July 1, 2013

  • The Jungles of Peru

    In the first part of June, I was invited to go to Iquitos, Peru with a group of medical students, both 1st and 2nd year students, from the University of South Alabama.  They needed another doctor, and I was ready and willing to accompany them.  Duane Baxter, the leader of the group, knew my son Robert in Troy University Campus Outreach program, and so that is how they got my name.  There were also a couple of prospective PA students, a pharmacist, a pharmacy student, and one student from LSU medical school, as well as 2 pediatricians from Mobile, Susan Ashbee, and Faye Roberts.  I didn’t know what exactly it would involve, but on June 8th, I joined the rest of the group in Mobile, for the short 2 hour bus ride to New Orleans International Airport…It was a stretching exercise in missions.  Our goal was to fly to Iquitos, which is the gateway to Amazon in Peru, and then take a boat up the Amazon River to different villages for each clinic.  

    The trip down to Lima was uneventful, but got the award for the bumpiest flight I have ever had.  Constant turbulence made it difficult to sleep, as we were always bouncing.  That seemed to go on for hours, but the flight was only 5 1/2 hours, but the seat belt sign stayed on for most of that time…I did get some rest, which was good, as we got there at daybreak.  Then on a flight to Iquitos, arriving around lunch time, almost exactly 24 hours after leaving Mobile in the bus.  Amazon Medical Missions is a ministry which is based out of Georgia, and led by Mike and Susie Dempsey.  They have been in this ministry for more than 15 years, and I don’t know how they work so tirelessly.  It is a real blessing to the workers who come down.  Check out this website http://amazonmedicalmissions.org/ if you want to know more about their ministry.  We had amazing accommodations..I would say sort of like a mini-cruise ship.  The rooms held 2-3 people with air conditioning, and a large dining hall, with gourmet food every day.  You sort of forgot you were in the jungle, until we stopped at a village, and went to work…then it was easy to remember.  The first day, we set up our large leaky tent in the rain (it rained every day) and the only piece of level ground was by the river in a muddy area.  The mud had a crust on it, but would sink in about 3-4 inches as you walked on it.  By the end of the day, however, we were breaking through.  I was glad to wear just my sandals, so that I didn’t have as much clean up.  However, the mud must have harbored quite a few chiggers, as the following days they manifested themselves with a vengeance, itchy places up and down my legs….but, hey, we have those in Alabama too.  The people of the village would gather, and then we would have a short evangelistic message, and then we went to our stations.  I would normally have 2 medical students working at my station, and with the Peruvian doctor Tony, we would have 4 stations to see the patients in the on area of the tent.  It was not high acuity of emergencies, but it stretched my capabilities, as I was translating their Spanish….(to be continued)

     

     

Post a Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *