Our week in Moquegua

It’s Friday, February 27th, and Will and I just returned form our 2nd mission. This one was shorter than the last – only Monday thru Thursday – since I took the fist week of the mission off for medical reasons.

Moquegua was a small town, very calm compared to Arequipa’s crazy traffic. My job changed, as did Will’s. Instead of working in the pharmacy, I helped Cathy in Salud Integral playing with the children. My job was to take them into my room, have them color, do math or teach them English and play a little bit, and then give them toys as a reward. It also helped to keep them entertained while their parents had to wait in line for the doctor’s appt or attend Salud Integral.

3 Canadians in our group got a large donation of toys from a toy store in Canada so I had a lot of toys to give away (3 bags full). Because they were active children, I also took them outside to play baseball, Frisbee, or play with the legos and cars. Will got to be a translator for one of our doctors. So he didn’t get to take as many photos this round since he was very occupied helping patients. We had another photographer in the group, so he hopes to get some photos from her so that he can put them on the MMI website.

Overall it was a fun group. The Municipality of Moquegua provided food and housing for us, so we stayed in a nice hotel. Unfortunately, both our lunches and dinners came from restaurants, so it was a lot of food and it wasn´t too good.

We were all invited to their town hall, and the Mayor made us citizens of Moquegua and gave us little fancy pins. So that was nice. We were unable to help everybody who came to the clinic, they were just too many people, but overall we helped nearly 1,300 people.

I got sick again, but I’m hoping it’ll pass quickly. I am a little worried that this will happen every time I go on a mission, but let’s hope my body gets stronger. And other than that, my Spanish is getting better, especially my comprehension, but my conversation is better as well, I am able to communicate with people, and they usually understand me.

Anyways, I’m going to go rest.

AND PICTURES!!!!

Moquegua

We´ve been here all week, and we leave to head back to Arequipa tomorrow (Friday). I didn´t get near as many pictures this week since I was a dedicated translator for one of the general medicine doctors. So I´ll probably put them all into one album. I´ll have another album for scenery and whatnot pictures probably. We´ll see how everything turns out when we get back!

Anyway, time for our goodbye dinner--we´ll have a goodbye lunch in Arequipa with a few less people on Saturday hopefully. I need to sleep tho, I´ve been up late every night playing cards. Hopefully Helen doesn´t yell and bounce and scream this weekend :-P!

Moquegua

We made it here safely last night, celebrated Manuel´s birthday, and then rested and lounged around. We´re lucky to be coming in fresh--everyone else here has been working for a week already. Today is the first day of clinic, I´ll let you all know how it goes!

Vamos a Moquegua

Will and I are going to have a little less access to internet starting tomorrow since we are going to start our next mission in Moquegua. It´s just a short 1 week mission, and I´ll probably do something similar to what I did last time (work in the Pharmacy) so as not to be too stressful. Will might actually try doing some translating, which will be good for him. But we´re a little excited because the weather is not so fun here - it´s similar to Seattle´s spring really - 60s or so and rainy, rainy and when it´s not rainy it´s cloudy. It´s beautiful in the mornings though when it´s not raining. Moquegua is the coast area where it´s more like 75-80 degrees, so it´ll be nice change.

Other than that, nothing new has been happening. I´ve been helping out a little in the MMI Office, but since my computer doesn´t work, I´ve really just been helping Will select photos or help Helen my host sister with e-mails in English.

My host cousin who lives with me, just got in to med school, which is amazing since she is 15. She started school early when she was little, and therefore she graduated early (normally students graduate at 17 here). She was the top of her class and she studied like crazy and did really well. After 6 years she will be a doctor, it´s kind of weird, different than how the U.S. does it, with the 4 years of UnderGrad and then Med School. She´ll be a young doctor, a baby doctor. Anyways, she just got in today, and everybody was excited for her. Tomorrow is Carnival, and they celebrate it by throwing water and paint on people, Will and I are not very excited about that. We´re hoping we get out of here and to Moquegua before people begin. However, we did try to dump water on my host cousin to celebrate her entrance into Med School, for fun :) Because it´s funny when it happens to other people...but when we´re carrying all our things we don´t really want them to get soaked (like our cameras!)

Anyways, I´m going to go pack some more things and go to bed.

Tying Up Loose Ends

Well, due to limited internet access, we've had to pre-date a few of our blog entries, the most exciting of which is assuredly the "Scorpions!!!" one from last week (also the entry right before this is pre-dated a few days ago). Go back and read that, and check if there are any other ones you've missed too :). Hope you're enjoying our adventures so far.

So about the bus mishap, since I don't think (upon reflection) that I wrote about it. Long story short, I got on one of the two right busses, but going in the wrong direction. I spent over two hours trying to get to where I meant to go in the first place, but I saw one of the most beautiful parts of Arequipa (Sachaca) on accident. So, 2.5 hours in busses, 10 minutes in taxi, to get to Catherine's host family's house which is a short 20-minute bus ride from my house. It was fun though.

Tonight, after a week of convincing Tania, we finally get cake! A nummy carrot cake, since Helen (Catherine's host sister) doesn't like chocolate cake. We're heading to Ilo tomorrow (Saturday) or Sunday since we have a Youth Group to go to tonight--and besides, we were supposed to take a full week off anyway.

Catherine got her ear wax cleaned out without any mishaps--but it's something she's going to need to have done again eventually due to her skin type. Also, we got her EEG results to her US doctor who has had a chance to look at them, and said they're "normal"-ish for her. So... we're really confused about what's going on there.

Anyway, Ilo and Moquegua this week. Hopefully I have some relaxing job so I can take a lot of pictures again (since I'm now official photographer for MMI's work in Peru--unpaid of course :-P). I've also been updating pictures from Tania's various missions to the MMI website (http://txo.mmint.org/Projects_Photos_Gallery/Albums.aspx), and I'm working on a YouTube account for their promotional video materials.

Talk to you all soon!!!

Valentines Day in the Hospital

Will and I were supposed to go to Ilo last Sunday but as many of you know I went to the hospital last Friday (the 13th) because I had two seizures. I don't remember much about the experience, just bits and pieces. So I've taken the week to rest since I still have a cold. My EEG was abnormal, so I have to get another in a month. And I've been having ear issues for about 2 weeks, so I finally went to an ear doctor who is going to clean my ear out so I can hear again. I've been full of problems since I got to Arequipa, but hopefully things get better now. Will and I have been doing work at MMI's office in Arequipa this week since we couldn't go to Ilo, and we're going to go Friday or Saturday.

I'm doing much better now and Will has been staying with me to make sure I've been taking my medicine on time and that I'm ok, which makes me feel better for right now.

-Catherine

Ceviche

I have tried this Peruvian delicacy, and I have decided it is, indeed, good. We went to Don Piero yesterday, a trout restaurant just outside of the main part of the city, in Sachaca (the location of my infamous bus mishap--which I think I wrote about). This trout place was soooooo good, that anyone that visits me will be taken there. I promise. Mmmmm.

Today things were a lot more relaxing after our long weekend. We went to MMI´s office, had a devotional, talked about plans for the upcoming week, and then did work. I´m currently working on uploading pictures to the MMI website for the Ica mission, as well as reviewing the MMI Peru songbook to make some minor grammatical and content changes in both the English and Spanish songs. Tomorrow is more of the same, and a few other things as well as they come up.

The plan now is to go to Ilo Wednesday to help out with the mission there, then Moquegua the week after. After that, we have a week break, then two missions back to back in the central part of Peru (the second in Lima where we´ll be able to see our Peruvian friends from the Ica mission).

Anyway, now that life is a bit more settled, I hope to be able to walk around more and take more pictures. That is, after my work gets done each day. We´ll see how it turns out, as we´re supposed to be keeping stress (physical and mental) to a minimum as per the doctor´s orders over the next week or two. So, hopefully pictures of Arequipa incoming. Now that I feel a bit more comfortable around here as well, and know how to comport myself.

So that´s the goal: rest and pictures.

Til next time!
-Will

Photos

Alright, I figured out what was wrong with the albums I posted last... in my supreme brightness, or by the fault of Picasa (not sure which), they were posted as unlisted albums. Soooo, those trying to look at Clinic Day 5, Clinic Day 4, and the Islas Ballestas photos... you couldn't seem them. Well, now you can! You might have to go back a page to see them, but they're there and worth seeing.

Now, I owe you all three clinic days (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday), and I would have pictures from last Thursday as well, but, unfortunately, my poor Catherine was very sick with Montezuma's revenge, or whatever the Peruvian version would be. So I was taking care of her in the hotel instead. So! Three days of clinic pictures for your viewing pleasure!

Please let me know if you can't see three separate albums below, and I'll try to figure out what's going on.


Clinica Day 6 - Ica


Clinica Day 7 - Ica


Clinica Day 8 - Ica

Phew

It seems that a crisis had been averted. While I understood that I was going to have to drive here in Peru, I expected to be able to have a few weeks (days even) of practice before I was required to do anything extreme... like drive 4 hours between cities--or even around major cities. I guess there was a little miscommunication going on, and I found out yesterday (Thursday) that I was being asked to drive the MMI van between Arequipa and Ilo. I guess Tania didn´t know either, but that the director of that project assumed that I was going to be able to.

This is no normal van, mind you, it is a 15-seater, the size of a small bus. And so the prospect of driving a behemoth such as that, down the small and overcrowded roads here in Peru had me a little nervous, since the last car that was even close to that size that I have driven was my mom´s old truck. And even that I didn´t take out for more than half an hour at a time on back country roads.

Fun fun. Anyway, through a bit of negotiation, Tania and I were able to convince the project director that we were better off if someone else drove this trip. Fine, good, yay. But it still means I get to look forward to driving in the near future.

But plans are final, we leave for Ilo on Sunday, where we´ll be for a week, then off to Monquegua for another week. Supposedly the best avocados in this part of Peru are from Monquegua... mmmmm. I´m supposed to bring back a bag full for Catherine´s host mom. Besides that, it looks likely that I´m going to get to translate this time around, which means less photos, but less running. I´ll do my best to get lots of pictures however.

Tonight. Dinner, then bible study small group, then maybe go out with Catherine´s host sister. The first two things for sure!

Tongue Twisters (Trabalenguas)

Pedro Pablo Pérez Pinto, pobre pintor portugués, pinta paisajes por poco precio, para poder pasear por París.

---

Guerra tenía una parra, Parra tenía una perra, ayer la perra de Parra, rompió la parra de Guerra. Y Guerra pegó con su porra a la perra de Parra. Un vecino del barrio, preguntó a Guerra ¿por qué pegas con tu porra a la perra de Parra? Porque la perra de Parra rompió la parra de Guerra.

Scorpions!!!

I'm doing much better now. I'm on antibiotics and they are killing off the creatures inside. I was sick since Thursday and everyone was very concerned they were going to send me to the Clinic for an analysis but the antibiotics ended up working. I still have a cold, but I have a few more days to recover. I've lost 10 pounds from all this--being sick, more exercise, and a new diet, which is the plus side of all this.

Will and I are enjoying our time here in Arequipa. Teresa, my host mom, and Tania's aunt is spoiling us like crazy. She babied and took cared of me like crazy while I was sick and she feeds us tons of food. She feeds me so much I feel like I might explode--but I feel like I should eat all of my food, I don't want to hurt her feelings. This is why I don't get how I lost weight.

Will and I bought cellphones on the 7th. My US cellphone did not work here, it was locked, so we had to buy me a phone, but now Will and I can keep in touch while we are apart.

And lastly, last night I found a "scorpion" in my room. We don't know what type of bug it was but it had pincers and claws and a tail and it looked like a scorpion--they don't have scorpions in Arequipa. Teresa had never seen a bug like the one in my room and later she asked her husband about it and he thinks maybe I brought it with my suitcase from Ica--the desert.

The End.

-Catherine,

Arequipa

We’ve been in Arequipa for 3 full days now. I spent all of Friday sleeping. I thought I was better today and was very excited, but I had a relapse. So unfortunately I’m still sick, maybe slowly getting better, but not quick enough.

Will and I took this week off to recuperate, which was needed since I’m still not better and he is a little sick as well. We’re a little bored since we’ve already developed a routine of him coming over for lunch and hanging out with me until dinner and then going home. Yesterday I couldn’t really go out for very long, but today we were out all day, exploring Arequipa, our new home.

We’re leaving for Ilo, Peru around Friday, I think. We’re going to have a different director for this mission than we had for the last. Hopefully I feel better soon because I don’t really want to show up sick – granted at least there will be a lot of doctors there. I’ll write soon. I now have a notebook so I can write whenever I want!

Also, we have cell phones now, which is good so now we contact each other :)

Catherine

PS I’m afraid my computer might be broken for good – but who knows, it sometimes surprises me. But I have a notebook, my host mom has a good computer, and there are internet cafes which are super cheap. And Will has a computer as well. So I’ll make it.

Of Arequipa and Internet Cafes

We arrived in Arequipa yesterday, and have now seen the houses where we´re going to spend the next 6 months of our lives. We did pretty well for ourselves, I must say! Catherine especially did very well, she has wifi and a billion other things! Plus her host family is amazing! They´re so nice, and since they´re used to hosting people, they know how to make you feel comfortable, welcome, and well fed :).

I´m living in the NGO´s warehouse, which isn´t near as bad as it sounds. First off, it is a house, a real house, just 3/4ths of it is converted into storage of medicine and medical supplies and equipment. But it´s a decent sized house, and my room is very nice, with two window-covered walls. The bathroom is really nice as well, I just need to figure out how to get hot water out of the shower... especially for the upcoming winter months. The kitchen is still in disarray, but MMI bought me a fridge and a microwave, but I still have to purchase a small 2-burner stovetop for cooking. That means no baking at my house, but Catherine´s host family already told me I could cook over there once in a while if I got the urge.

Right now I´m sitting in the first internet cafe I could find that was open--about 6 blocks from my house. Every time I use an internet cafe here, I promise myself that next timé I´m going to bring my laptop. The computers available are slow, untrustworthy, and often have keyboards that stick (and the browser window will freeze up for 10-20 seconds at a time at random intervals). I never do however.

Anyway, the plan for today is:
Go shopping for basic things like water...
Figure out where the light switch for my kitchen is.
Plug in the fridge and microwave
Head to Catherine´s house at 11:45 for lunch and shopping
Get a local cell chip for my cell phone
Rest some more and try to feel better.

It´s not supposed to be a very stressful day. We´re still trying to aclimatize to the elavation (up to 7800 feet from sea level). It´s sad when I get tired carrying a suitcase up 3 flights of stairs. So I´m walked around my house, probably a few miles yesterday, and probably will do something smiliar today. Anyway time to go shopping! I´ll have pictures up from the last few days of clinic soon. Oh! And church tomorrow :)

Big hugs for everyone
-Will

Sickness :(

Forward: I wrote a really long and heartfelt post about being sick and my new host family, but it´s stuck in my computer. So you get a shorter version.

Will and I have just arrived in Arequipa today, after a 10+ hour bus ride with me being sick. I got sick yesterday, Thursday, and so I missed my last day of work. Will stayed home with me to take care of me and force water down my throat since I felt to dizzy to sit up and drink at some points. Luckily the bus ride was a night bus, a doctor I know gave me a sleeping pill, and I also had anti-diarrhea pills which helped for the long ride here.

My new home is lovely. My family is great too and they have been spoiling me and overfeeding me and taking great care of both me and Will. I think I´ll be happy here. Hopefully I get better soon because it sucks being sick when you first get someplace.

That´s is for now.
-Catherine

Second Week

It´s our second week in Peru and things are definitely different than last week. I was just getting used to things, and then people left and new doctors came and are prescribing tons of new medicines that I´ve never heard of, and we don´t have as much extra help - it´s rough. Yesterday was really hard because it was just me and the new nurse, and there were so many people that Tania had to come and help us in the pharmacy. Today was the opposite. We have a 3rd person now, which is nice. Today was rough for the doctors since there was only 2 rather than 3. Overall, I think this week has started off a little shakey, but I´m sure it´ll end well (once we all get into the grove of things again).

Sunday Will and I went to church in the evening. It was interesting. They had us come onto stage and say our names and sing...it was a little weird. Tania was joking before we left saying that since I was the only gringa that they would probably want me to do a solo :P They didn´t, but I did get a lot of besitos (cheek kisses). It was a little crazy with all the attention.

We leave for Arequipa on Thursday evening on an evening bus. We get a week or so to rest which will be nice. It´ll be nice to have a room to myself again for a little while, but mostly it´ll be nice to not have such a large suitcase! It´s obnoxious! Anyways, that´s it for today.

Catherine

Earthquakes and Surgeries

I know this is quite suspenseful and all, but yesterday we had a small earthquake (to figure out the significance of this, look up the earthquake in Ica, Peru in 2007)and Catherine learned she had to have a minor surgery done here--don´t worry, it´s nothing big.

Anyway, just a day and a half more of work this week before we head to Arequipa (Willy is buying our bus tickets--with our money of course--right now) to set up a more premanent residence. It´s been a good mission--very trying with the small volunteer base, but a lot of fun. My Spanish went from ok to great to bad over the course of the first 7 days here. But that always happens to me.

I still haven´t downloaded the pictures from the last two days of clinic due to being extremely busy--mostly leisure after the mission day, some due to work. Hopefully those turned out well, and that I´ll have them uploaded soon (and probably apended to this post).

With this, however, I will leave you. I have to get some sleep tonight. As much fun as it is to have 5 rambunxious Peruvian roommates, it bodes badly for sleep quantity and quality. I guess there are less social stipulations about making/receiving phonecalls and text messages at night. Maybe it´s just a youth thing.

Goodnight all!

P.S. No english spell check plus a tired will means some likely spelling mistakes. I´ll fix it when I can connect to the internet with my computer again (like I did on Sunday)

People Come and Go

Ok, I probably didn’t mention this before, but despite the heat, the idea of a cold shower just doesn’t appeal to me. Neither in theory nor in practice. I just got out of said shower, and it was painful. But it’s a shower… being clean is good.

So. It was a somewhat sad weekend, since we lost a good portion of our already-small team. Several people had to return home or go along their way, and were unable to stay the entire two weeks. A few replacements are coming in, but not as many as we lost—and they have to be shown around the clinic. It’ll work out fine. At least we’re still able to offer all three services to people—our optometrist left, but we’re getting another one!

In other news, I took a picture that finally replaced the background image of my computer this weekend. Yesterday we went to Paracas, which is a little north of Ica for a tour of the Islas Ballestas (Photo album below). There we saw all sorts of birds, penguins included, as well as sea lions and dolphins.

Catherine, Wilfredo, and I went. It was about five hours in total, and a lot of fun. We didn’t really get burnt at all, which was great considering Friday consisted of an open field and a LOT of sun for the clinic day (Photo album below). We came back from the tour, rested for a few hours, then went and played in the swimming pool for about 2 hours. We played a no-rules no-holds-barred version of water polo/rugby. No one got hurt, but a lot of people swallowed a little water and got a little banged up. Catherine was brave enough to play too! We also recruited someone else who was using the pool, so we had a game of three versus three. Lots of fun. Anyway, today we’re going to rest and then go to service tonight.



Las Islas Ballestas



Clinic Day 5 - Ica

The first week

It’s been a while since I’ve updated. My computer has been acting a little weird, especially the past couple of days; I think it doesn’t like the heat so much – neither do I. But at least it is still working, it’s just a little flakey.

We’ve completed 1 week of clinics, and visited 3 different pueblitos last week. My job for now is to work in the Pharmacy getting familiar with the medications. I don’t really get to work a lot with the patients, but it’s still fun and we work hard in the pharmacy. I’m not a nurse or a doctor so it’s a little harder for me, because I don’t know the different names for medication – the brand name versus its medical name, but I'm getting familiar with things.

Our director, Tania, says that MMI is invited to each village we go to, and the village has to provide some type of location for us to set up our supplies. We have dentists, medical doctors, an eye doctor and a pharmacy so we take up quite a bit of space. We had a whole school that was donated from a Canadian NGO on Wednesday and Thursday and it was nice, but on Friday we had a bamboo room which was only enough space for the dentists and eye doctor, everybody else was placed outdoors someplace, scattered throughout the village. The pharmacy was placed under a huge tree, it was kind of nice though with the breeze and all.

These villages were basically destroyed by the earthquake in 2007 since they weren’t well constructed in the first place – so a lot of the homes have tarp covered roofs and a lot of rubble. And they don’t have a very good access to health care, especially dentists, so the whole village basically comes, mostly women and children, but there are some men as well, to get medical care. They also receive health education, which is very good as well.

Week 1 is done, and overall, I’m having a good time and learning a lot. I’m meeting a lot of great people and they are doing really good things for these small villages. I’ll write again soon.

Love,
Catherine