the decay.

Our last dental crew, this includes our three students, Jackie the gal in red, assisted me the whole time.  She is bilingual and really helped with communication. In the back is Raul, our local translator.  He also was a patient.  Some time ago, he had two upper 1st bicuspids taken out.  The local dentist managed to break off both roots.  They have been infected ever since.  Great relief for him to get them out and the infection starting to heal.  Also in the picture is Maureen.   She is a Dental Hygienist from North Carolina.  She has been here for 3 months!!  Just loves doing mission work, she took a leave of absence from her dentist’s office to come down here.  Nice gal!  The other picture portrays the line that is always waiting for us when we arrive every morning.

We actually finish a bit early today, so we pack everything up and head into headquarters to store the supplies and equipment.  Try again to upload this blog, spent an hour and a half doing so unsuccessfully.  No bandwidth in Iquitos.  Interesting in that we have travelled all over the world and this part of Peru has the worst access.  Surprising nowadays.  Not even internet cafes around.

The rest of the crew finished their last well today.  The road was flooded part of the way, so they had to carry the equipment and pipe on a sandbag “bridge”.  The family they put the well in for consisted of a mom with three kids.  Her house was a thatch roof and four corner pillars, no walls!  They slept on a raised section of boards.  Extremely primitive. The well was successful, there actually is another group from Michigan coming in the build her a new house in the next few weeks.

Our island continues to shrink.  Our bridge to the island is completely submerged for the last 20 yards.  As we walk by faith now.  The water level was about 2 inches below the tops of our boots, it may be to the tops of our boots by morning.  As I may have mentioned before, the relocated two of the four pit toilets to higher ground, so we are in good shape there again.  Showers haven’t been moved, but the water is lapping up to them now.

This is the last 20 yards of our “bridge” to the island.  If you look real closely you can see the wood below.  The water has probably raised over 3 feet since we arrived 12 days ago.  The next picture is the two abandoned outhouses, the water on the left is slowly submerging them.

Tomorrow is a day to relax, we then pack up and move out on Wednesday, our flight is late Wednesday night.

Day 10 Back to the Bora Tribe

Sunday was another day to relax.  We decided to head back to the Bora Tribe to say hi and hang out with the kids.  Every one had a great time.  We also stopped at the Cultural Center again.  Some of the group went to another Monkey Island others of us went fishing.  Fishing wasn’t too successful.  Only three little catfish, we threw them back.

Update on the island we are on.  Another downpour today.  The Amazon has risen another 6 plus inches.  Now too close to our outhouses.  The villagers moved two of the four, dug new holes and we are good to go for a few more days.  The wooded bridge they built for us is now partial submerged.  The final third of it is almost 18 inches underwater and actually hard to see to know where you are walking.  We are anticipating (and hoping) that the villagers do something.  Not sure what. 

We do had a backup plan to move back the People of Peru headquarters if necessary.  Since they just rebuilt our latrines we don’t want to leave just yet.  We have three more days though and the river continues to rise 4-8 inches every day.  I am sure we will have to take our luggage out by boat.

Day 9 A day to relax

For church we went to the local church we have been going to all week.  Not a lot of attendees, maybe 15 adults and 15 kids.  Most of what they do is listen to and sign along with a DVD.  They asked us to do the church service.  So Steve and Krystalynn spoke.  I found out later that they are one of eight  churches that their pastor covers.  They see him just once every two months.  They were very appreciative of our resources. 

For the afternoon, another time for singing and crafts. We are hitting 150 kids now.  A  crazy time.  Kids really loved it.  For the evening, we went out to eat at a local restaurant.  Chicken, rice, french fries and cole slaw.  With lots and lots of bottles of Coke and Inca Cola.  These kept coming.  Inca Cola is real popular with the locals, to me it tastes like bubble gum.  The main reason we ordered so many was they were COLD.

After dinner we walked around the night market to buy souvenirs and trinkets.  At the beginning of our shopping, we were given a “ticket” by Paul Opp.  It was to be given to a child we saw roaming around. The ticket is good for a hamburger.  The kids know the routine and as we were finishing our shopping getting close to the hamburger stand we are mobbed.  A couple of girls stayed pretty close to us, so they got the tickets.  A nice idea.

Day 8 Two wells in one day

Dental clinic was fairly routine.  Fillings and extractions.  Youngest patient was only 3 years old.  Decay in all of his teeth.  We had quite a conversation with mom about sugar.   We decided to pull three teeth; lower molars that were the worst.  You can’t reason with a 3 year old.  You have three people hold him down and you extract a fast as you can.  Very noisy; disturbing for the kids, but in 5 seconds it is over.  Don’t eat a lot of sugar.

I can’t remember if I mentioned before that we are using all of our our supplies and instruments.  The clinic is well stocked but not well organized.  It is easier and faster for us to work of off a table, like we do in the jungle.  They have an autoclave but it takes almost two hours to cycle and the pressure gauge needle never moves off of zero.  We use our own cold sterile solution.

They have given up on Poppy’s Place.  although there has been no rain, the Amazon continues to rise a few inches every day.  They have abandoned the first floor, moving all the furniture.  We don’t know when this will end.  Our bridge to the island is almost submerged and the water is only a couple of feet away from our latrines.  In fact, the latrines are almost full of water as well.  We don’t leave here for 5 more days.   Hmm

The well digging crew dug two wells today!  That is a lot of hard work.  Both for poor families.  This is a huge asset for them.  There kids will probably live longer.  That makes a total of four wells so far.  They are planning a fifth well on Monday.  People of Peru are calling Rio Lindo Academy “The Record Breakers”!

Day 7 3rd Clinic Day and flooding at Poppy’s Place

The rain has stopped, for a while.  The bridge to the island is partially submerged, so the villagers are repairing and raising it in places.  One of our hosts actually took a small dugout canoe across, we may need to do that next week if it continues to rain.

Clinic was very different today.  I only saw two patients in the morning!  Gloria pulled many more teeth then I did.  My first patient was a boy about 8 who needed an adult lower molar removed.  It had only been in his mouth for 2 years, but the decay was so deep it needed to be extracted. I numbed him up as usually and as I started to elevate the tooth to get ready to put the forcep on, it would not move!  After working at this for a few minutes with both elevators and forceps I still couldn’t get it to move even a little. Zero, Nada.

So, I elected to “slice and dice” the tooth to take it out in pieces.  A  challenge in that I nor the clinic had any surgical burs, so I had to kinda make it up on the go.  But with a little bit of time and patience, I was able to finally get some movement and remove the separated thin, LONG roots without breaking any of the root tips off.

My second patient was even more interesting.  Backstory:  What is popular in 3rd world countries are “window bridges”.  If someone looses a front tooth, or just for cosmetic reasons, people will have window bridges or window crowns placed. These are made of gold and they are like little cans that are swedged over the teeth with a window in front for some of the enamel to poke through.  When they smile, you see a lot of gold with little whitish boxes where there teeth are.  People find these very attractive.  The main problem is they fit very poorly, so eventually they leak and get decay under them.  Finally the teeth need to be extracted when the crowns of the teeth are reduced to decayed mush.

SO….this older lady who came in wanting her window-bridge removed and all the teeth extracted.  Typically these bridges are 3 or 4 teeth.  She has a 12 unit bridge!  So, for the next hour and a half I carefully cut it into 4 pieces extracting 6 or 7 mushy, infected teeth!  Quite a bit of gold actually,  I offered it to her, but she didn’t want it.  I will have it assayed and send “People of Peru” the check.

Finally, we discovered that the sandbags we placed to protect Poppy’s Place helped and hurt.  It helped keep the Amazon out as it raised, but because of the incredible rain, it didn’t allow the runoff from the campus to flow into the Amazon.  So….the sandbags kept the Amazon water out, and the rain water in!  Result, all the first floor rooms in the 2 buildings had had 5 inches of water in them!  Lots of pumping of water!

Day 6 Rainageddon

The rain discussed in yesterday’s blog…..a good share of the night.  Thunder, lightning and rain like we have never seen before.  By morning the clouds were gone but everything was a swamp.  The Amazon had risen another 8-12 inches; our footbridge is becoming submerged in some areas.  Not sure what we are going to  if this keeps up next week, evacuate by boat?

Villagers working on the last third of the bridge.  NOTE: by Sunday this section is 18 inches underwater, when we arrived last week, this section probably 2 feet above water!

A whole new approach to the dental clinic.  As we walked to the bus, we canvassed the neighborhood, inviting people to come to the clinic if they were in pain and needed teeth to be extracted.  By the time we got there, we had more than 20 people waiting for us.  Sherry, a parent and RN was our triage nurse.  After turning away around half of the people we had 26 that needed extractions.  A good days work.  Both Gloria and I had an air-conditioned (!) operatory, and away we went.  We estimated we took out between 40 and 50 teeth.  Some easy, others not, but left no root tips, a good day!

This is our traditional, end of day, photo of today’s team. 

Unfortunately, it rained most of the day. This means another adventure getting to the island.  Each day we have to walk further since the  road worsens and the motor car drivers are unwilling to risk getting stuck or tipping over. We talked to several, they were unwilling to take us that direction.  One would do so for 8 solus, around $3, but Raul or interpreter said that was too much to pay, we should only pay 3 solus, around $1.25.  And sure enough, after walking another mile or so, a driver was willing to take us a bit closer to our wooden bridge for 3 solus.  More of it was submerged, but still passable.

Gloria and I came back with 3 kids.  Another went with Sheri into town to buy towels and clothes, the other eight spent the day drilling a well quite a ways from town.  It is now 6:30pm, pitch black, and no word from the rest of the team.  But we got our 3 kids back safe and sound.  Can’t wait to hear of the adventure from the others.

 

UPDATE: The team drags in at 7:30.  Everyone’s getting used to crossing the footbridge in the dark with only one or two flashlights.   Long day for them.  They did complete the well they set out to drill. It was drilled inside someone’s house!  You could barely call it a house.  Very primitive.  Almost ready to fall apart, but  now she had internal plumbing!  This will give the family the boost they needed to continue.  Fresh water!

Day 5 Dental Clinic in Iquitos

The whole team is taken to the dental clinic.  Six of us working inside, 12 outside.  The Insiders were the dental team, the Outsiders spread two huge piles of sand to build a driveway to the dental clinic.  However, the day’s challenge began just getting out of out camp.  Again, the long walkway to get off the island, but the Amazon continues to rise, so sandals or rubber boots for everyone.  Also, the road has deteriorated so badly that we have to walk another 1/2 mile to be picked up by the truck.  The truck was a half hour late, (of course), so waiting in the sun with the heat and humidity we were drenched with sweat before we even started working!

Now the clinic.  Recently built and very nice, waiting room, storage room, sterilization room and two operatories.  We held patients off for an hour so I could organize the instruments a bit.  That was the challenge.  These third world dental clinics are basically a dumping ground for dentists to get rid of supplies and instruments that are either broken, out of date or no longer useful.  There were way too many of some things, and way too little of others.  For instance, they had thousands of needles but no gloves.  This is why Gloria and I bring all our own equipment and supplies.  You don’t have to depend on what is in the clinic you are working at.

Patients queue up.  We quickly realize that the patients we are seeing are there for a free filling to replace the one placed by a local dentist that had fallen out.  Not really what we want to do.  One even asked if we bleached teeth!  No extractions, just fillings.  This means we saw only a few patients and really not why we came to Peru; to replace crappy work by local dentists.  Time to regroup.

Our journey back to the island was interesting.  We had to haul in the food and water for the next few days.  So multiple trips from the drop off point, through the little town and across the bridge, several times. After we showered, it was back out the the local church in town for a kid’s program.  We had over 60 kids for songs and making things with pipe cleaners.  They had great fun. Then the walk back to camp.  Lots of walking on this trip.

 

As we were getting ready for bed, suddenly it turned cooler, (still very hot) and within minutes a rain came in like I have never experienced.  It poured so hard, (with constant thunder) that the bottom of our tent felt like it was on a water bed!  We stayed dry, others weren’t as lucky.  The boy’s tent leaked so badly that two of the boy’s sleeping bags were soaked. 

Day 4 Good bye to Bora and on to Monkey Island

Early wake up to break camp and get back on the river.  Food here has been great.  We have three cooks laboring all day to feed us.  Breakfast is usually a porridge of some sort, then an egg thing with vegetable and a semi-hot sauce, very good, and fruit.  Lunch and dinner is rice, pasta or potatoes with different vegies.  Always fruit for desert and fruit juice to drink.  Nice variety, they do a great job.

To break camp and load everything on the boat is quite an ordeal.  First, we have a lot of stuff, with suitcases, sleeping bags and tents.  Then we have all the food, then the stove and propane bottle, and finally all the bottled water.  Water is stored in 5 gallon plastic bottles and we have a ton of them both empty and full.  It is not only used to drink but the cooks use it to cook and wash the dishes.  That is good, but that means a lot of water.

Hauling everything around 200 yards takes a while, many trips by everyone, then loading everything on the boat, then getting everyone on the boat, by the time we leave we are exhausted. Oh, and the whole time we are fighting the heat, humidity and all the bugs. Exhausting! 

We are on the Amazon for an hour or so when we arrive at Monkey Island.  Not a lot of monkeys but some really tame, friendly ones.  We were also introduced to two huge Anaconda snakes, sloths and a turtle. Finally back to Iquitos to dock and again haul everything up to a big truck.  Another huge exhausting process to get everything off the boat and up many, many stairs to the street.  There was a little cantina on the street so I bought everyone a coke to cool off a bit.

Our adventure was just beginning!  They piled us into a local bus and off we went to the other side of the city to the island where we are to stay the rest of our time here.  Fortunately, and I do mean fortunately, it hasn’t rained for two days.  The closer we got to the island, the worse the road got.  We were told several times that if it had not rained, the road would have been even worse.  After the bus rammed his way through potholes and  2 foot deep trenches we got very close to our drop off.  However, the final push did rip out his exhaust manifold, now it was not only really bumpy, but noisy and the exhaust billowing through the cab will be a memory as well.

Because the Amazon has been slowing rising, we guess around 3-6 inches per day, the “island” where we are going to stay is hard to get to.  Last week you could actually walk to the “island”; not now.  The villagers built a walk way for us to travel on.    Very thoughtful, but also very precarious.  And, we had to haul everything out to our camping area.  But, nobody fell off so it was a victory.

Finally, at the end of the day, they take us to “Poppy’s House”.  Oh, not in the bus.  Not because it was broken and spewing exhaust into the cab, another group volunteering were using the bus, so they put us in the truck they had used for our luggage.  So, 18 of us standing up in the truck with 4 wheelbarrows.  I felt like a cow being taken to slaughter!    

Poppy’s House is a two story dormitory/half way house for girls either orphaned, rejected, or pregnant.  They will give the girls room and board until they graduate from University.  This is a real incentive to go to University.  Anyway, the rising Amazon is threatening to flood the first story of the facility, so our last task of the day was to fill, transport and stack sand bags to help protect the facility.   That was a lot of work!

After we finished, a truck ride home in the dark and a walk on the walk-way with only a couple of flashlights.  Never a dull moment!

Day 2 Bora village of San Andrus

Rain and more rain.  Last night was our first normal night in three.  We slept for 12 hours.  Awaken once by a rain squall, but as daylight appeared it started to rain hard and hasn’t stopped as I write this at 8AM.  Whoa, the little fence next to our tent just fell over!  Pretty wet just now.

After breakfast, (and the rain stopped), we had Sabbath School and church with the villagers.  Half in English, half in Spanish.  About 15 families in the village are Adventist, so this was great fun for them to join us for church.  They love to sing and their pastor loves to preach!  This was a great time to get to know each other.

The afternoon consisted of lunch and a walk through the Amazonian jungle.  Lead by three locals.  What they showed us was incredible.  Plants we had never seen and medicines have never heard of, all from the jungle.  Pretty swampy, glad we brought or bought our knee high boots.

These seeds are used for coloring cloth and faces.  Very concentrated.  The guides made sure that we all experienced this jungle tradition.

A few comments about living conditions.  A bit primitive.  We are all in tents surrounding the little church. A tent for the girls, two for the boys, the Martins in one and Gloria and I in another.  Sleeping fleeces and pads.  Mid 80’s during the day, Mid 70’s at night.  Humidity is high all the time.  Shower is…..well there are no showers.  That is what the Amazon  is for.  The river is more like a delta here, small inlets and narrow passageways. Lazily flowing through the village is a small “stream”.  This is where the kids play all day and where we found a spot the girls have christened the “spa”.  That is where we bathe.  Nothing special, just a place to soap up and dip.

We were in five tents surrounding the church.  This bug was by our bathing hole.  Not sure what it is, it was almost 2 inches long!

Tomorrow is dental clinic and the beginning of the well drilling.

SUPPLEMENT

For those of you trying to follow our adventure, you have noticed there have only been two blogs.  We have only been to headquarters twice, in the bush or on our island all the other times.  The bandwidth is so narrow in Iquitos that uploading is almost impossible.   I squeaked out two blogs last week, tried for an hour and a half yesterday to do more, but was unsuccessful.  I am sending this out to let you know we are still here!

Briefly, 6 clinic days and 5 wells!  “People of Peru” are calling our group “The Record Breakers”.  Kids have been great.  Sleeping in tents, using latrines, cold showers has been tough, but the kids have done well.  The biggest challenge besides the horribly high temperature and humidity, (and the periodic monsoon rains), oh, and the chiggers—we are covered with welts-- has been the ever increasing rise of the Amazon due to Andean mountain snowmelt and the rains.  It has probably risen over three feet since we got here.  Our bridge is flooded to the island, we have had to move our latrines and if we weren’t leaving the island tomorrow, we would probably have to evacuate soon thereafter!

But, the people and experience has been unforgettable.  Well worth the challenges.  These kids will never be the same after this adventure. We fly out tomorrow, back home on Thursday.

I will continue to try to upload the next few days, and if necessary finish the uploading after we get home!

 

Charlie and Gloria

Day 3 First Dental Clinic Day and well drilling

NOTE:  JUST NOW ABLE TO UPLOAD!  DAY 2 BLOG DIDN’T SAVE THE PICTURES, SO I WILL REDO THAT ONE AND SEND YOU DAY 3 INSTEAD.  SORRY!

 

Hey, no rain last night.  But that means a very warm day.  We were going top setup in the church, but they decided to drill the well at the church entrance!  So we moved to someone’s front porch.  This turned out to be a good move in that there was better air circulation and a bit cooler then in the church.  Church, by the way is a loose term, see picture below.  Really a great multi-use building, church once a week, community meetings, (several in our group pitched their tents inside thinking it was going to rain), and an all around hang out spot for us and the kids.

Clinic was a bit disappointing.  After an hour of set up, we only had patients for around two and a half hours.  Close to noon everyone waiting (or just hanging out) disappeared, and nobody every returned!  We were told that the word was out, and we pulled around 12 teeth, but we would have liked to have been busy all day.  We hope to be busier at the clinic in Iquitos.

The well drilling went well.  They went to around 25 feet to get fresh water, cased the hole with a 2 inch PVC, then another 1  inch pipe.  They finished in the morning  and people have been trading off all afternoon pumping it to clear the sediment.

One unexpected result of living in the Amazon jungle: chiggers!  Many, not all, were getting these mosquito like welts that were “different”.  Some of the local kids saw them, disappeared then returned with a chicken feather.  (Stay with me here).  They pulled the feather off leaving the quill.  They they got to work on Gloria and one of the students.  These two had the most bites.  I came in third. Their feet and ankles were covered with chigger bites.  In the middle of the bite is the chigger, a bright orange dot, no bigger than a pin tip.  Not pin head, pin tip.  A fraction of a millimeter, I can’t see them without my loupes I use in dentistry.  Anyway, a little  girl spent quit some time going over Gloria’s feet  and ankles, removing one Chigger after another, while a little boy worked over the male student.

We are leaving San Andrus tomorrow to take the boat back to Iquitos.

Day 1 PM Making our way to Bora

After arriving at “People of Peru”, a short orientation as to what they do in Peru, (a lot, to be discussed later), we all hopped into the 3-wheeled taxis that are found throughout the 3rd world.  In Asia they are know at tuk-tuks, here they are “motor-cars”.  Room for three people to ride, and a driver on the motorcycle front.  Very efficient, noisy and fast.  A great way to get around town and see, feel and smell the city.  And cheap, a little over a dollar to go just about anywhere.

Our destination was Belen.  A small poor community where Paul Opp, the founder of People of Peru adopted two street girls 6 years ago.  They had been living on the street for two years after their mom had died.  They were 6 and 8 years old.  For part of each year a good share of Belen is underwater.  As the glaciers melt in the Andes, the Amazon rises and floods, inundating the lower part of the town.  This is bad for two reasons, first, people live here and have to move out temporarily as the water rolls in for several months.  However, more importantly, these people have no sewer systems, so all the raw sewage that has been accumulating in the town is now liberated as it submerges. They build temporary walkways to get to the 2nd floors of the buildings, but the filthy and disease remains until the water subsides.  Yes, kids play in this cesspool, and yes, infant mortality is very high.  Education has proved futile to date.  It is one of People of Peru’s priorities – clean water.

 

 

After the requisite tour of the meat market, (first time sighting – alligator and monkey) we all pile into a river boat for our hour and a half ride up the Amazon to the village we will be staying out for 4 days.  I do not know how the boats get around in the maze upon maze of jungle that is the Amazon here.  But the boatman weave their way in and out of mangrove-type passageways until you end up at a little village.  The village we will be staying in is San Andrus, a Bora Tribe.  We are not sure of the population, probably less than a 75.  We unpacked the boat with our bags, food and dental supplies, took a bath in the river (carefully) and relaxed for the evening.  Heh, no mosquitos!  When Gloria was here last with Rio Lindo six years ago, they had gone up the Amazon for 8 hours to a different village and as soon as the sun set, the air with THICK with them.  No leaving your tent after dark, here, the evening was very pleasant with no bugs, but the clouds had moved on and the stars and noises of the jungle were spectacular!

If you can’t get into the meat market to sell your wares, just take your bucket of chicken and sell it on the street!

Any cut of meat or part of animal was for sale.  Nothing goes to waste at the Belen Meat Market

This is the boat we took upriver to the Bora Tribe

Day 1 Flying to Peru

Uneventful, interpret as long, flight to Lima.  Actually 9 hours.  Not nearly as brutal as when we have flown to Asia.  Arrived at Lima airport at midnight, our flight to Iquitos leaves at 5AM. So….sitting in the food court, waiting.  A smaller group then usual, 12 kids and 6 adults.  Usually we have 30+ kids and around 10 adults.  Higher airfare has reduced the numbers.

 

 

We are working with People of Peru Project Paul Opp, the Founder and Director has lived here for years and has a solid, sustained outreach both in the jungle as well in the city of Iquitos.  Gloria joined Rio Lindo six years ago on a very similar outreach.  The main focus of the trip is digging fresh water wells.  We also rotate the kids through the dental clinic to give them a break from digging the wells!

 

 

 

Prep Time

Countdown to departure.  Like painting a house, preparing for a dental trip is all in the prep.  We are actually packing for two types of dentistry.  Jungle-style on the Amazon for the first four days where we will only be extracting teeth.  Followed by a week at the People of Peru dental clinic in Iquitos where we will be concentrating on fillings and cleanings.  So…the three suitcases/boxes.

120 pounds of instruments, filling materials, disposables, gloves, etc.  If we need it or want it, we have to take it with us.  Why the cardboard boxes?  Whatever is left over other than our instruments we will leave at the dental clinic.