Peru update

Hello Friends and Family,

I arrived here in Pucallpa, Peru safely on Aug. 21, at around 5 in the morning. There was no rest for me though for there was much work to be done. After breakfast it was off to the Kilometer 8 to go build a house for the people that are now working at the mobile clinic. Since the house where I am staying at “Touch of Love” is located at Km. 38 (distance referenced from Pucallpa) it was quite a drive back towards where I had flown into. Riding in the back of the truck was a great was to get a look at all the scenery, take pictures, and meet my fellow workers. The country side reminded me a lot of the three weeks that I spent in India my Senior year in high school. Once we got to the project site we started work on the frame for the house behind an open-air building used for the clinics. This is where I worked for the next week. Knowing a little about building a house I thought would make things go easier. Except, I did not take into consideration the really hard jungle wood and the soft nails. The Peruvian workers all seemed to have hardly any problems, where as all the SM’s from the US struggled to get in a nail without bending it. After much frustration I came to the realization that the harder you hit the nail, the less it bent. The next couple mornings were an earlier start to the day than I was used to. You see it is technically illegal to cut your own wood in the jungle without a license. Since we did not have one, we got up at 4 or 5 in the morning to haul the wood to the work site before the corrupt police come out beside the road to flag people over to ask a bunch of questions, say you are doing something wrong, and hope that you give them a bribe. The houses here require just the basics; no drywall, no paint, and windows that are basically a swinging door with a screen nailed over the hole. We did put in electricity, but for the time being, there is no running water at that house. After we finished building the house, they did put in a refrigerator and a stove in the kitchen.

The house that I am living at here at km 38 is more or less the same, just bigger and more rooms. There is a second house, which contains more SM’s rooms, guest rooms, an office, and a storage room to store all the medical equipment. Next door lives the doctor and his family. He works in Pucallpa and works with the medical team when they go out on clinics. When I arrived the dental team was out at another town, and so this last week they came back and so I met the rest of our group. (I got here 3 weeks after everyone else because of working at Camp Cherokee and the NAD Pathfinder Camporee in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.) All in all, there are 14 SM’s and 4 Peruvian workers here. Two of the Peruvian workers stay in the houses with us, and the other 2 live in separate houses with their families on the property. We own 212 acres here but a good portion of it is jungle. We have 3 fields with lemons, pineapple, and yucca. Also on the property are mango trees, granadillas (grow on a vine), sugar cane, and coconut trees that were recently planted along the property line. Around the house we have 2 “guard dogs” and then the doctor’s dog, a few turkeys, roosters, and lots of chickens. The doctor says that it is not the country unless there are all these birds running around. No house though can be complete without lots of mice and mice. Inside the house lives our “mouse catcher”. Thomas is a half grown kitten now that got bitten by one of the dogs on the back leg when it was younger, and now does not walk quite normal. Recently we had a pet monkey named George, (nicknamed George Bush when it did something bad), until he ate something out in the jungle when he got loose and died the day after we caught him again.

The living quarters are fairly small. There is just enough space in my room to fit 3 people and all of our stuff in. In my room is Kevin from Walla Walla and Eric, who is Peruvian. We have bunk beds with only a thin (2 in.) mattress to go on it. There is one light and one outlet in the room. I have a converter but so far everything that I need to plug in is compatible with 240 volts outlets. We need to build some more shelve for our room to fit all of our stuff that in it. So far the hardest thing here has been trying to learn Spanish. I came here knowing more French than Spanish. It is hard sometimes to communicate, when the locals all speak a different language. Fortunately there are several SMs that speak enough Spanish to get around and can translate. One tradition here, is to speak Spanish at the dinner table so that we will learn some, and not rely on English all the time. Though that does not always happen. There is one Peruvian worker named Ever that is starting to really come along with his English and can usually understand short sentences with a little sign language mixed in. The rest of the Peruvian workers we have to translate everything for. They are also helping us to learn Spanish.

This summer I got my motorcycle license. I have had a motorcycle since the day after Thanksgiving. Just after starting to get comfortable driving, I came down here. I knew that would be motorcycles here, but they are of course more like dirt bikes. So after being here for a few days I got to drive two different ones. One of them I got to drive around in the grass, and then on the main road. Being only 150 cc, I decided to see what speed I could get it up to. I topped it out at just over 100 km/h (65mi/h), going down a hill and it was starting to shake a little bit. Many times I have wished that I had my motorcycle here. It is 650 cc, which would make these bikes look really small. Last Sunday I decided to take the motorcycle into Pucallpa on our day off instead of taking the automoto (taxi that is half motorcycle, half car). That was quite the adventure since the starter is not working properly. It has a electric start and kick start option, but in order to get it running you have to get someone to push you while holding the clutch. Then when you build up speed, you have to kick start it while letting out the clutch and pulling it back in again. Well, I got to town fine, but missed a turn, then got messed up trying to go where I wanted with all the one-way streets. At a stop light, the engine roared after pulling in the clutch, so I panicked and hit the kill switch. Then I was not able to get it restarted after trying for an hour. So I walked the three blocks to the center square to try and find the others. I eventually found one after I had gotten on the internet for an hour and he then helped to restart the bike and sent me back.

I have gone running a few times since I have been here. Since it gets light really early and dark early I tried going running once after supper in the dark to see if there would be less humidity but there was not. The best time to go is early in the morning just before breakfast. I went running once with Matt, but now he is living over at Km 8, so the majority of my runs have been by myself. It is interesting going by yourself on the main road where people are sitting at their little food stands beside the road just watching this white guy go by. I guess Peruvians are not much into exercise. Basically the only sport they play down here is football (soccer), but there are some basketball courts that I have seen. I am looking forward to buying a basketball and going to Capo Verti (closest little town) to practice. The exchange rate is $1 US to 3 Peruvian Soles. So everything is cheaper for us, especially food. Later I will have to talk more about the work that I will be doing the rest of the year. Here are some pictures.

house beside the road.

road to Pucallpa

flower beside trail

store in Pucallpa (go NY!)

Daniel cutting wood with a chain saw on the roof

someone transporting wood

kids running home after school

inside a store

grannodesha flower (a weird fruit)

Kevin cuttin his way through the Jungle