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!
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