Just in case any of you at home are freezing right now, don´t worry. It is still roasting hot here. As I am writing this there is sweat pouring off me (and all I am doing is typing at a computer, only my brain and my fingers are working, I shouldn´t be sweating so much. Ah, but so is life in humid lands). It seems weird to me that the weather has changed back in the states, but yet here it is still the same roasty-toastyness. (Just today I thought of frying an egg on the pavement, but there wasn´t any nearby, so I just left the egg all by its lonesome and ate mangoes instead). But no worries, soon rainey season will be here and then the temp will drop a little bit.
To wrap up out campaign at Km 8 we had a mass wedding, more baptisms and final goodbyes. But early Sabbath morning I had one of my best experiences yet here in Peru. There is a family here in Nuevo Amazonia that I have become quite good friends with. It is a young couple, Jhon and Fresia and their little two year old daughter Carlita. As we were chatting it came up that the weather was and and that it would be sooooo nice to go swimming. Then they discovered how much I love to swim, so they declared they needed to take me to their favorite swimming hole. Bad news was that I was to leave the next night. But no worries, we decided that we would go out to the lake at Yarina Cocha early in the morning and get back in time for church. So that´s what we did. They came at 6 Sabbath morning and picked me up and their motorbike. The 4 of us spent the next twenty five minutes on their little motorbike journing out to the lake. As we got closer we passed a bunch of mango trees , so we stopped and picked a big bag of mangos. Upon arrival at the lake we feasted on our harvest and devored the whole big back of mangoes (I think I ate 4). Mango was the main course for breakfast, but Fresia had also brought some Arroz con Leche, so we packed out tummies with that. Then due to the sticky factor of our fingers and faces we splashed into the murkey wáter for a fun swim and a good rinse off. We spent the next hour chillin at the lake and then headed off to the mango trees once again to collect more to take home. Going back we had four people on the motorbike, plus a back pack and a big bag of mangos, what great fun. In spite of all the fun we had, we still got back a good half hour before church started at 9.30.
Saturday night at about 10.30 we packed up all of our possesions, stufffed them in the back of the truck and took off for Tupac Amaru (the location of our next campaign). It ended up being a late night, but all was well and we got up early the next morning to set up for our medical clinic which started at 8. I was absolutely stocked for clinic week. This clinic wasn´t quite as busy as last clinic seeing as our location was at a small villaje deep in the jungle, but we still kept busy during the day. I did lots of triage, which is lots of fun. People have all kinds of crazy stories to tell. The greatest of which is the wacky internal fever that people get when they work out in the sun and don´t drink any wáter.
We only had two surgeries this week and I was the lucky nurse that got to assist in both. The first patient had a grape sized cyst on his upper thigh. The second was removing a golf ball sized tumor from the top of a ladies foot. It was great to have these random surgical interruptions in the midst of all the triage, taking blood pressures, giving out medicines from our pharmacy and all the other randomness of clinic week. Thursday night I stayed up half the night watching over a young 20 yr guy that was super sick. We had him hooked up to an IV and kept watch on him throughout the entire night. The good news was that by the next afternoon we were able to send him home. Friday afternoon we packed up the pharmacy and all our medical stuff and sent it all back in the truck to our base at km 38. Thus terminated my second clinic and began my second campaign. The nurse squad will be living in the quaint little jungle village of Tupac until the middle of December.
That is the 90 sec wrap up of my most recent Peruvian life. I haven´t been eaten alive my mosquitos yet or poised by jumping tarantulas so all is well. Chau for now!
(If the photo gods and computer gods smile upon me I should have pictures next time I update my blog)
=)