The past two weeks, I was part of a medical team that trekked through the Colca Canyon in Peru. I have to say that it combines a lot of things that I love, such as exercise, the outdoors, birds and wildlife, mountains, and of course medical work to needy people. So in a sense, it was therapeutic, maybe more for me than the people we went to see. The Colca Canyon is one of the deepest canyons in the world, although it is hard to quantify those things. From the deepest portion to the top, at places it is over 13,000 feet deep, more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. We had a team of 10 people. Vicente, our diminuitive leader, was someone who could do anything, I believe. He was also the only person on our team who spoke fluent Quechua, a necessity in the Colca Canyon. Here is a photo of Vicente. Then Cathy Huiza, also a worker with MMI in Peru. I was already friends with both of them, as they were both involved with the team in Arequipa last year, and it was great to be reunited with them. Here is Cathy and Grace, our dentist for the trip. Then Eduardo Carpio, a physical therapy student who functioned as translator, physical therapist, and general motivator for the patients. Grace, a dentist from Texas was a relatively late addition to the team, and one for which I was grateful, as I don't know much about teeth. We had 2 nurses, Amanda and Bethany who functioned admirably in a multitude of tasks, including triage, pharmacy, and nursing orders. Amanda had spent 6 months in Peru with MMI and working in Arequipa, so she was fluent in Spanish. Also from Peru was Domi, our gourmet cook, whose cooking with limited resources in the valley kept us functional despite long days of trekking. Then Matt, a pre-med student who hopes to go to medical school next year, functioned as pharmacy assistant, along with Bethany every day. And Luke Janssen, our only Canadian, came along as general helper and became Grace's right hand assistant in the the dental clinic.
So we met in Arequipa Saturday, a bit unsure of how we would mesh as a team, but God was gracious, and in a couple of days, it was like we were best friends. Devotionals each morning let us see a bit into the heart of each person, and also drew us closer to God ourselves. There was a lot of honesty, and sharing of pain, or other experiences that helped us see ourselves as well in the light of God.
Sunday morning, we left after attending a local church for part of the service in Arequipa. The journey of 5 hours by MMI van, very ably driven by Vicente, up and over the mountains, to the village of Chivay took about 4-5 hours with stops. We stopped for coca tea, which helps with the altitude sickness about 1/2 way there. Peaking out around 16,000 feet at a pass, some of our group started to feel the effects of altitude. Chewing on coca leaves helped a bit, but also descending to Chivay helped as well. We ate in Chivay, which is the gateway to the Colca Canyon, but soon left for the village of Cabanaconde, where we spent the night in a hostel there. During the night, I slept in the same bedroom as Luke, and I noticed that he was having increased work of breathing. In fact, I counted his respirations, and they were 50-60 times a minute. He had also had the nausea, anorexia, headache, and other symptoms of altitude sickness. I realized that we had no way of evacuation in the next week or so, so I prayed, hard, that God would remove his altitude sickness and miraculously heal him. The next morning, he was remarkably better, and I credit that to God's hearing and answering prayer. Thank you Lord, as I was helpless, and had no good medicine to give him. He was not able to take altitude sickness medicine, as he had contraindications to the medicine.
The next morning, we all loaded up into the back of a farm truck which had carried a few cattle in its day, I presume, and made our way slowly down into the depths of the canyon. The trip took about 2 1/2 hours, as we switched back and forth on the dusty road with dropoffs without guardrails, and mountain on the other side. When we got to the bottom to the Colca River, we saw our task in front of us. To ascend on a narrow trail up out of the canyon back to a mesa where the town of Llanca was perched above us. I don't know exactly how far it was above us, but I estimate 4000-5000 feet. It was warm at the bottom of the canyon, and the burros were waiting for our gear to be packed up as well. We all carried backpacks with water and snacks and lunch for the day. The warmness of the day, the bright sun, the altitude, and the constant uphill trek all combined to make this the hardest trek for me. I ran out of water about 1/2 way up, but other team members replenished my supply, and so I made it to the top with not much to spare. That trek took about 5 hours, but was very strenuous. But we all made it to the top, thank the Lord.
The town of Llanca welcomed us with open arms, and put us up in the school there. Cold showers were available, and the first night, we all slept in the same room, as there was not a lot of space available. The following day, we set up for our first clinic, and I saw around 30 patients or so. Kept the pharmacy busy all day filling prescriptions, as just about everybody needs something. Everybody was very busy, but by about 4 pm we were wrapping up things. I slept well, despite being in a room with 10 people and lying on a hard wooden floor in my sleeping bag. The night was cold, but not excessively. The next morning, as is my custom, I took a shower, but as it would be the rest of the trip, freezing cold Andean mountain water makes it a lot shorter than average.
That day, Wednesday, we had our nicest trek of the trip, not excessively steep, but a pleasant walk to the next village of Ucuchachas. Ucuchachas was the smallest village that we visited, and has a reputation for many of the population being alcoholic. It also appeared to be the most run down. A pleasant surprise was a church that must have been built in the 1500s, with a bell forged with the date 1574. Although deteriorating, it was a very substantial structure for such a small town, and wondered at the motivation that the Spaniards had in getting out to even places where now there are no evangelical churches, and even the Catholic church has no priests out there. In fact, I did not see any alive churches in the whole area, so an unreached area...
The following day, our smallest clinic of the trip.. I don't think I saw even 20 patients. By this time, everyone on the team was feeling good, and so we had time in the evenings to interact by playing games such as scum, spoons, or golf using standard playing cards that I had brought along. We had great times together, but generally by 9 pm, it was time to go to bed for me. In the canyon, the days were often shorter, as the sun would go behind the mountains by 3:30 in the afternoon, and darkness followed along with the cold.
The trek from Ucuchachas to Choco promised to be our most difficult of the trip, although generally the times listed were longer than we actually took, so I was hopeful that 10-12 hours it said would be more like 7 or so. It took us down, then up for a long ways, and then an incredible descent for probably 5000 feet or so down to the valley floor once more to the village of Choco. By this time, being used to the trails and the trekking, I didn't think it was too bad. Two of our group, the young guns Matt and Eduardo were somehow not listening when directions were given, so when they got to the river, they turned right instead of left. So instead of a 1/2 hour journey into Choco, they were actually headed to the town of Miña, about 9 km up the mountain. They never met a soul on the trail, so when they finally got to Miña, and asked, "Donde esta Choco" they were pointed back the same way they came. They arrived exhausted to the town of Choco around dark, at 6 pm or so. There were several worries that day, besides them. I was hiking with Vicente, and we realized that we were not seeing anyone come behind us. We knew the burros were still behind us somewhere, but weren't sure where Grace and Bethany were, as they were somewhere behind us as well. The trail was not always very obvious, and we had taken one little detour which was wrong as well, so we were afraid they might be lost. So we decided to wait on the trail, until we saw the burros. Well, finally, the burros came over the ridge, and Domi was with them, but no Grace or Bethany. So we continued to wait, and after a period of time, we saw that they had joined the burros as well. Turns out that they had gotten lost as well, and decided to wait for the burros to find out where they were supposed to go. And then, once everyone had shown up, except for Matt and Eduardo, Domi was still no where to be found. She was having the most trouble on the steep, slippery downhill, and had already fallen once, and so she had not shown up by 5 pm either. So I headed back up the trail, but was relieved to find her slowly making her way down in spite of the trouble she was having with her knees. The ladies of the town furnished us a delicious soup that evening, so that she was excused from the usual task of cooking. And about the time we sat down to eat, here came Matt and Eduardo, looking beat, but after water and soup, looked much better. We laughed and laughed once it was certain that they were all right and that is how our group was all reunited again.
The next day clinic in Choco was our busiest of the campaign. I saw 55 patients, and then had one old man who requested that I see his wife at the house. So we went down with him to the house where his wife was. Her name was Serafina, and it was obvious that she was suffering some kind of dementia. She was lying on a sheepskin there in the courtyard, and apparently that is how she was every day. Her blood pressure was dangerously high, despite the fact that she was on blood pressure meds, and she also had decubitus ulcers on her backside from lying all day in that condition. The husband was very attentive, but he had to work in the fields all day, and they had no children or other source of help. So Amanda and Eduardo dressed her wounds, and I adjusted her meds, and gave what little help that we could. However, on the next day, we stopped by the house to say goodbye on our way to Miña, and wonder of wonders, she was sitting in a chair, and looking much more alert. I have no explanation for that, but it was miraculous, that is for certain.
As that day was Sunday, we took a little more time that morning to sing, and each person shared something of their life story from a spiritual perspective, a very meaningful time with tears, laughter, and true worship. What followed then was the trip to Miña, which by the way Matt and Eduardo knew very well; it was a beautiful hike through a gorge, but along the river bed, so not extremely difficult or steep, a hike of only 4 hours. So we arrived there in time for a late lunch, and then an early supper, as Domi just kept cooking all afternoon. We entertained ourselves by seeing who could dunk their head in the icy stream and hold their breath the longest. Luke won that contest, and so proved that he was basically over the altitude sickness.
Clinic in Miña proved to be our next busiest clinic, but for some reason, no one wanted their teeth worked on. The dentist Grace and Luke kind of chilled out that day instead. That concluded the trekking portion of our trip as well, as Miña was the only town that we had traveled to with a road that actually could have a car on it. The next morning, we loaded into the familiar farm truck, and most put masks on for the dust, and bundled up warmly. We ascended and ascended, higher and higher, eventually topping out at around 17,000 feet, before descending to the Altiplano where the next villages were located. At that height, you are far above the tree line, and about the only industry is the herding of a few cattle, and many llamas and alpacas. But people live out there, and we had clinics in Sihuincha one day, and Oyujo the next. Both of these communities were very isolated, and actually not as much as a town, as a place to put the school. And it was frigid at night, somewhere in the teens, I would estimate. At Ojuyo, all the pipes were frozen in the am, making the morning shower impossible, even if you would have wanted an icy shower. After breakfast, one of the pipes unfroze, so I had a quick shampoo, without shower while we were packing, now into a bus for the ride back to Chivay.
The ride of 5 hours to Chivay was very bumpy, more than once making something hurt as we hit a particularly hard bump, descending once more out of the highlands as we got back down to the river once more. That afternoon, we were treated to a couple of hours soaking our weary bodies in the hot springs of Chivay--quite nice for muscles that had been stretched more than they should have been....
A final night in the valley in a motel with "hot showers", my first in a couple of weeks, and the next day we headed back to civilization in Arequipa, a ride of 4 hours total. It was good to get back and start looking at the whole trip with a more discerning eye. What all had been accomplished while we were there? Had any health problems had been changed overnight Not necessarily, because most of the things that lead to their health problems still were unchanged. But perhaps, we had communicated the love of God and His love for all mankind in a more tangible fashion, God's love with human skin on it. And that is what maybe we accomplished...