Week 14

The story of our trip to Inahuay is waiting for our boat. We were planning on leaving to Inahuay on a Thursday afternoon, planning on arriving to Inahuay on Friday afternoon. Yes, I know, the boat trip really is 24 hours long. And that’s down river with the current! Well, of course our boat was not ready to leave on Thursday afternoon, in fact there was no boat at the dock. Josh finally figured things out and found that a boat leaves Saturday at noon. So we get ready the truck packed and head down there early to be waiting to board the boat and get a good spot for our hammocks. We arrive early enough that we are the first ones to arrive on the boat and set everything up. The hammocks and set right up next to each other, and we are spacious. Then the boat starts to fill up as more people begin to board. Then the boat starts to becomes overly cramped as people are packing in, putting their hammocks everywhere, including in between ours. The boat is finally packed tight, we are cramped. And of course, the boat doesn’t leave on time. In fact, the boat doesn’t leave until 7:00 that night as we wait on the boat for hours before it leaves. We travel down river for 24 hours straight, stopping along the way dropping of various items and people that live in remote villages along the Ucayali. I remember soda being a popular drop off item in those remote parts, gotta get your sugar fix somehow out there. We arrive in Inahuay Sunday afternoon and move in to our hostel.

A local nurse/dentist down there is running for the mayor of the town and hooked us up with a free stay in the hostel for the entire time we were there. We begin clinic on Monday as usual as help as many people as humanly possible. It was packed, but the people were really patient. When we overbooked the Dental side, the people understood they might be helped in the morning and were willing to come back that afternoon. No one was pushy and they were very nice to us. Tuesday, the clinic team split into two so we can help more people. I was on the smaller, travel team and Julie stayed with the bigger, base team. I hopped onto a small, pecky pecky, as they call it and headed off on the river to a couple of remote villages. Again, the people were so grateful. The people made us lunch, chicken soup, and it tasted amazing. Martin, one of the missionaries that went to Inahuay only a few months earlier with the dental team kept telling us that those remote villages will kill a chicken for us and make amazing chicken soup. Well, they didn’t kill a fresh chicken I’m pretty sure, because it was pretty hard meat. However, the soup was good and I was grateful. While I was off eating chicken soup, Julie stayed with the base team in Inahuay for another day to finish up everyone there. The next day Julie got to come with us up the river to another remote village on a pecky pecky. I really don’t remember much of the villages or the people, but the places were beautiful. I do remember meeting some shipivo people. These people don’t really speak Spanish, and all the ladies dress the same. They are all old, and I’m pretty sure they are dying out without the culture being carried down the generation.

I am becoming more confident as a dentist, and I am starting to have a good time. It is always a little stressful at times with the screaming child that won’t cooperate, but you learn tricks along the way to coax, trick them into cooperation. It’s also very difficult to dig out root tips at times, but my savior Colt, always knew the trick to get them out. I tried to help out in pharmacy one day when the dental load was light, and know I see whey Julie had a hard time at first. The doctor’s handwriting is horrific and there are just a bunch of pills everywhere, very difficult to find the ones you need. The doctor writes prescriptions at a 100 mph and it’s very difficult for the pharmacy people to keep up. I started to get the hang of it, but I’m glad my job was just to pull teeth and the occasional screaming child. We ended the week well at a really pretty village with cliffs overlooking the river. The medical team was running out of medicine and the dental team was running out of patience. I finished off my term as a dentist pulling out 4 molars on a screaming 3 year old, priceless!

We ended our trip up the river with a trip to some hotwater springs in Contomana. The ride up to the water springs was a 2 hour off-road adventure, but it was worth it. Julie and I sat in the springs for 4 hours straight, extremely refreshing. What a perfect, relaxing vacation as our adventures as missionaries in Peru come to a close. We had a good time, learned a lot, but are extremely glad to come back home to the United States where live is oh so comfortable.

Week 13

This week has been a pretty chill week after the hectic week of clinic we just came off of. This has been pretty much a preparing week for the next mecical campaign down the river. I worked 3 days with the manual labor guys hauling wood out of the jungle again. It was actually pretty nice to get back to this sort of work. I was pretty tired dealing with so many patients every day. I was definitely ready to back to some manual labor with the guys.

Julie has been helping the other nurses prepare the pharmacy for the upcoming clinic. I think she made cotton balls and gauze or something like that. She also made packages for mini surgeries that the doctor will do in the upcoming clinic. Neither of us had hard work this week. It was very relaxing and the perfect way to spend the week before we start another clinic.

This week is also Semana Santa, also known as Easter. We had nightly meetings for the kids at Santa Elvita. Once again, I had to give the opening sermon for the series. The topic was about forgiveness and how Jesus could still forgive those who were persectuing him while on the cross. The kids attention span isn't the greatest, so you have to go over the points pretty quickly. I think the kids are becoming better listeners though. I hope they get a little bit out of our messages, but I'll never know until heaven. It's been fun being able to preach, but I'm definitely not a future David Asscherick or anything. I don't get nervous at public speaking, and my spanish is comfortable enough where I don't need to prepare that much anymore, so all those things help me to be able to give an effective sermon (I hope).

Anyways, we leave for Inahuaya tomorrow. The boat ride takes about 20 hours, so that should be interesting. Once we're there, the group will split into to 2 groups: one bigger, more stationary unit, and a smaller more mobil unit. I chose to be on the smaller travel team and Julie decided to stay with the big group. There are supposed to be a lot of adventures this upcoming week and I'm really excited to be able to get out there and do something different. Hopefully it will be an amazing way to end my stay here as a student missionary.

Weeks 11 & 12

Sorry we haven't written in a while, things have been crazy around here recently. Let's see...we had a group from Ozark Academy come down for their spring break. The poor kids were a little bit shocked to find out that they would be taking bucket showers and using an outhouse, but they got used to it after the first few days. When they first arrived we heard nothing but complaining. I asked one of the girls how she liked Peru and she said, "It's nice. Except I don't like the bugs. Or the heat. Or the humidity. And I don't like taking bucket showers or working in the field." Welcome to Peru, haha.

Before the high schoolers arrived we decided to play a little prank on them. Our cook, Jose is from the Dominican Republic originally but grew up in New York and goes to Southern. He decided to pretend not to speak any English. Whenever the kids wanted to say something to Jose we would have to translate for them. They all had to help him out with the cooking and it was hilarious hearing them try and communicate with him. They literally knew zero spanish. Jose said to one of the girls, "Cual es tu nombre?" and she looked at him blankly and said "I don't speak spanish." Then Jose was like "Tu nombre. Mi nombre es Jose. Cual es tu nombre?" and she still had no idea. I don't know what they're teaching those kids in Arkansas, but Spanish certainly is not in the curriculum. Each day Jose would speak some English to one of the kids to see if they would notice but they never caught on. He talked to one of them in English for a full 2 minutes at one point and then switched back to Spanish without him noticing. Finally after about 3 days Jose announced at dinner time, "I speak English perfectly." The kids just looked at him and said, "Who taught him how to say that?" It took a while for them to actually believe that he spoke English and a lot of them were mad that we had tricked them. But it was a lot of fun for us and it gave me good practice with translating.

After the Ozark kids left, we had a week-long medical/dental clinic at kilometer 8. A group from Eastern Virginia Medical School came down to help us out. A group of them were working on getting their MPH and as part of the program they had to get experience with community mapping. So during the day a group would go out into the community and do a survey, finding out where people get their water from, how many kids they have, etc. Not sure what they are going to do with the information once they get back to the States, but they seemed to think that the information was pretty important. There were 4 medical students, 3rd-year resident, and a doctor that came with the group as well. Since we had so much extra help we were able to see 1066 patients in 6 days. It was a mad house! People would start lining up outside the church where we were having the clinic at 4 am. At 6:30 we started registration. I got stuck doing registration this clinic. Not a fun job at all, especially when you have to turn people away who have been waiting in line for hours.

Once registration was over, I helped out with getting the heights and weights of all the kids under 6 and the blood pressure of adults over 20. Then I worked in the pharmacy filling prescriptions and giving shots and talking to the patients about each of the medicines. It's exhausting, but really good practice. Then around 12:30 I had to start afternoon registration and do everything all over again. It was pretty much non-stop from 6:30 am to 6:00 pm every day. Craziness! I got to help the doctor out with removing a growth on this girls ear and with a circumcision. I don't think that urology will be a field I'm interested in. Sorry, dad!

Brett was on the dental team and they had their hands full as well. They saw almost 230 patients and between Brett and this other guy named Colt, they pulled almost 190 teeth! The other two guys on the dental team did fillings. Brett's last patient of the week turned out to be a nightmare. He numbed her all up and started pulling and her jaw came out of socket. Once Brett realized this he stopped and it popped back into place. He didn't want to continue and was going to send her home, but the doctor wanted to pull it out for some reason. So he had one of the guys hold this poor womans jaw out of socket while he pulled the tooth out. While he was pulling, the woman actually fainted. I don't know if it was from pain or what, but she was out cold. So we had to give her an IV shot for pain and then she just lay there for about an hour while we packed everything up. Then we drove her home and dropped her off with a bag full of Tylenol. Needless to say, I definitely will not be having any dental work done while in Peru.

Anyway, things are pretty much wrapping up here. We have one more clinic and then we leave to travel around for about 10 days before heading back to the good ole US of A. Hope everything is well at home. Thanks for reading!

Week 9 & 10

The weeks have started to go by really quickly lately. All the days are blending together and it's really hard to separate out in my mind what we have been doing. We have started to become accustumed to life here in Peru. Waking up sore every morning, having to go back to the grind for another 8 hour day in the hot, humid, miserable jungle. Or for Julie, dealing with kids and having them bug her nonstop, all the time. We have become used to this sort of work, and it's become a routine now. However, we definitely have started to feel the effects of homesickness, Julie a lot more than me. America is just a lot more comfortable and easier in every way possible. Food, sleep, work, climate, and the list goes on and on. But I know for a fact that it was been a good experience so far, and I'm extremely glad that I chose to come down here for these 4 months. I know I have a month left, but the time is going to fly by and before I know it, I'll be back in America.

These past two weeks are kind of blended together for me. I can't remember what I did exactly each day, but we did finally go down to km 4 and set up Julie´s jungle gym for the kids. It was a mess of a day because it decided to rain the day we went to set it up. It was such a miserable ride down there in the back of the truck. And it was even harder getting the area ready to put up the equipment, because the site was a complete mud pit. But the rain did decide to quit enough for us to get the equipment in the ground and cemented in there so no one can steal them. I came back a few days later on my own and bought paint for them. The day that Julie and I wanted to paint them, the weather decided to play with us, and it was another downpour, ha ha. I had to come back another time and we finally were able to paint just the monkey bars. There was a big miscommunication with the paint and primer and all the things they want you to mix in the paint here. The paint apparently doesn´t come ready to be brushed on here, and that was just a mess trying to figure out how to get it right. We finally just started slapping the paint on the wood, so hopefully it will stick for a few years. The kids absolutely love the jungle gym and we couldn´t even keep them off it for us to paint them. Julie eventually finished painting the other 2 swing sets. It looks really cool and we put on some extremely bright colors to really make them looks flashy. I think the kids are going to love them and it was a really good idea to put them there. I know there will be some broken bones because of us, but that´s just a part of growing up, at least for me it was, haha.

The past two weeks we've been playing in a basketball tournament in Pucallpa. It´s been a lot of fun just getting off of 38 and being able to play some sports. We started off 3-0, but had a couple of really close games. One game, each team only had 5 players, so none of us could foul out or that would be trouble. The game was neck and neck the whole time. The peruvian style is so much different than ours. All they do is fastbreak and cherry pick the whole time. We like to play big and slower. The two styles clash and it makes for an interesting game. We seem to not be able to stop the fastbreak, but they just can´t handle our power and height. In the end, we ended up winning by one point, my free throw with 10 seconds left in the game. It felt good, but it only lasted for about 4 days. Our next game was against the guy who is running the tournament and been watching all of our games. He knows our strengths and weaknesses. He told Jose, our cook who got us in the tournament, that he was going to beat us badly. We had no idea what was coming. Apparently the guy brought in some ringers from the mountains to play against us, and I believe it. Ther were two guys taller and bigger than me and a point guard that could handle and shoot the ball really well. The game was extremely close the entire time, we were actually winning for the majority of it. But inevitably, the fastbreak started catching up with us and it ended up killing us. Another killer was the fact that I couldn't outrebound them every time because of their two tall guys. It was a hard battle, but I'm sure we would have won if our two best players hadn't fouled out at the beginning of the 4th quarter. The refs are obviously not for us, so that's always a struggle too. So our perfect record is tainted at 3-1 with two games left in the tournament. I´ll keep you updated on how it ends, and the revenge that I personally seek on the Raptors.

The girls also got to play a game last week. Julie was the team's point guard and it was quite a site. I know Julie doesn't play basketball or even like the sport for that matter, but she was out there giving it her all. The girls only had 5 players, and boy were they exhausted. I've never seen Julie sweat so much in her life. They eneded up loosing pretty badly, not necessarily because they aren't good, but they other team had some amazing players. Yet again the fastbreak killed the Americans. This tournament has been something good for everyone to get off base and relax a little. I'm glad the Doctor let us join and have a life outside of 38.

Julie's campaign ended and she is now back at 38. I know she's extremely glad to be back at a more comfortable location. Plus she doesn't have to deal with a 100 kids everyday. Next week, a group of 23 highschoolers are coming from Ozark Academy. So...we´ll see how hard these guys can really work. They're coming to help us machette in the fields and construct some random things the doctor wants. It should be interesting with all the people that will be there, I think a total of 50 will be a base. Way too many.

Until next time, hope everyone has a awesome and exciting week.

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.

Week 7

Last week was pretty relaxing for me actually. I worked on planning out the playground and garden and did VBS. Life as usual here in Peru! I met Brett and Daniel (one of the Peruvian manual labor guys) in Pucallpa on Tuesday and we bought all the supplies for the playground--wood, rope, metal, clamps, screws, etc. Things are a lot harder to find here than in the States. Unfortunately there is no Home Depot where you can get everything you need in one place. Finding the supplies for the playground was an all day affair. We probably went to 20 different stores looking for various things. To make things even more difficult, we weren't even sure exactly what we were looking for. Luckily Daniel had an idea of what he wanted. I don't know what we would have done without him! We'd probably still be looking for supplies right now.

We went to a menú for lunch that day and a meal for three people ended up costing us about $3. Unfortunately it cost me about 5 lbs. as well since I got sick from the food. I was sick for the rest of the week and still have not recovered completely from it. In fact I'm waiting for lab results right now as I'm writing this. The results were supposed to be ready this morning but now they're saying it won't be until this afternoon, leaving me with quite a bit of time to kill in town. Hopefully it's something relatively easy to get rid of. Being sick did have its advantages though. I got to go back to 38 on Friday afternoon and then slept all day Saturday.

Brett's week was a little more eventful. I don't remember exactly what he did on Monday...I think he may have helped Juanito in the jungle cutting down trees. Then on Wednesday and Thursday he helped Daniel build one of the swingsets. I got to see it when I went back to 38 this weekend and it looks really good! I can't wait to see everything when it's finished. We're doing two swingsets with 3 swings each, monkey bars, and a see-saw. They're building everything at 38 and then taking it apart and bringing it to where I live sometime next week I think.

On Friday Brett let one of the other manual labor guys help out with the swingset because he felt guilty that he had an "easy job." Instead he worked on dragging the trees out of the jungle from 8 am until 2 pm, with no lunch break! I don't know how the manual labor guys do it... It's so hot and humid here it's a miracle they don't pass out. I can barely stand running around after the kids for 3 hours every day and they're out there all day!

Saturdays in Peru are not at all restful (unless you're sick, then you get to sleep all day without feeling guilty!). The church that Brett goes to keeps him especially busy. First he goes to Sabbath school, then church, then at 3:00 he visits people and give Bible studies to people who haven't been coming to church recently and tries to bring them back to church, and finally at 4:00 there is a meeting for the youth with games and a short sermon. Saturdays where I am are just as busy. I do Sabbath school with about 75 kids, then sit in church with the kids and try and keep them quiet. After church we go back to the house and make lunch and have a little down time before the youth meeting at 4:30. Then to top it all off we have social games after sundown. Normally you would think that social games would be fun, but I don't think they are. The games pretty much involve running around in circles to music and then doing the chicken dance. And I wish that were an exaggeration. The Peruvians here seem to enjoy it though so that's what matters. By the time Sabbath is over you need another day of rest to recover from your day of "rest".

Luckily Sundays are restful in general. We get to go into town, get internet, eat, walk around, and pretty much chill. Definitely a good time to recover from the week and get ready for the next. Well, I think that pretty much sums up our week. Thanks for reading!

Week 6, sorry for the tardiness

This week was quite a busy week for me (Brett) because it was Week of Prayer at my church, Santa Elvita. After working out in the field for 8 hours, we had to go to the church for 2 hours every night. It was a pretty tiring task for me. I had to open up the Week of Prayer on Monday. The theme was ¨Brighten In Me¨ literally translated. Not sure if it makes sense in english, but that's what is was. On monday I basically had the ¨wake up ¨ message for the week. I preached about how we shouldn't just stay in our comfort zones and that we need to try new stuff and push ourselves as Christians. To wrap up Week of Prayer, we had a party on Sunday. It opened up with games at 10 in the morning on a field. We did all the camp relay games and had some good, clean competition. My team, of course, won haha. We were called the ¨conquistadors¨ and had a great time showing everyone how talented we really were. I had 3 little peruvian kids on my team from the church, we had a great time. In the evening, there was a valentine dinner for everyone from the church. Julie helped decorate for the valentine dinner, and it looked great. There were some cheesy games played before dinner, but the funniest one was for the couples. Of course they elected and have Julie and me play. The object was for the couples to turn around and not face each other and stand about 5 meters apart. Then on the male side, we had to crow like a rooster, each of us one at a time. And then the girls had to chose which crow was her man, it was called ¨eso es mi gallo¨. It was good fun and great food, i think the week of prayer worked out really well.

On Thursday, we had a day off to be able to watch the superbowl, but this didn´t work out so well. Apparently, when the people downloaded the superbowl, they didn´t realize they had only gotten the first half. So after all the waiting and anticipation, i was only able to watch the first half. I did eventually get to watch the second half earlier this week. I was such good revenge to see the Colts lose after they beat up my Bears 3 years ago, as i watched that game in the dorm in Spain at 4 in the the morning.

Work was pretty much the same. We basically mowed the 1-2 foot high grass around 38 with machettes. This work is brutal and my hands blistered up so quickly. I couldn´t even use my right hand the next day, and ended up switching to using my left hand. Work here is amazingly difficult and painful on the body, but in the end it rewarding. I love working with the peruvians. We always have a great time talking and joking around. I'm really happy with the job I have and would never trade it for any other job here.

Julie had a pretty chill week she said. She went to pucallpa pretty much everyday to plan for her park that she's going to be putting in the area where she's living. She was trying to figure out how many jungle gym items she can afford along with all the plants. It's quite a task and takes a long time. I went down to pucallpa after work on friday with one of the peruvian workers that know a lot about building. We went everywhere to get prices on wood, screws, bars of iron and everything else we need for the park. It´s a lot of work because no one really knows anything about jungle gyms, and around here they're mostly made out of iron. But I have complete confidence in Daniel that he can make an awesome park for the kids in Mariopesa. It was a really good idea by Julie and it's awesome that her parents funded it. It's gonna be a lot of fun to build.

Julie also went around a neighborhood called, Jardines, to started another VBS for the next three weeks with the kids there. So she's gonna have a lot of fun with that again, ha ha. I hope the kids there will be nicer to her and give her an easier time. It´s hectic trying to deal with so many kids in another language, i can´t even imagine it. I can barely do it at summer camp in english. But it´s a good experience for her I think and she´ll have a lot of stories when she comes back home. It´ll be a time we´ll never forget and can always remember back to what we did in peru. Hope everyone has an amazing weekend, and week 7 will be written on Sunday. Take care!!

Julie's week 5

Wow, I have had the craziest week! So much stuff has happened that I don't even know where to begin. On Tuesday morning I went into the city with Mike to make copies for the kids to color in the afternoon. We got a motorkar back to where we live and right as we were coming up to our street a bunch of guys with their shirts off ran by us. They were all carrying rocks, planks, or machetties in their hands and running in the direction of our house. The motorkar driver stopped and asked someone what was going on and the person said that they were going to fight the police! We were so confused but the motorkar driver told us to go to our house, shut the door, and not come out until it was all over. So we ran to our house and on the way we saw about 50 police with full riot gear on and a crowd of people chucking rocks and whatever else they could find at the police. It was nuts! We went into our house to find out what was going on. Nobody knew for sure what was happening but they told us that this had been going on for a couple hours and that we needed to just stay out of it.

A little later our neighbor told us to come with him and watch from a safe distance. So a couple of us went with him because we were kind of curious as to what would happen. We got over to where the action was happening. This one huge Peruvian woman with a cigarette in one hand and a fence post in the other sees us and yells something to the affect of "the gringos are on our side!" We decided that it probably wasn't a good idea for us to be there so we went back to the house. Later that day we found out what happened. There is an empty plot of land next to our community and a gang from Pucallpa decided to go and squat the land so that they could buy it for a cheap price and then sell it and make money for the gang. I'm not exactly sure how it works but if you live in a place for a month the owner of the land has to sell it to you for a really cheap price. You can then go and sell it to someone else and make a profit. Of course the owners of the land don't want this to happen so they do everything they can to prevent people from squatting the land. They called the police to kick the people out. The police came and were chasing the gang away and one of the guys ran into a house in our community. The police followed and tore the house apart looking for the guy. A 12-yea-old boy was inside and the police got confused nad thought that the boy was a member of the gang and and they beat him and took him to jail. When the people in our community heard about this they got really upset and started fighting the police. It was a huge mess! We were never in danger and everyone is fine. The police left a few days later so I think it's all over now. I guess we'll see though. They tell us that this sort of stuff happens with every invasion community and sometimes it can go on for months or even as long as a year!

Anyway, that was Tuesday. Wednesday had some drama as well. A guy who lives two houses down from us got into a fight with his wife and ended up drinking a whole thing of rat poison and then refused to go to the hospital. So the family comes to get us since we have 4 nurses and the Bible workers. The Bible workers talked to him for a while trying to tell him why life is worth living, etc. etc. and they finally convinced him to let our nurses help him. All we had available was a few charcoal pills though. They ended up having to burn wood and then crush it up and have him drink it. He is still alive as far as I know.

Here in Peru people are deathly afraid of white people. A lot of them believe that if you're white you will kill them and take their organs to sell on the black market. I guess a group of people actually did do this at one time so it has only cemented this idea in their heads even more. They call the gringos "face peelers." A lot of the time people will yell this out at us when we're walking down the street. Anyway, a few days ago this little girl died a few streets away from our house and there are rumors going around that she was cut open and all of her fat was taken out of her. Of course the rumors are also saying that we are the ones that did it. So we have had some problems with people not wanting health lessons or Bible studies anymore... Luckily only a few people are listening to these rumors and most of the people here know that we are their friends and are here to help them, not hurt them.

On Saturday I went to church at a place called Tupac Amaru. They had the last campaign there so they're sending two people there every week to support the church that they set up. It took us about an hour and a half to get there by motokar and it rained the whole way there. For some reason the road is made out of clay so you can imagine the mess it makes when it rains. On the way home we kept getting stuck and the driver and Mike would get out and push the motorkar. At one point, a guy on a motorcycle was passing us and completely lost control of the motorcycle and fell over into a huge puddle. It was so funny! He was pretty embarrassed I think. We got back to where we live and the tent where we have our evangelistic meetings was completely flooded so we had to cancel the meeting for that night. Instead I got to go back to 38 and see Brett! :)

In between all of the drama and excitement I have been going around to various places to find plants for the garden and researching how to build playground equipment. We were given two lots of land and have it all planned out. Now we just need to get started! First we need to clean the place up though. We also had our last week of VBS for the kids in our community and this week we are starting the same program for the kids in the next community over called Los Jardines. Today we've been advertising for it and trying to find a good location to have it as well.

I just ran into somebody from 38 and they told me that the dental trip that Brett was supposed to go on may be cancelled? Not sure why or whether or not it's true. Anyway, that's all for this week!

week 5 (Brett)

I´m writing my version of the week first because Julie did not have enough time to write. This keyboard doesn´t allow me to capitalize some letters, so i´m sorry for you english majors if my blogs aren´t up to par for you guys. You´ll just have to deal with it. :)

My week here was not that exicting at all. On tuesday, we just went back out to the lemon tree field and began hacking away with our machetes. It´s quite tedious and boring, but it´s somehow benefitting the project, so I just go out there and do my blue collar work. Tuesday afternoon was quite interesting because the doctor wanted us to empty our gigantic fish pond that had been filled with tons of water by the rain. There was so much water in this pond and he wanted it emptied for the tractor to be able to finally complete the project. So all of us manual labor guys lined up in a single file line and began taking out the water with buckets. A bucket brigaide!! Absurd right?? Well, this went on for about 45 minutes when we realized that we were doing absolutely nothing and didn't even put a dent in the water in the pond. One of the peruvians started saying that we weren't slaves and shouldn't have to do this, so he just gave up and we all followed. I thought it was pretty funny. 

From wednesday to friday I helped a guy from town that cuts down trees and begins sawing them into pieces. We're going to cut down 15 trees and use the wood to build a church down at santa elvita, the church that i go to every week and preach at occasionally. The job definitely isn't the most exciting thing in the world. I just go out there in the jungle and basically watch him find trees, cut them down, and start sawing them into pieces. I help him move the wood around, but that's about it. It's kind of interesting watching him do this though and it's pretty amazing to see the wood making progress from scratch with a chainsaw. He's an interesting guy and we talk all the time. He's quite hard to understand though; even the Peruvians warned me how he tends to mumble and slur all of his words. We somehow manage to communicate though and ended up talking about Osama Bin Ladin one day for quite a while. The jungle is a pretty amazing place. I just stare off in to the jungle for 30 minutes at a time while he's sawing the wood. Most of the time I'm just trying to ward off the 1000 mosquitos trying to bite me the whole time. For some reason have like a 1000 following me, and the Peruvian guy has like 2 trying to bite him. I don´t understand it at all, it's not fair. I'm gonna try to video the next tree he cuts down and upload some pictures of us working out in the field when i have the chance.

I'm leaving on a dental trip this next friday 12 de febrero untill the 23 de febrero that takes us to 8 different cities in 11 days. It seems like it is going to be pretty exciting and full of amazing stories. I'm not going to release any details for my moms sake until I get back alive, but I'm sure I'll have a lot of stories from this trip. I'm supposed to just go on this trip and learn how to give lidocaine shots and pull teeth on the fly, so wish me luck. Hopefully I will have no fear and will be able to pull a lot of teeth without any problems, haha.

Hopefully I'll be able to watch the superbowl on thursday before I leave. One of the guys here is going to try to download the game tomorrow and we're gonna have a party on Thursday before the dental trip leaves. I don't really care who wins, but last time I was out of the country, I watched the Colts beat up my Bears, so...I do kind of hope to see some revenge. So no one tell me the score so I can watch it. Until I return, que tengan una buena semana.

Week 4 "Brett´s Style¨"

I'm writing this blog late because I could not make it to town on Sunday. Apparently when you eat the food in Peru, it is possible to get some parasites in your GI tract and feel really terrible for a while. I had stomach problems for a few days, took some charcoal, but they still did not go away. After a couple of days I got a fever and felt just horrible the whole day. A nurse that graduated from Southern last year thought that I have some parasites and prescribed some metrodinazole. After resting all day Sunday and taking the day off Monday, I feel a lot better.

This past week was pretty much full of the same slave labor that I do every day. On Monday we went to work on cleaning the sugar cane field in the rain with our machetes. My back felt pretty terrible from bending over all day, but you always feel accomplished after cleaning weeds down to the dirt with a long, metal blade in your right hand. Tuesday we went back to work finishing the fence that surrounds 38. We finally arrived to the end of our property which ends at a town called Yierbas Buenas. This town is full of farmers that grown coca leaves and sell them to people that may use them to make cocaine. When we first arrived there to dig holes for the fence, I saw people carrying out like 10 huge bags full of coca leaves and spread them out on a dirt field to dry in the sun. There were so many leaves everywhere. I asked the guy if I could have some because apparently the mountain people chew on them for energy or something. The guy said i could have some after they dried but never ended up fulfilling his promise. Apparently we have some at 38 if i ever decide to try it.

The rest of the week was pretty much full of the same work. We had to clear a two meter circle around lemon trees so the weeds don't choke them out. It's hotter than satan´s house out there and the humidity is so unbelievable. The peruvians are so fast at machetting, i think they can clear my lawn faster than a lawn mower. They wonder why we use machines in the U.S. when you can "have a good sweat using a machete". I told him that's because Americans are lazy, ha ha. But the work out here really does require a machete more than a machine. The weeds are just way too thick for any week whacker or lawn mower to handle.

The weekend was pretty much full of the same, opening up with friday night vespers at santa elvita. I have to lead out vespers every friday day with another labor manual worker named Dane. Saturday I always lead out the youth sabbath school. It's hard to get those kids to talk about anything. I just have to keep blabbering away with my infantile spanish and try to get them to answer just any questions. I´m gonna have to figure something out. Sunday was a horrible day of sickness. They finally played soccer at 38 with people from yierbas buenas and campo verde, and i couldn't even play.

Monday was a pretty chill day. I took the day off from work and ended up just doing sudoku all day long. It was pretty relaxing. At night, a couple of the girls wanted to go to the tent meetings that were happening where Julie is at and they needed a male companion. I was free so i ended up going with them (plus i wanted to see Julie). We had a pretty interesting ride on the way down there. We ended up taking the van from campo all the way to pullcalpa. On the way we picked up a drunk guy that got on and sat next to one of the girls. He started to smell her hair and act super weird. Luckily, the guy in charge of the van made the guy sit in the back of the bus away from her. That made me feel better because i didn't really want to try to make the guy move myself. Close to arriving the pullcalpa, the owner was starting to collect money for the ride on the way down. Well, of course the drunk guy didn't want to pay. He started causing a fuss, another passager started to get frustrated with the guy asking why he would get on and not expect to pay. Some words were exchanged between the drunk and the other passager, one the phrases ended up offending the passenger and he slapped the drunk. Now, the drunk guy must have been in his 30s or 40s and the other guy is like 60 or so. Well, the drunk guy started swinging and punching the passenger and they started fighting. I let them fight for about 5 seconds before I decided to step in and take control of the situtation. I jumped up and grabbed the drunk guy and threw him against his seat and yelled at his to leave the bus. I think this startled his a lot, but he still didn't want to leave and still tried to fight. So this time I grabbed his and started to choke him a little to really show him that I was serious and told him he had 5 seconds to leave the bus or there would be trouble. I stated to count to five while dragging the man by his arms out of the bus. By the time I counted to five, I dragged him out the bus and threw him to the side of the road. I bent down and asked the guy if he was ok and told him that I was sorry but he left me no choice. I really felt bad for the guy, but i had to protect the girls I was with and the women and children on the bus. I didn't want the guy to pull a knife or anything, so I made sure to take control with some force and make him leave. After I got back on the bus, the owner said I had a lot of strength, ha ha. I guess in peru I do because everyone is like 5 feet tall. I´m a giant here and seem to intimidate pretty much everyone, everywhere I go.

This week was interesting but I'm sure the next will be full of fun stories as well, haha. Until next time. Adios.

Julie's Week 4

It is Brett's turn to write this week but he's sick today so he stayed at the base to sleep. I think he probably has parasites. Not fun at all for him, poor guy! But he started parasite medicine today so hopefully he'll be better in a few days. It stinks that he is sick on our day off though. I wasn't feeling well this week either but I'm feeling better now. They say it is impossible to come here without getting parasites at least once. When we leave we are supposed to take some medicine that will get rid of potential parasites that aren't showing symptoms yet. Anyway, enough about worms.

This week went by pretty quickly for the most part. I had a smaller and more managable group for VBS so it was a lot easier. We did a week of Moses and had a lot of fun weaving baskets with the kids and writing out the 10 Commandments. I have a good group of kids every night for English lessons. They all bring their notebooks and dutifully repeat everything I say.

The community I am in is an invasion community. People want to live closer to the city so they pack as much as they can into taxis and literally take over a new area. Most people have only been here for 3 months so they are still trying to get money to build their houses. Right now everybody is living in shacks while they work on building their houses. My job title is Community Ambassador and so I'm supposed to figure out what would benefit the community the most and then try and do whatever that is. This week my parter Mike and I talked to the president of the 17 de septiembre (the name of the community) about building a garden and playground for the kids. I figured that since it is such a new community and there are so many kids it would be something that would really benefit this place. So I will be working on the garden in the mornings and doing the VBS and English classes in the afternoon and evening from now on. We're also going to get fruit trees and give one to each kid to plant next to their house.

I'll be here until about March 15 and then we are having a medical clinic for 2 weeks about 4 km from where I live now. And then after that we are going on several short medical trips. So I'll get to have some medical experience afterall! I'm excited about that. Anyway, my time is about to run out. More next week.

Week 3

In some ways it is hard to believe that we have already been here for 3 weeks, but in other ways it feels like we have been here forever! This week was my first week with the kids and it started off pretty chaotically. Mike and I weren´t sure what to expect. We spent last week going around advertising and had a lot of people say that they were interested in coming, but we weren´t sure if they would actually show up.

Brett and the manual labor people came Monday morning to put up the tent for us to have the vacation bible school in. The genuis who made the tent made it so that there was only one way for the pieces to fit together but none of the parts were marked and they all looked exactly the same. Needless to say, the tent was not finished by the time the kids started showing up at 1:00 so Mike and I were stuck with about 60 kids and no place to put them all. We started out by teaching them some songs and then told them the story of Creation. None of these kids have ever heard Bible stories before and it was a bit shocking to me when we were met with silence after asking them how many days it took God to create the world. Definitely not what we were expecting! But was kind of cool to be the first ones to tell them the stories. This week we did Creation, Noah and the Ark, Joseph, David and Goliath, and Jonah. After the story, we did an activity with them and then handed out crayons and coloring books. That kept them busy for at least 30 minutes. Peruvian kids are extremely demanding and parents here definitely don´t emphasize manners. I don´t think I´ve heard one kid say please or thank you yet. All I hear is "Dame! Dame! Dame!" (Give me!)

The games that we had planned for the first day did not go very well to day the least. More and more kids kept showing up and since we were in a field it was impossible to get them to listen to instructions. After the first day things went a lot smoother though. Having the tent helped a lot. We taught them the colors red, yellow, and green in English and then played Red light/Green light with them, taught them the body parts and played Simon says, taught them animal names and played Sharks and Minnows and Duck, Duck, Goose. The kids are constantly following me around and climbing on me to touch my hair and hold my hands. I have about 5 favorites but I like them all for the most part. I definitely do not want to go into teaching though! That is for sure. I think that 6 weeks of this will be plenty for me.

In the evenings I have been teaching a group of teenagers English and tutoring math to some younger kids. They are on summer vacation right now but Peruvian kids are kind of strange and want to learn instead of play games. One afternoon when Mike and I gave them the option of playing a game or learning English we had 2 kids vote for the game and about 68 vote for English lessons. It´s pretty strange... Teaching English has made me feel a lot better about my Spanish though. I constantly feel like I´m slaughtering the spanish words, but then I hear them try to say the english words and it makes me realize that I´m not that bad! No matter how hard I try I cannot get them to say the sounds "ssss" or "tuh". To them "sky" is "esky" and "tree" is "chree." It´s pretty funny.

While I was running around after kids all day, Brett worked on putting up a fence around the base. Every three meters he has to dig a hole a meter deep, put a pole in it, and put barbed wire up. Better him than me! Their next big project is an enormous fish pond. They rented a huge tractor and are in the process of digging a pond that is 100 meters x 300 meters x 2 meters. In the middle there are two islands that they are going to put monkies and hammocks on and build a bridge out to them. The guy that is in charge of the project thinks that it will be a good way of generating income. They are going to fill the pond with fish and sell the fish or something like that...I´m not really sure. They seem to think that it will be pretty easy but I have a hard time believing that it is just a matter of digging an enormous hole, filling it with water, and throwing some fish in there. I could be wrong though. I guess we´ll see!

I went back to the base on Friday afternoon and stayed the weekend. Brett gave the sermon at his church so I got to hear him. He did a really good job. His sermon was about being willing to die for Christ and he told a story and related it to Shadrack, Miseac, and Abendnigo (spelling??). The kids actually paid attention the whole time and liked his story a lot. The church he is in charge of is in the back of this lady´s house and there are about 30 or 40 memebers, mostly kids. There are animals running around everywhere. Definitely not your normal church, but it´s a lot of fun to go to. He´s in charge of Friday night vespers there too and runs the Sabbath school class with another guy for the teenagers. It´s a lot of work for him but I think he´ll do a good job there. He´s scheduled to preach again on March 20th.

Well, that´s about it for this week. Bye!

Week 2

This week we started to get into the swing of things around here. The first 3 days of the week I (Brett) finished building the church at 17 de septiembre where the medical clinic and the new location of the travel team will be for the next 7 weeks. Building is quite fun, chatting with the peruvians and joking around. However, the sun is scorching hot and the humidity here is absolutely ridiculous. You sweat so much water out of your skin, you wouldn´t even believe it. I drink close to a gallon of water a day and pee literally only once a day in the mornings.

Julie is going to be staying with the travel team at 17 de septiembre and teach a Vacation Bible School thing to different age groups everyweek. This first week that begins tomorrow, her and her partner Michael will have over a 100 kids to handle. I feel no sympathy though, haha. This group of kids is going to be from the ages of 5 to 8. It's going to be pretty amusing with Julie's limited amount of spanish. At least her partner speaks spanish so that'll be nice help. Julie and the other members of the travel team are living now in the church that we built for the area. Julie has a pretty sweet set up in the corner with her hammock and sheet hanging, she pretty much has her own room there while everyone else is in tents. Apparently she can hammer pretty well, at least that´s what she says. She made herself some shelves for the her clothes and nailed up some racks for towells and clothes.

On thursday, I hit the fields pretty hard at the base in 38. Man, that work is so terribly hard. There were two teams of us. On Thursday my team went to work on the fence. We're building a fence that encircles our entire base. I didn´t realize it, but our property is 3 and half kilometers long. And we have to put in fence posts and barbed wire around this entire property. And that was even the easy day! On Friday it was my turn to clean the lemon trees. This job is absolutely the worst job I've ever heard of. I had to take a machete and hack a 2 meter cirle around each lemon tree down the dirt. These trees are in the middle of the jungle surrounded by tons of plants, and grass, and weeds. It was so hot and humid, it was the hardest thing I've ever done. Luckily the two peruvians i work with are pretty chill and are down to take many breaks and just chat about life. However, we have the next two months to completely finish the fence and clear all the lemon trees, so...that´ll be fun.

I am now in charge of running the sabbath school for the teenagers at the church I attend and will be preaching next weeks sermon. I will be teaching an english class every Monday and Wednesday night as well as doing a vespers every Friday night. I will be kept very busy here, but it has been a lot of fun so far. All of the peruvian workers are really fun to hang out with and it's good practice for my spanish. I seem to be picking up the way they speak quite rapidly. The peruvians have a very distinct singsong way of speaking and I've noticed myself starting to do that as well when I'm talking, haha. So...we'll see how I sound in 4 months.

Julie went into the selva on Tuesday with a couple of local kids to look for fruit. She went in with only shorts and a tanktop, not good planning. She came back with some pretty gnarly rashes and had to take some shots and pills before she literally scratched her skin off. The rashes looked pretty bad and she was definitely uncomfortable for a couple of days. I got to give her her last shot and did pretty well. It was not that hard though.

Julie came back the base friday afternoon to do some planning for her vacation bible school, but she didn't do any of course. We just hung out in the hammock and read a litttle. The weekends here are pretty relaxing and they go by pretty slowly. It´s nice to be able to see Julie once a week at least, I´m glad she´s not too far. We both got cell phones and can receieve phone calls for free at anytime, so if anyone wants to call or text us. Julie´s numbers is 0051061961549625 and mine is the same with a 4 substituted as the last number. It´s been fun so far, Julie is learning spanish very quickly and hopefully she´ll keep learning at this rapid rate. She'll be forced to learn with a 100 kids talking to her all at once. Julie's nickname is barbie, and mine is pollogordito (chubby chicken) for some reason. Not really sure what they're talking about.

Week 1

Well, we have survived our first week in Peru. Getting here was an adventure. To save money we decided to sleep in the Lima airport rather than get a hostel for our 9 hour layover. Bad idea! After going through customs, finding out we had been ripped off on the exchange rate in Houston, and walking around aimlessly for a few minutes, we found the "perfect" place to put our stuff down and sleep. We got our sleeping bags and pillows out and were settling down to sleep when this Peruvian family comes and stands literally 1 foot away from us, talking loudly and pointing at the airplanes. We had mistakenly set up camp in front of a big window looking out over the tarmak and for the next 3 hours, various people came and stared out of the window for 30+ minutes. They were all so excited to see the airplanes take off. And these weren´t just kids. Grown men were giggling like little girls and counting the windows on the plane. Not only was it strange, but it was also extremely annoying at 4 in the morning. Finally we were able to check into our next flight around 5 am and we went through security where it was much more quiet. 

We landed in Pucallpa and were picked up and immediately driven to the clinic site and put to work. I went to the clinic and Brett went to the work site to help dig a hole for the foundation of the church. The community we are in is extremely primitive. No running water or electricity whatsoever. I´ll be living here for the next 2 months teaching English and doing Vacation Bible School with the kids and doing community outreach programs with them. Brett spent his days outside in the 95+ degree weather (not including humidity!) doing manual labor. He seems to be enjoying himself though.

I slept at the clinic site in a tent while Brett was shuttled back and forth from the worksite to the base camp (38 as they call it here because it is 38 km from Pucallpa) every morning at 7. He along with the 8 other manual labor workers are squashed in the back and on top of this tiny pickup truck (aka the camioneta) and they drive the 34 km to the worksite like this. It is actually a lot of fun! I got to ride on the top of the truck on the way back to 38 this weekend.
Brett has been assigned a church near the base camp and he will take turns preaching at the church on Sabbath. The church was pretty cool though. About three quarters of the people are kids so the service is quite fun. In the afternoon we put on a program for the kids and got to know them a little bit. I haven´t really started my job yet. The clinic part lasts a week and then we stay in the community and put on various programs for the people there. I´m looking forward to getting started though. So far we have been having a good time despite the rustic conditions and millions of bugs. The people here are really nice and have made us feel like part of the group already. It´s going to be a great semester.