Archive for March, 2008

We’re in Cusco now, with better internet connectivity, so we’re able to send a few photos.

The Hotel Augusto, where we stayed in Cascas.

Me and Oneida working in Peru.

Notice the “cheat sheet” on the wall.
It says: Where? Dónde?
Open your mouth. Abre la boca.
Ciére. (Close)
Spit – Escúpe
Numb – Entumído

Me and the Mayor of Cascas

Our hotel faces the courtyard in the center of town, and the clinic is about 1/2 mile downhill from our hotel. The first two blocks are paved, then it’s a winding, steep, dirt road. There are very few vehicles in town. Church members have two: a mid-60′s VW van, and a ’73 Chevy Suburban. These are outfitted with carpeted wooden benches in the back instead of seats. We usually ride back in one of these vehicles to our hotel in the evening, when we’re too exhausted to make the climb. We can stuff 12 people inside, and there are 33 in our party, so it takes some time to transport us all.

In the mornings, after being awakened about 5:30 by some very rude roosters, we walk down to the church for breakfast, and then on to the clinic, where we open at 8. Although we are supposed to end at 6:00 each evening, we usually get done about 7:15 or so. We wrap up our day, do our post-op work, clean up and head to dinner, and then it’s back to our hotel about 9:15.

When patients first arrive at the clinic, they are taken to Triage, where they are screened to determine whether their greatest need is medical or dental care. Medical patients are treated on the medical side, where there are 4 students to care for them.

Dental patients are then taken to Radiology. The hygienists are across from x-ray, so that’s the next stop. If they just need a cleaning, that’s it for them. The rest head back to the left side in back, where we have 4 Surgical chairs, and 4 Restorative chairs.

All the electrical there is 220. Some of our equipment can plug right in to 220, for the others we have wires running all over the place. People track mud in all day; we’re constantly cleaning the beautiful tile floor.

A TV crew stopped by on Monday. I don’t know whether they filmed us through the window or if they ever came inside. We were too busy to notice. This morning, people told us they did a 45 minute story about us on the news. If we can get a copy of the tape (we’re going to try), we should have some interesting footage to share when we get home.

On Monday, we saw about 60 patients on the Dental side, and today was even busier. At one point when things started to slow down on the restorative side, someone went to a school and brought back 30 students. We ended up seeing over 80 patients, and performing over 100 procedures today.

When we left, we had just the Suburban to transport us, so I climbed on top with two others, and we rode in style up the hill.

We’ve taken a bunch of pictures. Unfortunately, the internet cafe isn’t very reliable. I tried to send an email and the system crashed. We will be in a larger city on Sunday, and hope to send a bunch of pictures then.

We got up at 6am to get breakfast at the church at 6:30 and set up the clinic by 7.  If I was impressed that we had firecrackers to welcome us, I was very surprised that we had 6am firecrackers too!  And Roosters!  What a racket!!  Was it just to be our alarm system?  Maybe I’ll know more tomorrow! 

We set up generators, compressors, and had 4 operatories working in no time!  We have 8 dental students, 2 hygiene students, 2 hygienists, and 2 dentists.  And all the support teams… mechanical, sterilization, administrative.  Oneida headed up the xray part. We have laptop computer with digital xrays!  (Some dentists in Denver are not so up to date!!) 

We had an Amazing day!  (Have I used that word before?)  We had to stop at 2pm, because the Mayor wanted us to come to a welcoming meeting in town.  So in a half day, we saw about 40 dental patients and the medical part saw almost that many too!

We made it!  To Peru, and on the internet!

On the Road…
We left our house at 4am Friday as planned. 7 of us in Debbie´s husband´s truck (Karina went to LA the night before to stay will relatives).  We were checked in with plenty of time, Deb and Terry had a 6am flight, Oneida, Kerry, Cherryl and I were on a 7:30 flight.  All met up in LAX by 9am.  We had a group of 33!

Airport security made a special line for us; LANPERU airlines started checking us in 4.5 hours early for our flight!  It was a madhouse, but went pretty well except for one thing.  We were taking 3 compressors with us for air to our dental units, two were enclosed in boxlike containers, and one was in an open frame that you could see through.  They argued about that one for a long time, and never budged… we could not take it.  So it went back on the bus to Loma Linda. (They’d taken three shuttle busses full of people and stuff that morning.)  So Roger, the team leader, called and had another compressor reserved (or bought, I’m not really sure) to be ready for us in Trujillo. 

Our flight was great, if any 8.5 hour flight can be great!  So we landed a few minutes before midnight, Friday night.  We took about 2 hours to get through customs, then on to our fancy bus.  Well, we’d been told it was a fancy bus…  It was a big highway bus, with lots of storage areas down below that we had to pack very carefully to get all the supplies in.  We filled every nook and cranny of that bus!  So we set off at 2am, with the promise that we would stop in a small town about 6am for breakfast.  Most of us were asleep pretty fast! 

When I awoke, I looked outside to see what looked like moonscape!  Just sand and dirt, low hills, fog, low light… it was amazing!  Mile after mile (I guess it’s really km after km) of totally inhospitable terrain.  Not a sign of any life at all, plant or animal!  Then all of a sudden we would come on a very green area, where a river found its way down to the coast.  So there would be lush greenery for 50 feet on each side of the river, then back to the moon.  Amazing. 

6am, 7am, 8am, no stops.  We finally did stop at a truck stop, about 9am, but no food was available.  It was the middle of Easter weekend, and restaurants were not open.  So we kept bussing on, getting to Trujillo about noon.  Here we had to transfer to a “local” bus.  It was much shorter, so not near enough luggage space below.  So look up!  70% of our stuff was shoved up to the roof, and later tied in place with a fishnet type thing.  Many of these bags were 50 pounds, and it was amazing to see them get them up the side of the bus!  We made the transfer by the side of a busy street, and all the hurry made this look like the ultimate Peruvian Chinese Fire Drill!

What fun!  The new bus was quite a bit more beat up looking, and we were soon to find out why!  This was not a chartered bus, but since we packed it, it was pretty obvious we’d have it all to ourselves.  The road to Cascas would take about 3 hours, over dirt roads that someplaces would be called 4wheeler roads.  We had to wait for the compressor to show up.

There were lots of kids around begging for coins, a few vendors selling ice cream, etc.  Just as we were about to leave, all in the bus, I gave the only remaining ice cream vendor 10 Sola, enough for 20 kids to have a treat.  The most fun I’ve ever had with 4 bucks!  We were heros!  Amazing!  Then off again… The road was rough and got rougher as we went.  But now as we went inland, things got greener as we climbed.  Fields of corn, grapes, and huge amounts of sugar cane flanked the road.  We forded small rivers, clunked over potholes and rocks that I’d never ask a car to do.

Then way up on a narrow dirt road up the side of a mountain.  One lane, and the usual adventures when someone was coming down.  All was well till one bus as big as ours was coming down!  Drivers got help from folks outside, and we scraped by with one-quarter inch between busses!  (I am not making this up!) 

When we got about 10 minutes out of town, we were met with a small van and about 6 motorcycles.  They honked their horns, and escorted us into town.  As we got to the town square, there was a band playing!  People all over, fireworks, absolutely amazing! (Have I used that word before?)  A big party!  We dropped our luggage in the hotel, and then off to the church rec room where our clinic would be.  There it was even crazier!  The band got there before us, so greeted us again, and I swear the whole town was there to HUG us!  every one!  That took half an hour!  Then we had a dinner, with the band playing the whole time!  Amazing!