Quite an experience to have spent my 1st day of the year in Amazon. The daily meditation on Proverbs at the deck has uncluttered my mind and definitely has enabled me to put things in perspective.
For reason still unknown to me, I was kissed on the cheek by a woman in this village. She is the only woman we encountered in the jungle who wore make-up and dressed rather fashionably. She asked for sunglasses.
We returned to Chosen Vessel around 4pm, a bit earlier than the three previous days because we needed to head back to Nina Rumi to avoid bad weather. The children followed us all the way to our skiff and even helped push the skiff from the bank. They kept waving at us as we sailed away. A sense of sadness seemed to have written on all our faces. "So long, villages!"
The rain cooled off the temperature quite a bit. We all sat at the deck chatting, reminsicing our experiences, watching children and waving at them at the bank as our boat sailed through. Suddenly someone suggested to do the wave thing as what we do at the stadium in USA. With hillarious laughters, it took us a while to practice. Tanya helped us record our wave practice. So, each time the boat passed a village with children/adults standing at the bank, we would "wave" at them. What a good way to end our trip with something as silly as this.
With the boat moving at 8-11 m/h, we couldn't fish.
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Amazon Medical Team update, 1-1-09
Today's (very energetic report) was given by Eric Feltes:
The New Year was ushered in yesterday with their countdown at… 8 pm! their all-out bash included wintergreen mints and M&Ms.
Today, they were at the small village of Jorge Chavez. They saw about 120 people, but it is thought that this represents two villages.
Eric started off by requesting prayers for:
HEALTH of the villagers:
1. They saw many people with parasites, more than in previous villages, possibly because the hygiene is not as good. Parasitic infection at Jorge Chavez appeared to be a really big problem.
2. there is a family of burn victims (4 in all) who were burned 2 years ago when their mosquito netting caught fire. The scars are still quite visible, and one four-year old child is in need of plastic surgery for his third degree burns
3. there were many pregnant women, one even as young as 14 who already has another child. Most of the pregnant women appeared to be married, although not all.
4. a man who was recently hit in the head by a hammer suffered a skull fracture and is at risk for developing meningitis
5. all of the villagers appear to be suffering from headaches
6. cataracts are very common amongst the villagers. Eye drops were`handed out, but these will not cure the cataracts
Pray also for their contact with the Chinese community in Iquitos (tomorrow)
Today was their last day of visiting villages. In every village, team members have enjoyed playing with the local children. Eric says they are very athletic and entertain themselves. He drew particular contrast to the States, where we are surrounded by high tech toys.
The Peruvian village children are very content, and are very eager to play. Today, team members played volleyball, tag, and soccer with the kids. They brought out a parachute, something these kids have never seen before, and they really enjoyed playing with it. The ages of the children vary from village to village. In Jorge Chavez, the kids were on the much younger side and most seemed to be 5-6 years
old. Some of the children drew pictures for the Pui Tak students, as return gifts for the pictures they received. The children also played with a frisbee, something which again was new, and at which they were surprisingly good. Barry gave away his frisbee today.
Eric gives praise that all has gone well, and that all the team members are healthy. He also raved about the great food they have been having. When I kidded him about this recurring theme, he replied that one doesn't expect great food on missionary trips! The team is also very grateful that the weather was cooler and milder after it
rained. Even the locals think it's been hot. The team was telling them about icy streets in Chicago, something which was absolutely unimaginable to the villagers.
The highlights of the trip include a Barry and Tanya getting a great salsa recipe, and Eric learning a new song from one of the locals (stay tuned for his CD!). Still no anacondas, although they are threatening to use Bryan as bait.
The Chosen Vessel was sailing during our conversation. They are about 3 hours from Iquitos, where tomorrow they will be about to tour and have time to relax.
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