Learning from the natives

The longer we live in the jungle, the more we put this proverb into practice: “when you get stuck, either copy the Peruvians, or invent a new way of survival.”

Carlos and Javier taught us how to make lamps out of milk cans. We now have 8 or 9 of these little lamps made from tin cans, scraps from our tin roof, and old rope we find around the land. We buy the kerosene in town, and don’t have to worry about recharging batteries.

Hector showed us how to make a nail cup by cutting the top half off of a plastic soda bottle. When I was working in Iquitos, I didn’t have any containers for the water and hydrogen peroxide while doing ear irrigations. I remembered Hector’s trick, and fashioned functional basins out of plastic water bottles.

Abuela Fredi taught us how to make mate tea. Claudia taught us how to loop our underwear through the clothes line so they don’t blow away in the wind (no clothespins here).

We use tin cans for rolling pins, dental floss for clothes line, Frisbees for plates, fans, and sun shades.

We have invented many new activities to pass time, including a new one where we explore family trees in the Bible and make timelines to figure out who might have known who. John and Jackson had an intense session of this activity while passing time when the jeep broke down for three hours.

Early

At two in the morning three uniformed boys about my age come and sit next to me in the nearly empty airport terminal. Their arrival is awkward. They work for the airlines, moving luggage and printing tickets.

They ask me many questions in Spanish. Where are you going? Why are you alone? What is your name? Do you have a boyfriend? Why not? Do you want a Peruvian boyfriend? Why not? Do you have a phone number? No? ( I say, “I don’t have electricity!”) Do you have a cell phone? Why not?

I am not amused. I don’t want to be mean, but it’s two in the morning, for crying out loud. I just want to sit here and read my book. I try to think of an escape. These guys are really getting on my last nerve.

I stand up suddenly, grip the handle of my luggage cart. “I’m going to get something to drink,” I tell them in Spanish, “Bye.”

I push my cart to the only café in the airport. I sit at a round dark table and they bring me café con leche and a cold bottle of water. I already have a headache from lack of sleep but I’m determined not to doze off until I’m on the plane in seven more hours, headed for Pucallpa.

There will be no sleep. I didn’t bring these jars of peanut butter all the way to Peru to have them stolen under my very nose in the Lima airport. No sir.

Departure

I heard about my grandmother’s unexpected death from an email on a Friday night. She had passed away on Wednesday, but I had been out at the land and didn’t access have to internet for two more days.

The next morning I was on a plane, headed home to Maryland. It was important for me to be there with my family. I wanted to be able to say goodbye together.

I sat in Lima for twelve hours, had another 10 hour layover in Newark, and then, quite suddenly, I was home.

I found the week difficult, although comforting. It was an interesting mix of sadness, the embrace of family, the blessings of home, and the unsettling symptoms of culture shock.

As I write this I am on my way back to Peru, 10 days later, somewhere above the Gulf of Mexico between Houston and Lima. I am happy to return to my home in Pucallpa. Home is where the people that I love are. Therefore, I have many homes.

Wednesday

This week John and I had the honor of attending Wednesday night prayer meeting. I was tired that night and grumpier than I wish to admit, but Osvaldo was so excited for us to come that I couldn’t say no.

We walked to the tiny wooden Adventist church at the end of the lane. It doesn’t have electricity; we sat in the sanctuary and sang hymns by candlelight.

John banged out accompaniment on the dismal upright piano. Although I was expecting a larger gathering, it was just six of us; Jose, Osvaldo, the two little boys, John and I. When little Carlos sings he is always off key, but he bellows so energetically that I can’t help but beam at him. His cheerfulness is contagious.

After the singing Jose stood up at the pulpit and read a few Bible passages. He then called each of us by name and asked for prayer requests. We knelt down on the dirty cement and asked God to bless our families and keep our hearts safe in his hands.

Lest I Stumble

On Thursday afternoon our work was interrupted by a substantial rainstorm. It is surprising to me how much rain we’ve been getting because this is the dry season. What will the wet season be like?

Later that night I was waiting for the boys to come back from the well when Osvaldo, the old guy who lives in the caretaker’s house, called me over.

“Oye, Mamita,” he said, (why does he call me little mama?), “Please be very careful of snakes tonight. Wear shoes, take your candle”

He told me that the snakes lead an active lifestyle after it rains, and that he had already seen two very poisonous vipers that afternoon.

I’m not afraid of snakes, but the bite of one of those vipers kills you in about 45 minutes. Jenni has drilled the importance of watching our steps into our heads many times. The jungle is a treacherous place. If the snakes aren’t bad enough, there are also deadly scorpions, vicious tarantulas, and poisonous inch-long fire ants you just don’t want to mess with.

I was thinking about all of these things as I hopped over the dark muddy puddles on my way to the well that night. I was wishing that Karen and Jenni were there. I didn’t want to be all alone with my headlamp and soap in the darkness. I was afraid.

In Psalm 91, God promises to command his angels to protect us, to lift us up lest we stumble. He tells us we will trample not only serpents and cobras but also lions and beasts under our feet.

There is no need for me to be afraid. I’m working on putting that into practice.

A Bargain

Two little boys live out on the land with us. Their mother was sick for a long time and because of the hospital bills the boys can't afford to go to school this year. They live instead with their uncle, the caretaker Jose, and work with him in the fields.

Javier is 13 and Carlos is 9, although they look years younger. Carlos is still small enough to like hugs and kisses on his head. I can tell he doesn't get much mom exposure.

A few weeks ago the two of them found an expensive pocket knife lying around at Km 38. They asked John and ALex who it might belong to, but no one recognized it. Alex decided it had been left behind during a previous mission trip, and told Javier and Carlos they could have it.

The boys decided to sell the knife. Alex wanted to keep it around, and after some bargaining he purchased the knife for 15 soles, about 5 dollars. All parties involved were happy. Alex had an almost new knife, and the little boys had enough pocket money for a long time.

The situation became interesting, however, when Anthony showed up the next week and started asking if anyone had seen his pocket knife.

Clinics this week

Exploration

Bitten

I feel like my body is a giant chew toy for insects. I am covered with bites all over my legs, feet, face, and arms. I look like I have chicken pox, and yet still the bugs find me a good candidate for futher blood sampling.

I scratch the itchy bites at night when I'm sleeping and quite a few of them have gotten infected and oozey. It's gross.

I also have bite marks and bruises on my arms where a two year old crunched on me when I was holding her down for an IV insertion last week. Poor little thing. She had us both in tears by the time the ordeal was over.

Storm

On Tuesday night we got a late start back to Iquitos on the boat. A storm came up suddenly, and the churning water and waves put us in a dangerous situation. Our boat had been designed for calm seas.

I became afraid when one of our translators barked at everyone to put on life jackets and prepare to swim. The life jackets were in sad shape, mine didn't have any buckles and had to be tied in knots across me.

We didn't want to boat to sink because it was packed with our medicines and supplies for the whole week of clinics. We would not be able to swim the supplies to shore.

Jenni grabbed my knee. Ansley, she said, Pray. God will be with us.

We were soaked from the waves that splashed over the front of the boat. I would not have guessed that a storm so large could have happened on a river. However, I've never seen a river as big as the Amazon.

One of our translators, Marcos, told me later that in his 17 years of being a tour guide and trip leader on the Amazon he had never seen such a storm. The boat driver told us that if the storm had begun 5 minutes earlier the boat would have gone down in the water and we would have had to manage another way to shore.

But we made it. We finally found a safe place to dock and a moment when it was quiet enough to turn broadside and duck in to safety.

I'm so thankful that God protected us.

Rain

I love how it rains in the jungle. You'll be walking along thinking, what a beautiful sunny day! And then in seconds you'll be drenched to the skin. The rain is fierce and surprising.

The rain in the jungle doesn't sing a little rain song. It booms a hallelujah chorus, complete with the full orchestra.

Fat

Karen and I were pretty proud that we had managed to go into town and buy groceries at market all by ourselves. My Spanish had held out, and we had been able to find everything we needed.

At the last minute we decided to get some butter for pancakes and bread as a special treat. I left Karen outside the tiny store to watch our bags and ventured in alone.

Butter, butter, the word for butter is manteca, right? I thought to myself. I was fairly confident.

“Tiene manteca?” I asked.

The little lady nodded.

“Un media kilo, por favor,” I said.

As she scooped the gooey greasy stuff into a little plastic bag I thought, my goodness, that’s awfully white butter.

Karen and I were in the motokar on our way back to Km 38 as I pulled out my pocket dictionary.

Manteca: fat.

I had just purchased half a kilo of lard. Oh my word. Karen and I laughed and laughed. We tried to come up with a use for lard all the way home, like for greasing up hinges or something, but in the end we just through it out.

Cousin John's Birthday Party

For John's birthday last week we all wore paper hats that I made and ate a cake from the bakery that we decorated with lemon icing and pineapples from the pineapple field. We're still waiting to have John's birthday water ballon fight; you can't fill up water balloons a bucket from the well!

Language blunders

As John and I endured the hour-long trek back from town with our food from the market, we decided to converse with the neighbors as we hiked past. It’s our countryside too, after all. We cheerfully greeted the construction workers and school kids playing in the dirt as we walked past.

One lady was amused by us, our arms full of produce and our bodies covered in sweat. She made some comment about the weather, (why yes, it is hot, thanks so much for pointing that out), then asked a question which I knew had the word donde in it.

Lots of people ask where we’re from, so I confidently replied to her question with, “De Estados Unidos.”

I smiled at her.

She made a funny face, then laughed out loud. “You can’t get there from here!” She said in Spanish, still laughing.

I suddenly realized she had asked “a donde” not “de donde.”

She had asked where we were going, and I had said the United States! Here we are on our way with our sandals, groceries, and sweat. No wonder she was laughing.

I explained my mistake to John and then we all shared the laughter together.

“It’s going to be a long walk,” John said.

Worship

One of my favorite times of day is when the team gathers for evening worship. Since there are currently seven of us, we’ve divided up the days so each person has an assigned day for morning worship. The evenings are more informal.

We congregate after bath time and after the tummies are filled and the dishes are relatively clean and put away. Recently we’ve been meeting inside the frame of our SM house, where our tents for sleeping are pitched, all of us in a circle on the hard dirty floor.

We sing some songs, then everyone has a chance to share. We usually comment on a blessing from the day or something we’re thankful for, and then everyone mentions at least one prayer request for our prayer book. We’re excited to see how those prayers will be answered. (If you have a prayer request for us to include, let me know!)

It’s so peaceful. It’s so nice to stop and think over the day and reflect upon what God has done for us.

Lolita

As if we weren’t crowded enough with seven people and a cat in a two-room apartment, the boys decided that the family needed a dog. A watch dog. On Sunday, we brought Lola home from a neighbor’s house, the saddest specimen of a dog you’d ever see. She’s the runt of the litter, full of fleas, covered in mange, and bursting with worms.

The first night Lola cried and cried in her little plastic box. Karen and I said, “Just leave her alone, she has to learn that night time is for sleeping, not hanging out.” Jackson told us we were heartless. We said, “She can’t grow up whining for attention!”

But Jackson couldn’t handle it. When we got up the next morning, Lola was nested and triumphant, curled up in Jackson’s hands.

The next night we listened to her cry and yelp for two irritating hours, wondering when she would wear out. Karen finally decided to take the situation into her own hands. She got up, and as only a communication major could, gave Lolita a 15 minute lecture on bad behavior and sleep cycles and minding her manners. “Lola,” she kept whispering very loudly, “You MUST go to sleep.”

When the verbal communication wasn’t effective, a few smacks on the head brought our poor puppy to obedient silence.

“Go Karen,” said John, in the darkness.

The fleas have been bathed away and the worms eliminated. We’re still working on the mange, but in the meantime, Lola has become an irreplaceable member of our family. We love her.