This is a blog about the best experience of my life, I was living in Edinburgh, Scotland in 2010 and was working at Meadowbank dental practice, the best dental surgery I have worked at. Martin and Humsha Rice are the owners and dentists there and I felt like family when I was there. I miss them all very much but I know I will return one day. Laura the hygienist there told me about the volunteer trip she did in Peru with The Vine Trust on the Amazon Hope and i just had to do it as well! I fundraised for about 6 months and held a quiz night none of which would have been possible without the team at Meadowbank dental and their patients.
Amazon Hope is a project based in Iquitos in northern Peru, run by Scripture Union Peru (Unión Bíblica del Perú) in partnership with The Vine Trust (Scotland).
The project includes a health clinic in Puerto Belen, Iquitos, and two medical ships – called Amazon Hope 1 and 2 – which make monthly trips along the Amazon and other rivers in Loreto to provide medical assistance to rural riverside communities. The project plans to undertake activities besides strict medical and dental work, including water supply projects.
I arrived in Lima and discovered my taxi from the volunteer organization wasn’t there, after checking all the signs twice I decided to make my own sign saying union Bibilica? To see if they would approach me, this failed so I went and exchanged some money for soles and phoned the taxi at the pay phone, lucky I had the contact details! He was very apologetic about the mix up and said he would be 30 minutes, over an hour later he arrived by then I had made friends with Victor, David and another Peruvian taxi driver, we managed to have some sort of conversation with my limited Spanish and there non-existent English! I even got a photo of one as I was fascinated by his front gold crown which had a love heart shape!
Finally Oswaldo collected me and took me to the hotel there I met Hamish my dentist for the trip and had to decline a city tour with him and Oswaldo as I really was not interested in Lima city and had only had 3 hours sleep.
I spent the rest of the day sorting out my bags and what I wanted to bring to the ship and what to leave behind, then I went to the shops on the way I was impressed by the traffic lights they had timers showing how many seconds the cars had to stop or go and also for the pedestrians. I was quite hungry and chose the easy option of Mcdonalds and had my first and maybe last taste of Inca cola, its not so bad just taste similar to creaming soda.
I headed to the supermercardo and found myself a peru prepaid sim card, they were really helpful and got a man to help translate when necessary and they set it all up for me and we put credit on too. Then I headed upstairs to the toy section and spent ages trying to find some toys I could buy a lot of for not too much money, I ended up buying loads of crayons, paper, ribbons, glitter and later made colouring in books and small bundles of crayons to give to the children along the Amazon river. I got enough for 100 children and cost approx 70 USD I think pretty reasonable would have cost maybe double in UK or Aus.
I went back to the Hotel and started making the presents whilst watching summer heights high which I haven’t really watched before and was hilarious to watch at this point of my life in Peru of all places!
The next morning it was off to the airport again, to fly to Iquitos with the rest of the team from Scotland. We were collected at the airport and taken straight to the boat and given a warm welcome by a huge team of Peruvians, we were very lucky to be on the Amazon hope 2 which has been renovated and is a huge and has the best dental clinic with 2 semi modern dental chairs! Our cabins are better then the majority of hostels in south America, it has 4 maybe, 5 levels(engine room?) the dental room was amazing a huge room with 2 modern chairs of course they look better than they actually work but still they work better than other chairs I have worked with.
There is a Peruvian dentist and dental assistant on the boat as well. In total there is around 27 people on the boat! We were told by the director of the Union biblica that this is the most interesting section of the river to treat, as it includes two very colorful unique tribes; ill explain that better once we go there! Today there wasn’t so much dental work to be done but I think the following days will be different. It was so amazing having all the villagers and wee children on our boat knowing we were helping all of them. Unfortunately the majority of treatments were extractions, but they are so brave and easier to treat then Brits or Aussies! I felt so comfortable and really managed to laugh and joke around with some of the non English speaking crew and always had lots of fun with the peruvian translaters!
Anyway It is great for me to practice my Spanish and to be around so many people who can’t speak English though we have 4 translators on the boat! Really spoilt! There is a chef and an assistant, there is a film crew as well just specially for this trip for a documentary on the national news Exciting! I hope we can see it or get a copy somehow!Here is the link for it:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae7fqkvBeQI
We spent the morning visiting the village and walking around in the excruciating heat.We had chicken, rice, vegetables, egg and some kind of friend banana that tasted like potato for dinner, breakfast was ham and cheese rolls and a yummy warm oatmeal drink with cloves.
That night we sailed to a large village which had a healthcare centre so no need for our help, but we visited and saw there facilities and walked through the village as soon as I got their a cute 5yo called Christina became my new best friend, she walked around with me holding my hand for about an hour, I actually cried when I had to leave her cause she wouldn’t let go of my hand and was asking if I would come back, in Spanish of course, it was so sad!
The next morning we left the village and went upstream for 20mins to the tribal village were we are now, there are 2 villages nearby though the only difference is they speak a different dialect. It was an amazing day, they invited us up and performed some traditional dances for us, their chief was in charge and it was amazing how much trouble they went to for us, there was about 30+ of them all dressed up or undressed with their body paint, headdresses and skirts. The little ninas and ninos were gorgeous, of course I got pulled up to dance and they painted my face, must be the most special moments I have ever been involved in, words cant describe how lucky I am to be on this trip and involved in these peoples lives, i forgot to mention we do bible studie every morning which is different for me as I am not religious but it is fun and we sing spanish and english hymns, at the end of the trip i even got some of the songs from Randy! :)
At the dance the villagers had lots of souveneirs for us to buy, so I bought a piranha bracelet and a big painting of the amazon river, dolphin and a toucan I just hope I can sneak them back in to Australia!
I have just got back from a coca ceremony which only me, jose(translater), the tv presenter and the camera man went. They did the ceremony and an long interview In Spanish which Jose translated partially for me and then we all had some coca, it tasted like herbs and you had to be very careful not to cough and to breathe through your nose until enough saliva had saturated the powder so you could start swallowing it. It gave me a numb mouth and gave a little buzz like a from cafeine, the experience was great even with the camera pointed in my face, most men in the village have coca everyday before work and throughout the day i guess it is like there coffee. I guess its better for you then the betel nuts they have in Papua new guinea.
Jose was telling me that the chief of this village has to spend the night with all the young girls before they go to be with their partners. It is very sad that this still happens in some villages and it causes a lot of incestry.
The next day we saw a lot more patients surprisingly more fillings then extractions and I gave out a lot of presents and even received a porcupine bracelet as a present from one happy patient! Hamish my dentist cant speak any Spanish so it has been really good for me as I have had to communicate to the patient when there is no translaters which is often, I need to look at a reference paper a lot but I can go form start to finish with fillings or extractions including post op instructions, not too bad for my second day, Hamish is very grateful and proud of me he said he will give me a written reference from our experience together!
Time for bed, tomorrow we are seeing 2 smaller villages I think, oh yeah forget to mention I had a go at fishing Peruvian style with some ninos on the muddy shore too!
Today was 3rd November 2010 I think, and by 9am we had 2 full decks of sick villagers from Betania and Santa Lucia queuing to see us, it was a very busy morning of course and mostly adults for extraction. Often some children who are waiting for their mum to see the doctor will sit at our door and watch and twice now when I have given them a present or just tied ribbon in their hair they have come back with a bracelet for me as a present, so sweet! I am starting to build up quite a collection. I really love the amazon painting I bought in the other village I have put it up temporarily next to our dental chair. The village we were meant to visit in the afternoon isn’t accessible at the moment so tomorrow we are going to Nuevo Pevas which was originally the last one we were doing, so hopefully by the end of our trip Cochiquinas will be accessible again. One of the medical patients required a serious operation, I heard them saying he had to have a third testicle removed I’m not sure if this is exactly true or if they were exaggerating the truth but whatever it was they were doing was pretty gory and of course the film crew were in their filming! I decided not to watch and to go and explore the amazon some more, there was a very cute Peruvian boy sitting on his canoe next to Amazon hope at first I snuck up on him and scared the life out of him and then I got a translator(Randy) and asked if he could ask the guy if he could take me for a ride. He willingly obliged and off we went for a 10minute trip up and down the river, he showed me his house, spotted out another pink dolphin and then just when I thought he would keep going and not bring me back he turned around. I gave him a lolly, toothbrush and 10 soles and then found out he is a taxi for the guy having the operation so probably a good thing I gave him some money though im sure he didn’t expect it.
Randy and I went for a walk to the very small village of Betania in search of some monkeys, poor Randy, I had him walking around with some green ribbon tied around his head to match me, we walked till we reached a dead end then headed back. I took this amazing photo of these 2 boys playing you can see his toy gun, so nice to see them having so much fun the old fashion way.
I attempted to put some war paint on with mud but didn’t work so well so instead sat down and made curly ribbons for some children. Randy is very fascinated by me he said he's used to the brittish girls who can be boring and don’t want to go exploring and are scared of everything whereas apparently im full of suprises. We heard the 3 horns blow from the boat meaning it was time for the boat to leave so we headed back and guess where we were going, back to Pebas, where my little amiga Christina lived!
I got some presents ready for her and sure enough not long after arriving I found her so once again we spent about 2 hours this time walking around with everyone, we went up to an artists house and saw great views from his tower and then went to watch some volleyball. There were a lot of other children who hung around since they knew I had given Christina presents but these children looked so much healthier and well dressed then Christina and I knew all they wanted was presents and I didn’t bring enough anyway. Fortunatly I didn’t have to say goodbye to Christina this time cause when we went back near her mum and she ran in to hide her presents I think but I saw one girl follow her so I hope she at least can keep the colouring in book I made and we drew in together. Im very tired, its time for bed.
As usual the boat started roaring off to the next village by 5am so most of us wake up and sit out on deck with a coffee and a book about an hour later we arrived at cochiquinas after a quick tour of the village in the roasting sun we were back to the boat to get started on the patients, its usually pretty funny working in the dental room I get my ipod cranking with a wide assortment of songs and the translaters come in and dance and be crazy with me, the kids love it. The nurses often come in to borrow things from us today they came and borrowed topical anaesthetic about 3 times as they had to do something with some poor little boys penis! As with most dental surgeries theres always the odd parent who dares to come in to the clinic and give one of their children a lollipop in front of us! A big no no for a dental surgery, anyway we noticed a few kids with the same lollipops a few times over the last 2 days and we did some detective work and realized Oscar our doctor had been giving them to the kids!! Kind of defeats the purpose of doing dental work..
This afternoon we squeezed in another village so didn’t finish until 7pm when usually we have been finished by 5pm but I think it might be the village we had planned for the morning so that gives us more time for the afternoon village tomorrow.
The bugs tonight were horrendous, I think we have been lucky until now with them, they were so bad that we had to eat in the surgeries, imagine a buffet of rice and chicken laid out across the dental clinic! I forgot to mention the beautiful sunrise this morning got some great photos, I think it will be similar tomorrow.
Another great and fairly busy day, the village today was Condor and this afternoon and tomorrow is San Francisco, yes you heard right, seems to be a trend for some of the villages to be named after big famous cities from other countries and also to name there children after celebrities alive and deceased such as Elvis. Went for another walk through the village with Randy, we went to watch the volleyball and football amazon hope vs villagers but we got bored so got about 20 kids together to play duck duck goose though we changed the names to Spanish something like parko parko gonzo, was heaps of fun, but im sure I had to run twice as much as everyone else and I must have been the least fit one, I guess they were doing me a favour and making me exercise, the kids absolutely loved it especially when Pepe(an activity co-ordinator) came to join us and him and randy kept gonzoing each other and would do hilarious slow motion runs around the circle of laughing children. And almost everytime I went running I would go slipping and sliding all over the place!
Today the head doctor and kind of the head honcho of the boat went back to Iquitos so did the camera crew , I think its Friday today so just 3 or 4 days left on the boat! Has really been the best experience of my life, I will definitely do it again one day maybe ill do trips consecutively.
Saturday was a fun day I got my facepainted as a cat and Randy made me a tail to match, we visited 2 more villages and in the evening I went with Pepe, Randy and Lorinda to give the children bibles and play games with them, I ended up with a very cute sleepy 5yo, Andrea, who kept falling asleep in my arms so luckily us two didn’t have to memorise parts of the bible and recite them. That night I stayed up really late showing Randy photos of Edinburgh it took ages I cant believe I have so many photos from one year! He really wants to go to the UK.
Today is Sunday and we are about to start the afternoon treating a village called Santa Rosa we just went for a walk through the village. There is just 2 or less days left on the boat for us as were not sure what time the fast boat from Iquitos is coming to pick us foreigners and translaters up, then we spend a couple days in Iquitos visiting other union biblica projects and health centres.
Another of the highlights of the trip was when Hamish and I went to on of the schools and did fluoride applications on all the children there they were so funny and some would go and hide but we would always catch them and get the fluoride on their teeth one way or another!
Some of them even tried to get 2 applications! Usually we do the fluoride apps on the boat but this was a village which we were unable to put the plank out so they could access the ship so we had to be transported to shore with the small motorboat. I love the photos I got in this village at the school and whilst walking around.
On our last night the crew put on an amazing show for us as a thankyou for all our help, they acted out a play, got dressed up and did tribal dancing for us and sang a very special song called Bienvenidos a Iquitos.
On the last day we took the fast boat taxi back to Iquitos and we went to visit the dental clinic there, Iquitos is a very dirty and muddy city in the poor areas near the river all the houses and the dental clinic are built up high on sticks as the river frequently floods. Iquitos is widely regarded as the largest inland city that is inaccessible by road. The city has its own personality, very different from the rest of Peru and Amazon different from other South American cities. Iquitos streets are dominated by more than 25,000 auto rickshaws or motokars these are vehicles created by the front and the engine of a motorcycle attached to a linear two-wheeled cart, known in the rest of Peru under the name of motorcycle taxi, and foreigners like auto rickshaw or tuk tuk.
I had a great time in Iquitos and am now back in Lima, tomorrow i fly to Arequipa, had an eventful fancy dinner with the scots on our last night, unfortunatly Libby one of the nurses became very very sick with some labrynth syndrome, something to do with her middle ear and losing balance and vomiting like crazy whenever she moved, it took a few hours but we got her home and to bed!
I can't wait till the opportunity arises for me to do this trip again, maybe it will be next year because mum wants us to go to Peru for december 21st 2012 since the world might end so at least we will be in high altitude so I think thats a great excuse to come back!! :)
