One of the newest, biggest, greatest changes to my past few days was the arrival of 3 friendly people from They are ere for about a week to host an eye clinic for all my new Peruvian buddies. I was fortunate enough to assist with this new element of my Peruvian life in the midst of visiting all my families and teaching all my classes. The mission of this clinic was simple – just to fit people with glasses. When ever I had free time I found myself rushing over to the refracting area to help out. With this job I would start out by greeting the people with a harty-cheerful Buenas Dias! Then would explain to them that I needed to look at their eyes with a spiffy little flashlight. After this quick observation I would explain if tey had cataracts or pterygium and what this meant. Then the fun part began. People could choose between either glasses for reading or glasses for distance. Depending on their desires I would hold up prescription refraction lenses to their faces until we discovered the perfect prescription for them. The joy of it was that people got so excited at the first bit of improvement. Then their joy would increase ten fold as I increased the magnification in 50 sector increments. In no time at all we would find the perfect refraction and they would receive their new glasses. I was instantly rewarded with beaming faces. It was amazing to see people come in tired, groggy (not quite sure if this is the right spelling for this word, but it rhymes with froggy, so it should be spelled similar, eh?) then see people walking away with overpowering smiles. For the first time in a long while they could see once again. They best part was that a great percentage wanted glasses so they could read their Bibles. In all we were able to give 857 people glasses. The funniest part of clinic was when I accidentally switched up some words when talking to one lady. Instead of asking if she wanted lentes (glasses) for reading I said lentejas (lentils). After a quick look of confusion, a little laugh and a quick refraction we got this lady her spiffy reading lentils. What could be better?Great experience of my week volume 2 was a quick snipet of my life during rainey season. The other day it poured all night and all day, which is great, I love rain. However, the tricky part is that our little bucket shower area is completely exposed to the heavens. We have to roof, meaning when it is raining (pouring in all actuality) there is no possible way to keep a towel dry. But alas I wanted my cold refreshing shower, so I donned my swimsuit and fearlessly entered the land of pelting raindrops. In spite of the cold I quite enjoyed myself as I showered in the rain with collected free rain water. When finished I slipped across the muddy clay to the wonderfulness of a dry towel. (So, Uncle John Schreven I have a fun task for you. Next time it rains collect about a liter and a half of rain water, then put on some colorful swimshorts, go outside early in the morning with your little soap bottle and take a shower. Aunt Kim, this is where your job comes in… you get the fun taking a picture to show to me at some point in the future).
Highlight #3. We are entering Papaya and mango season. How could life not be grand? Some of the papayas are Basketball sized and oh so wonderfully delicious. If chocolate were a fruit it just might be a giant ripe papaya.
Smile breaking activity #4 was a grand jungle adventure trek excursion journey quest ma-bober. The nurse squad was fortunate enough to return to Km 38 the other night. A few of us took this great opportunity to trek into the back 40. To me it was the most wonderful thing ever to be out and active again, to be clomping along a little jungle trail. Sadly we didn’t see any monkeys, but I heard birds and was attacked by an evil thorny bush. But after a quick battle with a machete the little bush quickly lost his life. And we rudely left its corpse to wilt in the jungle heat. With only a few battle scars and some bug bites to match I would call this trek a successful venture.
New Activity #5. We put on our first church service on Sabbath. We had a fairly good attendance – around 100 in all. My task was to lead out with Sabbath school for about 50 kids. It was difficult work, but people enjoyed it and are excited for next weeks service. To make it a perfect Sabbath our little crew splurged on haystacks. (We thankfully found little corn chip like things down here after an arduous search) We had great fun introducing this Adventist American food oddity to our Peruvian team members.
As far as my pictures go, I decided it would be a good neck excercise for all of you to twist your head sideways as you observe first hand a bit my life here. Hehehehe....or maybe I am just trying to help the masouse (people who rub backs...not sure how to spell this word) industry. Have fun!