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