Challenges and Joys of Teaching

We teach our classes at three different locations during the week. Sundays, Tuesday, and Thursdays we teach two English classes at Compo Verde in the evening which is 3 km down our road. On Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we teach three classes, one English, one music, and one music class at Los Pinos which is right down our road. And two classes Tuesday and Thursdays in the mornings at Yerbos Buenas which is a ways down a nice bumpy dirt road. Every day Tara and I wake up and make breakfast, do dishes, and if we have time shower before we hop on our bikes and head to one of the schools.
Yerbos Buenas
The road to Yerbos Buenas is better now that they compacted it but still not wonderful. Our bikes are a little rickety but still seem to be in better condition than most of the bikes I have seen down here. One morning Tara and I made it to the school and while we were there, there was a huge down poor of rain. Mud, rain, and bikes do not mix. After walking and pushing our bikes through the mud, cleaning the mud from the tiers every 5-10 minutes so that the wheals will keep on turning, our fifteen to twenty minute ride turned into an hour and a half. I was so excited to see that the end of the road was a little bit harder and hopped on my bike just to get stuck in the mud and fall over. I was determined that bikes were supposed to be ridden and not pushed but after trying to ride the bike and falling over straight into the mud numerous times, I finally gave in and pushed the bike to the paved road. We were tired and very muddy, but glad to get back to the house. The classes started out a little tough at Yerbos Buenos because the age range in the classes were so big. The kids took a while to catch on but I see it in their faces every time we come to teach that they love the class and love it when we are there. The have picked up very well, and what we thought would be a hopeless class turned out to be amazing. The kids caught on and are rapidly learning more every day. It is so exciting to see the change right in front of our eyes.
Campo Verde
Our classes at Campo Verde ended up being to separate classes at the same time. Tara teaches one class which is an upper level English class, and I took the lower level English class. We ride our bikes there which is uphill both ways but it seems like a lot of the time we say we will bike next time and catch a moto into town. The class is fun to teach. It’s a little hectic because its not a school hour setting but its people from the community who want to learn English. Every class there are new people which makes it a little difficult to keep up a steady pace of learning. Its coming together slowly and should pull together nicely.
Los Pinos
Our class at Los Pinos is one of our favorite of the classes so far. The bike ride is short and the teachers are very dedicated and love what they do which has made our teaching experience very delightful. The teacher offered us to go to the zoo on their field trip last Friday. We agreed and were on our way. Tara seemed to be swarmed by all the girls holding her hands, arms, and legs most of the day. I hung back with the little boys and spent most of my time with them at the monkey, tiger, snake, and crocodile cages. After we went through the zoo and the museum, we ate lunch. One of the moms offered us food which we gladly took and ate most of. The park has this fun little playground. After we ate we spent a good hour or so on the playground playing and taking tons of pictures of them. They are all so cute. The playground was so much fun. It had all the old stuff like seesaws, merry-go-rounds and four big slides coming from this tall tower. We had a great day at the zoo and have tons of pictures to prove it.On another Friday, the professor offered us to join in on their physical education class. It sounded like a good idea but… They ended up doing these crazy drills in the middle of the afternoon. It was rather humorous. For them anyways. One of the drills we were in two lines, one of boys and one of girls and we had to run to the other side and go under the little boys legs then run back 20 times. Ha… I can barely get my body under that little boy with out him just sitting on me. After a few more drills similar to that one they decided to run. I started and then veered off to the side at a neighbors house and sipped lemonade and helped her son with his English homework. The kids and teachers at Los Pinos are so much fun to be around and I often see some of our students as we walk do the streets every day. They are so cute

One day we went to the zoo so i took a bunch of pictures of the kids before and after. They are just too cute!!!

this was a really mudy day. We left our school and it had just finished raining for our walking pleasure. We walked back pushing our bikes and walking bare foot.

Frankie Our Very Lucky Monkey

He may only be eight inches tall but Frankie is usually twelve feet high jumping around from rafter to rafter enjoying the world below. His big black eyes stare down at the SM team below as we go about our daily lives. One of his favorite times of the day is meal time. Not his meal time but ours. He hops from bar to bar down to the counters and if he is sneaky enough and we don’t grab the spray bottle quick enough, he sometimes manages to grab a little bit of his favorites, cucumber or bananas. The rest of the day consists of catching bugs throughout the house making our faces cringe at the gooiness of it and then finding a nice perch like our shoulders to curl up on and fall fast asleep. As devious as our monkey Frankie can be, we all love him dearly. Not only is he just a monkey, he is our miracle monkey. Dr. calls him Daniel because he has escaped not only once, but twice from the mouth of a lion or Cheva our Rotwhiler.
As the night is winding down, monk monk was enjoying a nice piece of banana and then decided to walk across to the kitchen not knowing that his life would flash before him. Cheva, who was right outside our opened door saw a rat like object crawling across our floor and took it apon herself to try and dispose of it. Lunging through our back door her aim was impeccable as she snatched Frankie off the floor. I ran in screaming as Cheva dropped Frankie out of her mouth and looked up at me like I was crazy. Monk found himself a nice corner behind the stove for the next few moments as I aggressively escorted Cheva to the nearest door. Frankie was wet all over but had not a bite mark on him. That was the first Frankie meets Chevas mouth experience. Just a few nights ago, David, one of our fellow SM’s had Frankie on his shoulder and was walking out to give Cheva some food. Cheva saw the food she wanted and lunged up on Davids shoulder with once again amazing accuracy plucking the monkey off of his shoulder. David plopped himself on Cheva as the monkey was set free and ran to find his nice little spot behind the stove. Our monkey is a miracle monkey. Although a pest at times, we love our new addition to our household.
Frankie came from a little town called Sana Rosa where we did one of our campaigns for a day. We had been talking about getting a monkey a few weeks prior and one day Tara and Jenni came back and showed us our new little baby. The next day he spent on my shoulder in clinic as I passed out patience prescriptions. I was not fond of the caked on mess that came from this cute little fuz balls bottom, but after we hand crafted him a diaper, he became much more loved. He traveled with us back to km. 38 on a 6 hour peke peke and a 24 hour launch boat ride. He was very well behaved. He has now grown fond of all of us and us of him, but Joey, our cat, still is pretty skeptical, but love sometimes takes time.

The Big Jug

The day after we arrived, the boys graced us with running water. We were all thrilled. We were not thrilled when we saw the boards that braced our enormous water jug bending when it was filled. Our wonderful handy men took down the jug and put up harder wood to support the weight. They even managed to paint the tower so the bugs wont get to it. Our new red tower looks so cute next to our little house. After a day of not having water and hauling water from the well, we are pleased to say that all is good and water runs from our faucets once again.

FIRE, FIRE

Fuego, Fuego, Edwin came running back to the house telling us that there was a fire, and that it was lighting up our beautiful almost ripe pineapple field. We grabbed the shovels and some boards and headed out to the field. The boys were out there lookin pretty black but working hard making fire lines and throwing dirt on the fire. It was all pretty smoky, hot, and hard to breath but we managed to put out the fire in the field saving a lot of our delicious fruits. We should soon have wonderful tasting pineapples in the near future. Muy Rico.

A Few Hours of Relaxation

After the Gordon group left, we were in no hurry to get back to km. 38 so we decided to stay one more day and visit the amazing hot springs. The day we were headed out to leave for the springs, it decided to rain. This made it and exciting moto ride on a all dirt road. We pushed the carts up most of the hills giving them aggressive shoves when they got stuck. We finally made it to the springs and hiked in a ways to the actual water part.
When we arrived to the water it really was like paradise. After our long campaign all we wanted to do was hang around and relax which was exactly what we did for a few hours. There was a two story brush hut where we hung up our hammocks that overlooked the river. The river was right below with hot water flowing in from one side and cold water flowing from the other. In some places the water was actually boiling but right in the middle was the perfect warm water.
After lazing around for a few hours we walked back to the hut and had our worship and evaluation time of the clinic. It was raining and we discussed the possibility of the motos not being able to come get us the next morning because the road would be to torn up.
After a cold but wonderful nights sleep, we started walking out. 22 km. That sounded like a long ways. Not only was it 22 km but some of us were barefoot walking in mud up to our ankles. What a day. Tara, Margie, and I hopped on the motorcycle to try and ride out of the mud. The didn’t last long after a backpack strap got stuck in the wheel and then soon after it didn’t work.
Tara and I continued walking as the group behind us caught up to the bike and the boys pushed it a good ways out. I think they gave in and left it along the road. Tara and I who were up ahead finally found a moto for the last 5 or 10 min and the muddy trail. The rest of the group showed up 2 hours later. After long clinic, and our crazy hot spring adventure we got on a boat the next morning for a 24 hour ride home. It was sure an experience. We had a lot of fun even though it wasn’t an ideal situation. We had an amazing relaxing day at the hot springs and a strengthening walk out.

Our Campaign With the Gordon Group

On August 28 fifteen people from Gordon Hospital Georgia, disembarked a plane in Pucallpa Peru to head out into the jungle for a mission trip. They knew very little of what this trip had in store for them. As we waited at the hospedaje for our new campaign group, we had no idea what to expect either. They all arrived in around seven motos with their stuff piled high in our Toyota pickup. We all went out to our favorite little vegetarian restaurant. The meal was stacked up high with rice an soup. Not much of the group was hungry enough to finish up their food but Tara and I stuck around after and helped them out with that. After lunch we toured around the market and headed to the ice cream shop. We then loaded up a huge truck of all of our stuff and medications to head down to the docks to load the boat. The times of when the boat was leaving was a little bit sketchy and when there are about twenty two Americans who need a passage, people are desperate to keep you on their boat. They were saying that the boat would leave that night which was when we needed to leave but we caught word that it wasn’t leaving till the next day. We unloaded all our stuff off the boat that we had just loaded then headed to a different boat that was leaving for sure that night. The boat that we were originally on really did not leave till the next day. Good choice on switching boats.
It was a long boat ride but we enjoyed it on our almost personal floor with hammocks. After sixteen hours we arrived at Inahuawaya. It was around 2 in the morning and we were all pretty tired and these Peruvian boat docks consist of really steep and muddy dirt hills that you have to lug all of your stuff to the top of. By the time we got everyone to the hostels, it was around 4. Jenni came back after getting the other groups settled in around 5 which we were all still up because our hostel was a little scary. It looked a little haunted but hey, we had a bed to sleep in none the less. It was around 5:30 when I finally fell asleep and then 6:00 came way to early.
Our clinic consisted of four clinic days where our groups split up into 2 groups and went separate directions. Our first day we headed down to the shores and boarded our luxurious hand crafted peke peke boat. We were all looking at it wondering how we would all fit. We managed in two boats and made it safe to our destination.The first day was tough but Jackie, my fellow pharmacist for the trip caught on to the Spanish medications quickly and was able to fill orders about as fast as the rest of us. I had know what to tell the patience about the medications but didn’t know exactly what all of them were for and she helped me learn that as well. It was a wonderful learning experience. Being the only semi Spanish speaker in the pharmacy made me actually have to describe everything by myself to the patience.
The clinic days went on and we got quicker. We saw many patience every day. We had one night clinic till almost midnight and we had many early mornings. The amount of work and the lack of sleep made us all a little tired but everyone pushed on though and we all came out with a big success. It was a challenge but God brought us through it with many little encouraging moments along our journey.
One day we hiked a pretty long way carrying all of our medications and in the end town welcomed us with fresh coconuts and big smiles. Another time when I was headed back with the medication on a moto, I was alone with this little Peruvian woman who I had give a shot to earlier in that day and she greeted me with a big hug, kiss, and a buenos noches. She saw that I was being eaten by the mosquito’s that were swarming my head, arms, and legs and as I waited and hour or so for the rest of the group to show up, she fanned me to keep away the bugs. God knows even about the littlest things that we need. Our last night, we were up late packing up the medications and I was getting pretty tired so I walked outside. There was a group of kids just sitting on the steps. I played with them, spinning around in circles and throwing the little ones up in the air for about 10 minutes and then forgot all about my tiredness. God really does do amazing things when it comes to the smallest pieces of our lives.
The Gordon group were real troopers. The headed out on their plane leaving back to Pucallpa then back to the states. Although we were all worn out and tired by then end, God blessed so many people including all of us. It was a wonderful experience, one I wont forget.

We were pretty board some of the time on our long boat ride. I found this huge syringe and attempted to give Brent a shot.

This was our group hiking to one of our clinic sites.

This was the boat that we were on for six hours.

And this is how tight it was.

There were many motos when we packed up and left.

Just one of the shorelines along the way.

Just giving out a prescription

We had an amazing time.