Nueva Tunuya

October 24, 2010:

Sunday clinic in Nueva Tunuya. Last night Rachel and I packed all the meds and equipment and even got to bed at 9 PM! We are doing so much better! We knew the Doc had said he wanted to be out of here by 7 AM, so we wanted to have plenty of sleep and be ready to go.

It was 7 AM and Rachel and I were ready to go. However, our new addition to our family wasn’t ready to go. This new addition that I mention is a 22 year old Toyota van. She/He has many names, but to me she is known as Gordita. After a long push from all of our guys she was ready to do her job; transport the team. We loaded all of our trunks full of meds and gear onto the truck. Some of us went in the truck and the others loaded into Gordita. As I proudly sat inside our new friend, we made our way towards Nueva Tunuya. The ride was pretty smooth considering we were driving through a dirt road.

We finally reach our destination. Janessa and I are sent to make an announcement to the whole town that we have arrived. Through a large intercom our voices are heard announcing to everyone that we are offering free medical and dental care. We tell them to invite their kids, grandparents, friends and neighbors. With the announcement done, we head over the towns clinic and start to set up. Rachel and I unpack our pharmacy in a small, but very clean room. There was a table, chair, and long bench that worked for our benefit. We had been sitting for only five minutes when the patients start lining up with their prescriptions in their hands. We worked from 9AM to 1PM handing meds and giving shots. It was a very fast paced morning but not much excitement. No procedures, no ear cleanings, no surgeries, nothing interesting. We had our lunch break and ate some chicken, rice, and beans. While we ate the ground around us was getting very muddy by the rain that was following. When we finished eating, Rachel and I left with Caleb to grab more meds that we had run out of. The muddy road was an adventure of its own as we made our way home. We quickly grabbed our meds and headed back to Nueva Tunuya. The truck was doing really well and only slid a couple of times. It was actually all Caleb, he was doing such a great job driving and controlling the truck. When we were ten minutes away from the clinic we saw a motor car stuck in the mud. Instead of colliding with him, we decided to squeeze by him on the right side. Unfortunately, we ended up sliding right into a small ditch. This left our truck tilted to the right so that our left tires had very little traction. Caleb tried to move forward: fail. He then tried to put it in reverse: fail. We were stuck and there was no one around to help. So at this point Caleb went looking for some type of wood that he could put under the tires. Unfortunately, that didn’t work either. Finally, after about 20 minutes, a man and his wife came passing by. Thankfully they decided to stop and offer some help.

I jumped into the driver seat while Caleb and the guy started to push the truck. They pushed and pushed: failure once again. After many failed attempts I asked the guy if he could give me a ride to Nueva Tunuya. Without any hesitation he made room for me and we were on our way to the clinic. When I got to the clinic I passed the news to the Doc and I then went in search for a vehicle that could pull the truck out. With the help of the town leader we found an owner of a Toyota truck that was willing to pull us out. As three young guys jumped into the truck I headed back to the pharmacy to help out with the meds. After 30 minutes Rachel and Caleb had returned safe and sound with the truck.

We continued on with the clinic and finished at 6 PM.

At the end of the day Rachel and I visited an elderly lady that was suffering from a bed sore. This 90 year old lady had hardly any muscle left on her body; she was mainly skin and bone. The bedsore was on her back and it was pretty deep all around. There wasn’t much we could do. So we dressed it and left them with material that they could use to continue dressing it. We also told them that it was very important to turn her on different sides frequently.

Around 6:30 we were on the bumpy and muddy road headed home.

It was a fun, adventurous, and great day!

Other things that happened in the past three weeks.

*Rachel and I operated on my wart. We surgically removed it. And it is healing very nicely.

*We had a puppy named Oso. Unfortunately, he was sold and is no longer with us :(

*We also had a monkey for the first week after the robbery. Unfortunately he died and is no longer with us :( R.I.P. Martin the Monkey