From Tuesday, 2 November
Today we moved to a new community on the Amazon called Perpetuo Socorro. This little village is the home to approximately 65 families whose wooden, open-air houses are connected by trampled paths through the high rainforest grass and fruit trees. It was evident during our afternoon walk through the village that it is an area of rich natural agriculture. Growing wild on the plateau were bananas, mangoes, papayas, grapes, passion fruit, acai, cacao, and cashew (the acidic yellow-red fruit that accompanies the raw nut we know as "cashew"). The locals showed us a dozen recently-born piglets who frantically squealed when our mischevious young tour guide picked them up. Marco, one of the staff members of Amazon Outreach, also taught us the traditional process of harvesting and preparing manioc root, one of the customary foods of the villagers.
We set up clinic in a dilapidated, wooden open-air barn overlooking the Amazon. Approximately 104 patients congregated at the site to receive medical and dental care, some of whom had walked over 1.5 hours throiugh the humid, 100-degree heat to arrive. The primary health issues we encountered were worms and lower back pain, both of which stem from the villagers' dependence on unpurified river water. The lack of water purification made the spread of worms inevitable, and the steep trek up the rocky, mud bank carrying drinking water, fishing equipment, and laundry from the river to their homes was certainly a major cause of the presistent back pain. During the morning, Molly and a partnering physician from Bolivia treated a young boy who had been bitten by a piranha four days earlier on his hand. The wound site was severely swollen, and countless tiny teeth were still embedded in his finger.
The clinic became an event in the village, and many of the patients and their families stayed throughout the day to participate in community education classes on water sanitation, CPR and first aid, sexually transmitted diseases, and nutrition. Molly even sponsored a Baseball 101 workshop to introduce the All-American sport to Brazil. Although baseball didn't seem to inspire quite the same enthusiasm as soccer, all went well until Paige commented, "Sometimes in America, we like to heckle the batter.... Hey Batter, Batter!" The batter was understandably baffled, as you might imagine, but the game continued!
As we all hit the hammocks after nightfall, we made one rather disconcerting new discovery: dozens of bats circling the waters around our boat in search of insects for dinner (which, for the record, are not in low supply). Dr. Ray even woke to one hanging from the rafters of the boat. Perhaps that rabies vaccine wasn't such a bad idea after all...
For more information on International Medical Relief, visit www.internationalmedicalrelief.org.
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