Our First Clinic in a Blink

For 2 days we had been doing inventory on all of our medications to bring to our first clinic site. We were finally ready to go and got the truck packed up. We headed out around six in the morning to a town on the out skirts of Pucuallpa. We drove on dirt roads for about 15 minutes to get to our final destination. The team got everything unloaded and we were ready to start. All of us newb's had no idea what was really coming our way. The first clinic day turned into only a half day because we needed to get more organized with our medications. It was nice to cut the day short. The medical team was supposed to get the patience meds that were prescribed and either give the shot or had them the medicine and explain to them what was supposed to be done with the medication. Knowing very little spanish that task was a bit hard. Words like grasoso:with grease, or cc: like a cc on a syringe, were confused with grasioso meaning funny and some other word that sounded like cc that meant poop. Some of us were telling patience that they needed to eat funny food with their medication and withdraw 2 poops of fluid from the bottle. Not words that you really want to mix up. They would laugh at us and appreciate our persistency that they needed to with draw a poop of fluid and eat funny food. Learning the lingo has been a fun task and we have learned enough to get by but there is still more work to be done.
The second day of clinic people started lining up outside of the clinic, which was also our sleeping quarters at around 5 in the morning to get tickets. We only pass out 70 tickets in the morning around 6 and 70 tickets in the afternoon around 1. That line ended up starting earlier and earlier. By the end of the week people ended up starting the line around 1 in the morning which made it a very loud night for us to try to sleep through along with the cock-a-doo-dal-dooing roosters and the rabid dogs barking outside our house. With very little sleep we managed to get through the week. God played a huge role in helping us through the long hours, the needy sometimes very frustrating people, and the new b challenges of our first clinic.
Some of the most remember able people that really stuck out in my mind were the people that needed just a few hundred dollars to have a surgery that would normally cost a few thousand dollars in the states. It was so frustrating to see how much could be done with just a little more money but they don’t have a little more money if any at all. All the children with worms, and the adorable little faces of the child that are dying for a little attention are so precious. We have all learned so much from the amazing dental team pulling the first tooth to their fiftieth tooth, our medical team that have learned the medications and the technique of butt shots, and our amazing doctor and nurse that run the whole thing that keep everything in line. All together we make an amazing team and have hopefully made a different in many peoples lives.
I would say that our first week was a big success.

We are headed on Tuesday night on a sixteen-hour boat trip to a riverboat city for our next campaign. We will be back on September 4 so until then good luck to all of you who are starting school:) Moni and jonny drive safe back to southern. Congrats to missy who passed her Teaching test woot woot, and hugs to grandma who is still recouping from a femur break. Dad keep capturing those amazing shot. I love you james and i love you mom. Mom give grandma a big hug from me:)