Here is our little kitty and monkey back at Km 38. Just a few days ago Lauren, Brittany and I decided to back some banana bread and some cookies for a going away party for Dr. Fillman and Mary and also for a team members birthday. Normally when you are backing you leave cookies out to cool right? Well this is what I did, but I forgot about my little monkey friend. At one point I turned around to find George sitting on the pan of cookies, quickly stuffing one in his face and looking at me with his little innocent monkey look. After a good spanking I spent the next while keeping guard over my cookies. No way was he going to get any more of that beloved delicacy.

This is a picture of the house back at Km 38, notice the beginnig of the jungle. I love having the jungle in my backyard. Sadly, not that I am living out at Km 8 (the health class location) I will only be visiting Km 38 every few weeks. My junle treks will only be a special once in a while treat.

This is the biopsy I assited with. The melanoma on this ladies face was about the size of a silver dollar coin. We removed a small sliver of it for the biopsy. Since the surgery was on the face, we couldn´t use epinepherine in the lidocain, so there was lots of blood. My main job was to clean up all the blood so that Dr. Mike (sitting down with the scalple in this pic) could see what he was doing.

As of last night the nursing squad (Melanie, Brittany, Lauren and I) along with Matt (the english teacher) have moved away from the compund at 38 and will now be living at the clinic site for the next month and a half. Matt teaches his english clases sporatically through out the day, while the four of us girls head out into the surrounding villages to visit with the families. We visit the familes by ourselves to teach them more about nurtition, hygiene and other similar things. I feel rather like a character from Bible times - the roads are dry and dusty, little clouds of dust follow me everywhere as I plod along in my chacos. Overall the people are pretty friendly and love to chat with me. This coming week on top of the house visits and personal clases, our team will be doing health clases for the general public.
Last Sabbath (while I was still back at the mission at 38) while everyone else was sucumbed to the boredom of sleeping in the warm Peruvian heat, I decided to go for a trek into my jungle backyard. After about 10 minutes of pushing my way through the overgrown trail, I stopped to observe the wildlife around me. At first I saw nothing. But then after a breif moment, I saw 3 little black monkeys scamper around in the canopy above my head. To my suprise another little monkey in a tree behind me starting screeching a me. For some odd reason he was uber upset that I was in his half of the jungle. He proceeded to come down lower in the tree and squak at me. He actually came close enough that I could see his face - which oddly enough resembled that of an Ewok from Star Wars. As he scolded me he kept turning his head upside down under the tree branch and from side to side. This little 7 inch monkey was trying to be all great and threating, yet he was failing miserably. I could only laugh at him.
A few nights ago I had the pleasure of doinging the most random thing yet. I needed to dig a fence post hole, but didn´t have a shovel or post hole digger. It was also dark. But none the less, nothing was going to stop me, so I grabbed a little nail and a metal spoon from lunch and started hacking at the hardpacked dusty earth. After about a half hour of scaping, digging and chiseling away I had about a 7 inch hole, thankfully by this point someone had rounded up a post hole digger and whithin a few minutes had finished the remainder of the needed 2 ft deep hole. I love the improvisation skills I am learning here in Peru.

Without fail the earth has continued to rotate around the sun and I have now been in Peru for a month now. As I look back my Spanish has improved, even though I still have a lot to learn. I am now accostombed to the daily rice and beans flavored with onions. It now seems normal to pack 7 people into the cab of a small truck and squish about 9 more in the bed. Just this morning we ended upwith only 5 people in the cab (the normal amount I know), but it seemed strangely odd. It didn´t even feel as if it was worth driving the truck - you can squish 5 people into a motorcar. I guess you could say I am becoming Peruvian. However, I am still having fun experiimenting with new fruits. The newest of which is guava (or some word like that). This fruit is not what you are thinking. It grows in a long strand resembling a gigantic green bean. The strand is about 2 feet long and has ridges running lengthwise.When you slice the outer greenbeany coating the fruit is exposed - little fuzy white ovals that are sweet but tangy all at the same time. The fruit highly resembles a cacoon with its fuzzy white outer shell around a large black seed. About 10-12 little cacoons are in each strand. Even if this fruit sounds kind of weird it really is quite delicious.

Due to a need of a bit more medical aid we decided to continue with our clinic for the first half of the week. On top of this I got to journey out into Nuevo Amazonia (the little community I will be living with for the next two monthes and hosting health and evangalistic meetings for). We went out in teams of two. I ventured out with my new buddy Lauren Kelley from North Carolina. We just walked the dusty streets and talked with people. It was a great experience. The people here are so friendly and will gladly put down whatever they are doing to visit with two strange foreigners who barely speak their language. We chatted, laughed, and gave many blank stares (which greatly entertained our hosts). Through hand motions and dicctionaries we were able to carry on fun little conversations with our new friends. Just yesterday Lauren and I helped with two bible studies for families in our village. Our little team will spend the next two months reaching out to this community in any and everyway that we can.

So this is my life in Peru right now. Walking from house to house making friends, preparing for health clases and helping with Bible studies, along with learning Spanish.

Combination of boredom and curiosity = me in a market bag

Me with a patient in triage.