Backing up a bit

So, I feel like this blog is a bit random and that it jumps back and forth a lot, but such is life.  I´m going to post pictures of the mountains on my last post in just a minute, but before I do that, I want to post a couple of probably the only productive thing I did when I was in recovery mode in Iquitos, post illness.

I had met a group of gringoes from Tennessee at the hotel I was staying at the night before my Amazonian adventure began.  They were extremely nice from the getgo, and told me that they were all doctors, nurses, and dentists who were going to be putting on a free medical clinic in town.  I told them I thought that was a great thing to do, wished them luck, and then left for the jungle the next morning.  We all know how that ended up.  I finally started feeling like a human being again on about day 3, post-illness (or maybe it was 2, or 4- Iquitos for me was like a time warp anyway) and was out walking when I ran into the group again.  I greeted them and told them what had happened, as they were surprised to see me back in town.  They encouraged me to stop by their clinic the next morning if I was still experiencing any symptoms, so that night I figured I might as well do that, and, as long as I was there, I might as well help out a bit.

When I arrived, they were ecstatic to hear that I´d help out, and even more ecstatic to hear that I spoke Spanish.  They put me in triage, checking patients in, asking them about their symptoms (my medical Spanish is a bit shaky, but I THINK riñones are kidneys- if not, that one guy had the wrong organ removed....just kidding), asking them if they have any allergies to food or drugs, getting their name and age, and then having them sit down in the waiting room.  When I arrived a little before 9, there was a line going down the stairs, out the door of the church, and down the block.  Needless to say, it was chaos!  In the morning it was, at least.  My pictures were taken in the afternoon.  Anyway, we were on the second floor of this church, and the place got so crowded by midmorning that the floors started shaking.  I would be lying if I said I was not worried, as this is the same sort of feeling my mom experienced while sitting on the 35W bridge, just 2 hours before it collapsed.  Anyway, in the end, nothing collapsed, and many hundreds of people were helped by the fabulous doctors, dentists, and nurses at the clinic.  They had a separate area for dental cleaning, dental extraction (ouch), optometrist appointments, pharmacy, and general medical consult.  Some people came in complaining of things that had been problems for YEARS.  Things like dizziness, headaches, stomachaches, parasites, lack of vision, etc.  It was pretty intense.

I was doing some translating for a doctor at one point, who was working with a 70 year old woman, and she started talking about how much pain she´s in, and how she can´t see to be able to do anything around her house, and her family is all either dead or gone, and how she just wants to die.  Try translating something like that without crying!  Seriously, it was awful.  I was not prepared for anything like that.  We took her aside and did some counseling, and ended up in a group hug.  She reminded me a lot of my Grandma Zeunik, who recently passed away, which made the whole experience hit home that much more.  Her smile was just almost exactly like my Grandma´s.  And, despite the fact that she was decades younger than my grandma, she looked just as old.  The poverty a lot of these people are living in really ages them quickly, as well as, I suppose, the climate. 

So, in the end, I put in a day of work volunteering, and in exchange, they gave me all sorts of drugs.  New malaria drugs, drugs for nausea, and drugs to kill whatever parasites might accompany me home.  Score!