Back to civilization...sorta

Well, at least we feel like we are back to civilization just having clear (notice I didn't say clean, but at this point, clear is a step up in the right direction) water.
First, my apologies to Bo for leaving him out on the last post. I realized during the night after I had posted last that I had left him out of what everyone was doing and I apologized to him the next morning. Bo has been a big help in several places. We've had him working in the pharmacy counting pills as well as keeping labels printed for us. David (my brother) said he took one look at him and knew he could do what we needed on the computer (he's young). Several have moved around and worked in different spots, some have kept in their same station the whole time. I can't tell you now who was doing what on a particular day, but I can tell you, every day went smooth and everything that needed to get done, was done...without one single complaint!

We are back in Iquitos where the water coming out of the shower may not be clean en ough to let it go in your mouth, but at least it looks clear. Everyone was ready to get back to the hotel and take a clean shower, especially those on the party barge. The air conditioning went out on The Good on Monday, however, we couldn’t complain considering those on the party barge have not had air. As it turned out, it wasn’t that bad without air because we were all out working during the hot part of the day and then we moved during the night to another place to work and as long as the boat were moving there was enough breeze to keep us comfortable. The trip has been great! The conditions have not been less than desirable, but several people (including some of the boat crew) have been saved and we’ve treated many sick folks…it’s all been worth it! Our clinic days have vairied from calm and smooth to absolutely crazy! One day we saw 904 patients…that’s ridiculous…and a new high for Villa Milagro. Total patients seen for the trip was 3,200. I was expecting we would end up with somewhere around 4,000, but with all the change in plans, we stopped at several villages that were not expecting us. Not a problem…once a couple of big boats loaded with gringos docked pulled up, most of the villagers would come see what was going on and it wasn’t long before they were lined up to be treated. One village we stopped at doesn’t have a church and the leader of the village was saved that morning and now is wanted a church built there!
All had parasites and were treated, along with everyone in their household. Of course, it’s only going to help for a short period of time since most dring water out of the river. Jennifer was upset when after pulling a tooth out of a little girl, she saw her a few minutes later down on the bank scooping water out of the river to rinse her mouth out.
The river is really wide and very muddy. There is a book written by Jacque Cousteau that says there is enough water coming out of this river to fill Lake Ontario in 3 hours. It’s pretty impressive…but yet, we have grown tired of taking showers and washing? our hands in muddy water…directly out of the river.
We haven’t seen many animals, a couple of monkeys, pink dolphins, and only one snake. The village we were at a day or 2 ago (our days have started to run together), a very poisonous snake was killed up the path in front of the huts and the captain of the boat came across it, killed it and brought it back on the boat,…for a little while…and some people were not getting close to it, even though it was dead. Also yesterday, January 19, we worked in a village named 20 de Enero—January 20th. The town was founded on the 20th of January back in the 70’s and they were having a big celebration with soccer tournaments (‘real football’) and some loud music above where we were docked. We had planned to spend the night there, but went to plan P (we’ve long gone through plan A, plan B…) and left so we didn’t have to listen to the party all night long.
We have eaten well, but after eating rice 2 times a day EVERY day on the boat, no one is expected to order it for supper tonight. We have eaten a lot of fish that was de-wish-ous (our my nephew Carter use to say) and pollo (chicken). Oh, and we must not forget the bananas. We feel like Bubba Gump and his shrimp…we’ve had fresh big bananas, little plantains (sweet bananas), fried bananas, fried bananas in sugar, fried banana strips with salt, steamed bananas…. We’ve had other good fruits as well. The avocadoes and mangoes and very good here.
That is all for now. Hear there is snow back home in Arkansas…can’t imagine that with all the heat here! If this is all gumbled, forgive me. My brain feels fried right now!

Friday...this is Friday, isn´t it¿

What a great and productive day we´ve had! People started lining up at daylight and when it was all said and done, we saw almost 600 people! Thank goodness for lots of hard workers! We have 2 Peruvian doctors with us (Dr. Ron and Dr. Aldo), plus Linda McIntosh (NP from Des Arc) and Jan Louck (NP from Dallas) seeing patients. Debbie Johnson is translating for Linda and we have a Peruvian, Julio, who speaks good English translating for Jan. They occupy the second floor of The Ugly, or the party barge, as I now like to call it. On the third floor, we have a Peruvian dentist and Jennifer Dilday from Batesville pulling teeth...watch out Dr. Beller and Dr. Beller, she´s going to pull more teeth this week than you will all year. Pat Jackson from Christoval, Texas is helping translate for Jennifer. Also helping in the dental area are Rog and Pam Burton from Benton, Alan Atchley from Hot Springs and Bob McMahon from North Carolina, and Lawana Kiser from San Angelo, TX. The optical shop and photo shop are also on the 3rd floor. Bob Goodman and Tom Dufrense are the designated eye people. Manning the photo booth are Tony Jones and Martial Harrell from Christoval, TX. Everyone that comes through are getting a picture of themselves. They love it! On the 1st floor, we have Barb Layrock, a nurse from Searcy working triage, along with a couple of Peruvian ladies helping write down names and information. Next to triage, we have a couple of new nurses in training, John Jenkins and David Dickinson from Benton-Hot Springs taking blood pressures and handing out Bibles. Everyone gets a Spanish New Testament. Also on the 1st floor, we have our toy hand out area manned by Sharon Carpenter from Salem, Deb Atchley and Mary Goodman from Hot Springs. Kelly Tucker from Little Rock is also helping entertain the children, when we can get him penned down long enough. He tends to like to roam. :-) Also on 1st is our worminators, Tami Campbell from Salem and Murf Defrense from San Angelo. The pharmacy is in the hull on the first floor. Here you will find Darla York from Salem, Mike Rutherford from Atlanta, Jordan Hughey from Little Rock, and Kent Terrill from Christoval, TX, and me. The we have our runners...the folks who keep the patient flow going...Daniel Tucker, Deirdra and Justin Kervin, Dave Hughey all from Geyer Springs Baptist Church. I spoke to quick about everyone being well. Bro. Dave Hughey was a little under the weather today, but was feeling some better at supper. I hope I haven´t left off any team members. Everyone is working hard, but having a great time. We will work here again tomorrow and as soon as we finish clinic, will pull up anchor and start back down the river. We´ll boat all night and stop at smaller villages along the way to work during the day and then boat at night. It will probably be several days before we have computer access again. Thanks for the continued prayers. I will pass along your messages. Naomi

Thursday

We finally made it! After a little bit more drama and going full blast 3 days and nigts on the river, we finally made it to San Lorenzo, Peru. Monday was another day of negotiation and finishing preparations. As I mentioned before, we started out with The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. It turns out that The Good (has air and private bathrooms) had been docked up the river for some time because the owner was having problems paying her Peru taxes, and while it was up the river, it was stripped of everything...beds, chairs, linens, EVERTHING. So, in order for us to use it, we had to buy all new mattresses, linens, some beds, chairs, dishes, etc. They were still loading the boat with new purchases until early Monday afternoon. While that was taking place, those of us (12 people, not 13, not 11, but 12) on The Bad (the difficult Frenchman´s boat) had to leave the dock at noon and go through sort of a customs that the Frenchman insisted on. It wasn´t a big deal to us, but we had to take off and leave all the other team members behind to wait for The Good to finish preparation. They all boarded The Ugly to wait while their bags and backpacks had been loaded on The Good. Long story short, they were without food until about 9 pm.
About 3 hours after The Bad had left Iquitos, David (my brother) found out from the captain of the boat that The Good and The Bad only will go 6 knots an hour and that it would take 5 days to make it to San Lorenzo. Of course, all of this had been discussed when negotiations were made to secure the boats, but the owners failed to share that even though we had a strict itineray, there was no way we could keep it since their boats were so slow. It would mean after we came all this way, we would only have 2 days to work. Unacceptalble!
Well, the captain of The Ugly came up with a solution. The Ugly will go up to 20 knots an hour and could get us to San Lorenzo on time. He was willing to tie The Good on one side and The Bad on the other side and take off. The captain of The Good was agreeable, and the captain of The Bad was agreeable until he talked to the Frenchman back at the base. Final solution--at midnight, the 12 of us packed up all our stuff (1st time ever in my life I have unpacked my suitcase...so proud I was organized), we loaded up all the food and supplies and even syphoned off the fuel which we had purchased, and wave goodbye to The Bad. The Good, about 80 X 30 foot, latched on to the side of The Ugly, about 150 X 40 foot and away we went almost 3 times as fast as we had been going. After some rearranging and thanks to several of the guys volunteering to transferring to The Ugly, we finally got in beds about 2 or 3 AM. I should say hammocks for some of those on The ugly. The rooms are tiny, eough space for 2 bunks built on one side and barely enough room to slide in to get in the bed...some didn´t feel like there was enough room for them and the roaches who were also staying in those rooms! Everyone has been in very good spirits and very understanding about all the complications that seem to have come our way. But, since Monday night, all has been smooth sailing.
We docked about 6 AM this morning and finally got clinic started about 10:30...we were waiting to start until another boat right next to us moved because there were about 100 people on it staring at us and would have jumped ship and joined us had we started clinic. We had a good day and saw lots of sick people. Expecting many tomorrow becaue word is now out that we are here.
We are eating very well, as always, Nancy Diaz takes great care of us. No one has gotten sick, so keep us in your prayers that all stay well.
Pat, Bo and Mike are doing fine. Bo helped run patients around today along with making medicine labels and Mike helped in the pharmacy. Megan, Bob is well and I will pass along your message. Reesie and Nay, Miss Lawana is making it great and helped in the dental area today. I think she is having a good time. The weather is hot...about 90-95 degrees with 120 percent humidity. Rather be here that with the single digit degrees back home! Don´t know if we will get to post tomorrow night, but will try. Thanks for the prayers and keep it up! Naomi

Monday January 10, 2011

We were a little disappointed when our flight was delayed from Houston to Little Rock, but it turned out a blessing when we arrived in Lima and there were no other people in the airport...whizzed through immigration and customs, making it through with 50 bags of medicine and none being checked. Got to the hotel around 4 AM (hour ahead here-and got everyone checked in and off to their rooms only to find out they were going to turn off the electricity in 15 minutes and be off for 8 hours, which also turned off water.
We were expecting to have to pay a considerable amount for the extra weight in our bags from Lima to Iquitos, but our wonderful travel agent here talked the airline into letting us take on all our second bags free!! We need every penny we can get since we are now having to pay for 3 boats.
Speaking of the 3 boats, for any of you who havent' heard, the boat we were planning to get on went back under water one week ago, so David and Larry Johnson has been frantically trying to make Plan B for the past 5 days. This is not an easy thing to do since we've lost our money (there is a little hope we may eventually get our money back from the original boat) and there is not another boat big enough to hold all of us within 5 days river distance. They came up with a solution called the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The Good is a boat that sleeps 18 that has rooms with individual baths and air conditioning...a good thing to have in tropical weather. Had to tweak the arrangements and put 31 on this boat to sleep, putting extra mattresses in each room and mattresses in the dining room. The Bad (my home for the next 2 weeks), is owned by a Frenchman that Larry says gives a new meaning to the word "negotiation." It is described (by David) as a "clean" boat that sleeps 12 (not 13, not 11, but 12...cooks for 12, not 13, not 11, but 12!) For those 12, there are 2 1/2 baths and no air conditioning. Then there is the Ugly, which is a huge cargo boat that I have dubbed 'the party barge.' There are about 10 or so sleeping on this boat in hammocks and mattresses David and Larry bought to put on the floor. No air and I'm not sure about bathroom situation here. The good thing about it is, it is big enough for us to hold clinic on, that that solved that.
We are having breakfast and will be loading the boats in a bit. Will be a few days before having internet again.
Nae