Week 8

This week was quite an adventure. I finally got to get off base for a while and get to do some real missionary type of work. It really got my energy up and back into the spirit of working out here in Peru. I really was dragging for a while and it was really hard to motivate myself to get up every morning, put on my work boots and head on out into the jungle and machette or carry lumber. But this really brought my energy back.

To start off the week, we had a free day with the manual labor team because we had completed all of our tasks for the two month stand. But instead of having an entire day off to do whatever we wanted, such as play soccer, basketball, and go swimming, the doctor wanted us to be productive and go and help other people. The idea wasn't a bad one, so we agreed and ended up going to a hospital for a few hours and visiting with the sick people there. It was a good experience and I think the doctor had a good idea. After visiting, we played some basketball in a park in pucallpa. We tried to teach the peruvian workers, but that was an epic fail. They just can´t handle the basketball well, or shoot at all, haha. After some basketball, we just ate lunch and headed back to base. It was a great day off of work and an excellent way to start off the week. Tuesday, we just hauled lumber out of the jungle all day. Not as bad as you think, but way more primitive than we would do in America. It's not a bad task, and a pretty good workout. I kind of like doing it actually.

Wednesday is where the real fun begins. We had a 3 day dental trip at km 4, the town where Julie is staying. I got to learn how to numb people up and yank some teeth on the fly. The first day I just watched a lot and learned how to give the lidocaine shot. I actually practiced on Julie how to give a bottom IA block, numbing her entire bottom left jaw, tongue, and cheek. I hit it perfectly, and she was numb for a long time, ha ha. Thursday, I actually got to pull my first tooth. It´s a lot harder than it actually looks. I was just too careful initially and needed to just force my way in there. Finally, with some coaching from the rest of the team, I was able to finally twist that sucker out. I felt really bad for the guy, they have no idea that when we´re there, speaking english right above his face, that the other people are teaching me exactly what to do and where to stick the needle and stuff, ha ha. But they get free dental care and I get to practice doing something pretty fun. I didn´t end up working on many more patients. I pulled 4 teeth and 2 root tips out of a little girl on friday, poor girl. She was young and absolutely hated the dentist, and she had no idea that i was brand new. I struggled for over an hour trying to get everything out, but finally did. It was a good struggle, the more problems gives me more practice. I get more practice in 3 weeks and another clinic in kilometer 8.

Julie had a pretty relaxing week. It was her last week of VBS, so she was pretty excited to get that over with. She finished up with the kids and was trying to keep planning for her park. It was awesome that I got to see her for a few days that week. I don't envy her at all where she lives. I slept terrible and did not like the bucket showers at all. I'm extremely glad where I live and I'm sure Julie will appreciate coming back to base as well.

Also, a group of us missionaries entered a basketball tournament in town and played a game on wednesday night. They had us play an exhibition game to see if we were good enough. They put us up against a mix of some of their best players. We just played 2 ten minute periods. It was a lot of fun playing some real basketball against some peruvians. We definitely were good enough for their tournament. We won by a ton and are ready for the tournament now. We were supposed to have a game on Saturday night, but there was some miscommunication, so there ended up being no game. But I´ll keep you updated on what happens throughout the tournament.

Sorry for writing this so late, Sunday was an unnecessarily busy day. I´ll write a new one this Sunday to keep things flowing again.