8/7/09
Heading Out
Well right now am sitting in Houston’s airport awaiting my flight to Lima. In contrast to my earlier problem coming back from Spokane, there is all too much time in between my two flights today. I arrived over an hour ago and still have a good four hours to wait. The final goodbyes have been bitter sweet. I have loved talking to all of my friends, but have felt torn with every farewell that I have bid. As with most things that I face in life, I tend to dread them all the way until I fully emerge myself in them. For that reason, I am glad that I am finally leaving so I can get to the point where I can move on and enjoy the next adventure of life without dwelling on the past ones. I will admit that at this time I would gladly hop on the next plane back to Jellico or MiVoden and continue on with life as before, but know that God is leading me this direction. Today I was reminded of His constant presence and love for me as I sat in this humongous airport. Thousands of people seem to be constantly milling around, and at times I have just sat back and watched them. While doing so a bit ago, out of the blue someone walked by that I recognized from SAU, and then I saw him meet up with his two siblings that go to SAU as well! They were loading their plane, and I really didn’t know them very well so I didn’t speak with them, but happened to wonder if God had sent us to the same place in order to present a familiar face right when I needed it. In conclusion, while along the lines of God using people for encouragement, as I have been preparing these past few days to leave, I have received so many phone calls and messages from people reminding me that they will be praying for me-thanks so much, it has meant the world to me!
Several hours later………
So I finally arrived in Lima! Ends up my flight got delayed in extra few hours, but I did eventually get out. While on the flight I felt very American as I was offered drinks every hour and had a full meal and a snack. One thing I have learned is that one should never order a vegetarian meal on a plane. Plane food in general is gross but when you tack on the vege part it gets even worse. This was evident to me as I ate my disgusting vegan cookie and watched my neighbor eat her Hershey’s bar. During the flight I watched a couple of movies, worked on my Peru book, and tried to sleep a little. When I arrived in Lima I felt pretty overwhelmed. All of a sudden it hit me that I was in a totally different culture as Spanish became the main language. Upon getting through customs, immigrations, and the baggage claim I gladly met Andrew near the exit. In my mind I had decided it wasn’t worth it to go to a hostel for the night since we only had a few mere hours to sleep, but a poor man had already came to pick us up and had waited for hours. So here I am in a hostel for a total of an hour before we head back to the airport for our 4 AM flight. The guy who picked us up was really friendly; he and his brother own this hostel which is surprisingly nice. He says Jenni, our director often stays here. All of the colors are bright and cheery inside even if they don’t match. The walls are decorated with soccer jerseys. The whole place smells like Clorox and mustiness if that is a word. Andrew and I are sharing a room with three beds. Downstairs there is a kitchen, a billiard table, a TV, some computers, and upstairs are rooms and an assortment of other small lounging rooms. One of the owners was excited to tell us that in just 20 days he will be opening up a bar, I didn’t quite share in his enthusiasm, but I tried to look excited. So far everyone has been really nice; even though I was given a hard time about all of my luggage…but in my opinion 2 suitcases and 2 carry-ons isn’t bad for 10 months. Decided starting tomorrow I need to start picking up on my Espanol, and also work on my personal bubble. Already almost made an idiot of myself when the owner greeted me and stuck out his face…luckily caught on fast enough and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. Right now the weather is really nice, cool and pleasant but I was told that it is a lot hotter in Pucallpa, even though it is only an hour flight away. Speaking of that, I better run, want to take a shower and get cleaned up before heading onto the next leg of my trip!

8/10/09
Life in Peru
Well I have officially been here in Peru for 3-4 days depending how you look at it. You see after my last blog written in the hostel we stayed at in Lima, I headed to the airport and had yet another interesting experience. Upon getting to the airport I had a big mess with my carry on, which on their airlines was way too big, and I missed my flight to Pucallpa. Unfortunately there are only two flights from Lima to Pucallpa every day so I had to sit around in the airport all day from 3 AM-8:30 PM. I also had to drag around all of my bags and couldn’t check in until 8:00 because I was on standby. Not to mention that I had to leave a suitcase with a few items in Lima as well. Despite all of the stress and such related to this mess, I actually had a decent time. My traveling partner, Andrew, actually didn’t know what was going on and left on the AM flight, so I got to spend a lot of time alone in the morning. I read my Peru book (and finished it!), I slept some, and enjoyed watching people. The hours were going by pretty slowly though until I around 10 AM. Two young backpacker guys sat beside me that looked about my age and were speaking a different language. At first I was very annoyed because they smelled so bad and I didn’t attempt to see if they spoke any English. After a few hours of them sitting there though I began to enjoy having some kind of constant presence around me. One of the guys left on a flight and I needed to use the bathroom really bad. I had four big bags though and knew that I couldn’t drag them all into the bathroom so I decided to ask the guy to watch my bags while I went. After getting back we began talking and did so the rest of the day until both of our flights left that night. He was from France and was out backing in South America for two months and had just finished up. He gave me a lesson in Spanish, gave me important tips when going to Machu Pichu, taught me a game with dice, and we talked about everything from the swine flu to later plans in life. Although it was weird to hang out with a complete stranger so much, I really felt blessed to have his company during my long foreign airport experience. P.S. Thanks Bri for the cookies, that is all that I ate that day until I got to the base that night!
Anyways after flying to Pacullpa, I was picked up and driven to Kilometer 38, my home for at least a week and a half. The first night I met most of the people-the many other SMs, the local workers, etc. There are SMs from all different colleges, La Sierra, PUA, SAU, Andrews, Walla Walla, and a girl from Germany. Crazy mix. Right now we also have resident from Loma Linda working here for a few weeks. On top of that a dentist and her cousin are here for a few weeks working. Sounds like we will be having a lot of people coming in and out throughout the year. Sadly, I found out that our fearless leader Jenni is having some problems and will be leaving us in a few weeks for the rest of the year. At first this was kinda discerning since I didn’t know how a bunch of SMs would run themselves with not knowing the language or culture very well, but we have a really go getter group of people and I just found out that a replacement will be coming for her while she is gone for the next year.
Let me describe our home for you quickly. We live 38 Kilometers outside of Pucallpa which is where we get our name from. The closest town to us is Campo Verde, which has very little to offer besides a few stores. On our property we have several houses. Some for the workers, one for the doctor, and two main buildings for us. The buildings are roughly built and no glass windows exist, only screens. We have outhouses and an outside shower that only has cold water of course. We have chickens running around freely, three dogs, a super cute kitten named Thomas, and as of yesterday a pet monkey named George. Personally I am not a huge fan of the monkey yet, he is kind of mean. We have a lot of lemon trees, and these lemons are humungus! I have also been told that we have a pineapple field and that they will be ripe in September! Beyond our cleared area we own a lot of land. Oh and I forget, there is also a huge building that we use to make our own timber in.
The food so far has been….okay. J It is taking a while to get used to it. I definitely feel healthier now, minus eating the cookies I picked up at the market. So far everything has mostly been pretty bland. Lots of oatmeal, rice and veggies, etc. Most things I don’t really love the taste of but realize I need to keep eating. The weird thing is even though I am eating the same foods, they are just prepared so differently!
This week we started our first clinic. So far I have been put in triage the whole time. At first it was awesome because Jenni was with me and I just listened in. Midafternoon though she decided it was time for me to be on my own. Normally triaging would not be a big deal for me but remember I don’t really speak Spanish. Well since then I have had a lot of patients on my own, but usually get someone to kinda help me who might speak just a little more than me. It has been amazing how much Spanish I have picked up in just a few days! I still have to request for the patients to repeat things many times and sometimes am utterly confused, but so far am enjoying the challenge.
8/16/09
Adjusting
I think we are actually going to Pucallpa today which means I am going to get on the internet! I have reached the one mark here and almost feel at home. Communication here isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. We have a telephone and phone cards are relatively cheap. Unfortunately not always good reception and have to share the phone with everyone. Only have internet in Pucallpa though so haven’t been on yet. Starting sometime this next week though us four nursing girls, Matt (our teacher), and three bible workers will be living where we had a clinic last week. It is a very primitive building now, but we are going to work on building it this week. If nothing else a room to lock our stuff in and a outhouse out back. We will be a lot closer to Pucallpa so I will probably be able to get on the internet more, but will miss a lot of the luxuries at the home base here. We will not have any electricity, telephone, washing machine (already have to air dry our clothes, but will have to start washing them by hand), cooking utensils, a stove, shelves, or showers. Thinking we will just be buying jugs of water to dump on ourselves. Luckily found out that we will be able to come home most of every weekend for the whole year because all of the locations we will be going to will be no more than 45 minutes away from Kilometer 38.
Tuesday our leader, Jenni, is leaving. Very sad still and will miss her guidance, but feel like we will survived okay until the next person comes in September. Also have the doctor here as backup even though he isn’t around much.
Back to last week….Well finished up with the clinic. By the end of the six days I was pretty exhausted. Feel pretty good about working in the pharmacy and wasn’t having too many problems in triage by the end. Was kind of funny though, because most of my Spanish vocab now is solely medical. So people would come in and when I asked them what their problem was they would sometimes go off for several minutes and I would just smile and nod even though I didn’t understand most of it. The thing is that I would pick up the medical words so I would know the jist. A frustrating thing for me is I guess I still have a very American ancient because sometimes I would say things and would get a blank stare so I would get someone to interpret and they would say it the same way, but then the people would get it! Go figure. I have loved working with the kids, minus giving Penicllin (which clots quickly and stings like crazy), actually in general I hate giving butt shots because I haven’t had to do many there at my last job. Normally I prefer to stick to the arm or stomach because there aren’t any important nerves or anything to hit. Anyways, on Friday we had a 9 month old come in that was throwing up a lot and having diarrhea and was very dehydrated. The doctor decided we needed to give fluids. I hate starting IVs in general, but I especially hate starting them on kids or on dark skinned people where you can’t see the veins. So when Jenni asked me to start it I said no right off the bat. But after attempting a while she couldn’t get it in the arm and asked me to try on the foot. Thinking in my head there was no way I was going to get it, I tried to get out of it, but she insisted so I tried and amazingly got it right off the bat! The baby screamed the whole time we put the fluids and medicine in but within an hour or two he was looking much better and was able to go home.
Due to the large amount of people that were still wanting to see a doctor and the fact that our resident is still here we are going to continue a small clinic Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Only one of us girls will be assisting though and the rest will start out with our home visits and education.
Yesterday I went to the church located on our property. There were only about 10-15 people there and they were not as energetic as the people at the last church. The service itself only lasted for 30 minutes. In the afternoon I got a quick driving lesson on stick. I have been trying to put it off because driving around here is so crazy and I don’t want to be checked off yet! Stick isn’t as bad as I thought it would be but still I worry that I am going to stall and cause an accident. Oh well, hopefully will have more time to practice. Last night had a longer worship than usual and then had a shot/IV/med math class. This AM I was in charge of food for the first time. Decided to bust it out and made cinnamon rolls (of sorts) and fried potatoes with some other veggies. Wasn’t too bad and everyone loved having something semi-American. Actually found that the girls that were here previously left a cooking book that has recipes for familiar foods using what supplies are available here. Sundays are clean up days here/day off. So cleaned up around here, and changed out a bandage on a guys leg. Early this week he cut himself with the machete so the doctor stitched him up right here! Nice to not have to go to the sketchy hospitals here yet! Around here the guys machete a lot. Lawn mowers and weed wackers do not exist so everything is cut by hand or burned. The burning seems pretty effective. Might have to try that out at home next time the lawn needs to be mowed J.
Well getting to know everyone pretty well here. Earlier this week it was much colder but since Friday it has been almost unbearably hot. Yesterday afternoon tried to take a nap but it was so hot that I couldn’t even do that. Have tried all sorts of foods here, fresh coconuts, sugar cane, and an assortment of other things that I can’t remember including a fruit that makes your lips stick together. Haven’t minded living with all of the bugs here, but yesterday opened up one of my cliff bars, took a bite, and realized there were ants crawling all over it. Threw it out, but put the others in a new plastic bag, and decided to just wash it off next time and not waste good American food. Amazing how much I don’t care about things like eating after people and such now. Also feel dirty and sweaty all the time and am getting used to what I thought were my worse days at camp all the time here! Anyways want to download some pictures and probably should end my rambling. Today just typed up my thoughts really fast but will try to be more organized and entertaining from here on out!