Here is Peru: November 2006

The bus

The scene inside the darkened bus is unique. It is 3:00 A.M., the passengers sprawl across their respective seats, simultaneously serenaded by the noisy efforts of the bus on such steep grades, and by a cacophonic "shoot-em-up" movie, replete with lots of gunfire, shouting, and a seemingly invulnerable hero.

I shift in my seat, attempting to releive my sore bottom from the pressure of my own weight. This is understandable, after all, it´s my 16th hour on this bus, after a 23 hour bus ride preceding this one. We are heading to the city of Arequipa, after a short stop-over in Lima.

Time passes in a different dimension on the bus. It flows by like a river of molasses, it is always dissapointing to notice that you have exhausted an eternity in 5 minutes. Conversely, time is easy to lose track of: it is late in the night (or is it early in the morning?) and what day is it?

I awake, my neck is cramped, and my face has that strange mouldy feeling that comes from resting on hands and arms wet from your own slobber. To my discomfort, I visualize a man with a bag of candy raised aloft in his clenched fist, his eyes roam to and fro around the bus, all the while maintaining an incredibly loud diatribe. I take some time to collect my muddled thoughts, and realize that this is one of the ubiquitos "bus sales-men". These fellows are almost always on a bus, trying to sell their product, whether it be a cure-all potion, a handful of caremels, or a passionate discourse on brushing your teeth. This fellow has endurance, maintaining a full cry for one half hour. He finishes by throwing a handful of his candy into everyones laps, and then coming back up the aisle to ask for a sole or two for his generosity.

We finally arrive in Arequipa, there is a hectic scramble for aquiring our luggage from underneath the bus, followed by a search for a reasonable taxi to take us to our hostel.

Our bus ride is over, finally.

Expedition

Tomorrow afternoon, we set out to do a month of exploring in the countries of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. One of the most exciting things we will do is to circumnavigate Nevado Ausangate (see picture at right), crossing several high passes, (one at 17,000 feet). The hike will take 6 days. I hope to be able to get on a computer while on the trip, if not, I bid you all adieu, until I get back!

Toenail Legacy

Some of you may remember the story I wrote about the window falling on my toe, while Jackson and I were attempting to fit it. I watched for about 4 weeks as the tissue under the nail slowly died, and the toenail lifted up. Finally about 2 weeks before our upcoming hike, I showed it to the doctor and Jenni, and we decided it would be better to take it off, than have it rip off during the hike.
Accordingly, that evening, the doctor injected me with 2 shots of lidocaine in the toe, and wripped it out. Now, almost 2 weeks later it is feeling much better and on it´s way back to normalcy.

My toe, wrapped most professionally by my cousin, Ansley.

And my toe, unveiled. Not too beautiful.

Dental

This blog is dedicated with much thanks and gratitude to Dr. Houmann and Dr. Baasch, who both gave valuable time and advice about dentistry.

Manuel (a peruvian dental student) and I.

Me giving some local anesthetic. This kid displayed some considerable vocal talent later on.

Me triumphantly holding a tooth.

Working on an elderly peruvian lady.

Jackson Henley and Melanie Luske; Melanie helped teach me how to do the IA block!

The tools I use most often.

Our dental table.

The tower

We stayed in a municipal complex while we did clinic in Masisea. The complex had a very high tower in the middle of it, which I could not resist climbing, twice, once in the night, and once in the day. Here are some photos.

The tower.

From the bottom: looking up.

Jackson and I on top.

From the top: looking down.

From the top: some of the houses in the village.

From the top: the library where we worked.

There and Back again

This past week, we spent working in a clinic in the town of Masisea, adjacent to the river Ucayali, one of the headwaters of the Amazon. This describes the various experiences we had getting there and away.
Getting there was fairly uneventful. We all took moto-cars to the river, where we boarded a "Fast Boat" bound for Masisea. A fast boat is essentially a skiff equipped with an outboard motor. The motor is usually 40-50 hp. The stifling heat was only alleviated by the breeze created by the motion of the boat. It took us about 2 hours going upstream to reach the port. Once there, we had to haul all our dunnage up a steep muddy slope to where some moto-cars were waiting to take us to Masisea. We took a 20 minute ride through massive Papaya groves to reach the town. Once there, we set up clinic in the towns virtual library, or "Biblioteca Virtual".
The week went by very well, we treated about 130 patients a day, both medical and dental.
The return trip was more eventful, due in part to the fact that we chose to take a "Peki-peki", one of the ubiquitos boats of the Amazon. The peki-peki is the local commuter, used much the same as a metro, tube, or local bus line. The locals here use it to travel between the small river towns. The dimensions of the peki-peki are as follows: Usually 40-50 feet in length, and 8-10 feet wide, with a rounded hull and a canopy over top for the protection of the passengers from the elements. The peki-peki is equipped with a singular type of motor, it is an outboard motor with a long (10-12 feet)propeller shaft which lies almost horizontal to the water, as opposed to the vertical shaft of a normal outboard. The reason I was able to come up with is this: it is easy to lift the entire apparatus out of the water to clear it of river weeds and other flotsam. All the driver has to do, is stand on a peice of rebar welded into the motor for this purpose, and it lifts it entirely out of the water.
We loaded all our gear into the peki-peki, and set off. A little ways down the river, and we met another peki-peki which offloaded a considerable portion of it´s passengers onto us (midstream) who wanted a ride to pucallpa. The bumbling roar of the peki-peki motor prevented me from sleeping, so I attempted to observe my surroundings. On both sides of the river, the Jungle rises up, green, thick, and palpably alive, it´s continuity broken only by the occasional thatchroofed hut. The muddy water of the river swirls lazily along it´s way; although this sentence is deceptive, since I coincidentally sense the exceptional power and strength of the current. Occasionally, another river boat will pass us, it´s motor filling the air with noise until it passes, and then the sound slowly dies away into nothing, swallowed up into the past.
Then there is a new sound, the sound of rain. I wonder if it will get stronger, and then notice that it is stronger already, the big drops beating a weird rhythm on the metal roof of the peki-peki. Our ride stretches on into the night, and I become progressively tired, slumping down on my hard wooden bench. Finally we see the lights of Pucallpa, and know that our trip is almost over.
Once we landed, the doctor and jenni went in search of a truck to bring us and our baggage back to the mission headquarters. They made it back in about half an hour, and then we had to haul our stuff up a nearly vertical mud slope to the waiting truck.
A short ride later, and we were back at the mission, our journey finished.

The view from the fast boat, on the way to Masisea.

The side of the Peki-peki, on the return journey.

A small village we passed, peki-peki in forground.

The interior of the peki-peki. Alex (left) and Anthony (right) in the foreground.

Intermission

I must apologize to any who may have been looking for news of how the clinic went this past week, as I don´t have the time to do extensive blogging this weekend. I hope to be able to post something next weekend, before I leave for our epic hike. I am safe, happy, and healthy. I had some incredible adventures, and must thank my dental friends (the Houmanns and Baaschs) for all their help and advice, it was most helpfull.

Darwin on Trial

I am presently reading a book entitled "Darwin On Trial". Written by Phillip E. Johnson, a law professor at Berkeley, it scrutinizes the theory of evolution. I am reading the second edition, wherein (in one chapter) Johnson responds to the criticizms of Stephen J. Gould, one of the leading proponents of evolutionary theory today. In his response, Johnson is clearly in his element; after all, he specializes in examining the logic of arguments. My asessment: a regular humdinger.

Pre-Clinic Anxiety.

This picture actually represents my desire to play with my camera, rather than some serious amalgamation of manic-depressive disorder I might have contracted in these southern climes. We leave for a week-long clinic tomorrow. A new adventure, and a new opportunity to reach out to others. Who knows what this week will bring?

Sabbath afternoon hike

What our team dubbed "the brainfruit". Alex and I relish it exceedingly.

The fields alongside the road we took a hike on.

The road we jog on every other day. Round trip: 4.5 miles.

La Chacra. A typical small-holders farm, almost universally subsistence farming.

In the kitchen

The table where we eat

Jackson and Ansley in action

Puppies

Jackson and I had just come back from washing dishes. As we entered the house, we heard a very strange sound. It sounded like someone or something was in dire distress. Having ascertained which direction the sound came from, we parted ways: I to take a look from the window on the side of the house, and Jackson to walk around the perimeter. I looked out the window and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Suddenly, Jackson called out. "John, come here, I think Chevy just had a puppy!" (A quick word of explanation, Cheva, a purebred rotweiler we are keeping at our house until the doctor comes out to the land, was pregnant, and we were expecting puppies around that time.) As I ran around the corner of our house, I encountered Cheva head-on. It occurred to me that if Cheva had just had puppies, she certainly wasn't being a very good mother. I came up to where Jackson was and beheld on the ground a mess of amniotic fluid, in the middle of which was a puppy, still encased in its placental sack. Cheva apparently had forgotten her duty of licking the sack off, and Jackson and I were left to do the job ourselves. Jackson ran to find scissors, while I broke the sack and lifted the newborn puppy away from the nasty mess. Jackson arrived with the scissors, and we cut the umbilical cord. We toweled the puppy off, and then attempted to instill some mothering instincts into cheva. Half lifting and dragging Cheva, we managed to get her to where the puppy was, and made her lie down. Cheva, however, seemed to be in denial of the fact that she was nursing a newborn puppy. Jackson decided to look around and make sure cheva had not deposited puppies in another place. After a minutes search, he found another puppy, also entombed in it's placental sack. Unfortunately, we had not been able to get to this one fast enough, and it had died in the sack in which it had been conceived and matured for so long. Jackson broke the sack and attempted CPR, but it was to no avail. The puppy was dead before we got there. At half hour intervals, Jackson and I delivered two more puppies, after which Cheva finally took over, and delivered the last two puppies on her own steam. 6 puppies, one dead, five alive. I buried the dead puppy, pondering the incongruency of the occasion, wherein a miracle of life had died before it was given a chance. Nevertheless, we have 5 happy and healthy puppies to bring up. They are lots of fun.

Alex spending some family time.