Day 3

This post is a little late because I had a migraine last night. Yesterday we went to the district of Las Tupac de Amaru. We were ready to leave at 8:00 am but had to wait for our transportation for two hours. I was told that snafus like this are to be expected on the first day. We had a new van and driver. We didn't have to push this one. We also had an ambulance that we used to haul our gear. The city of Ata provided both. It took us about an hour and fifteen minutes to get there. We travelled down a three lane (not stripped) boulevard where the buses,vans,cars and three wheel motorcycle cabs bobbed and weaved like heavy weight boxers. Occasionally a knock out punch would land and traffic would back up. We've seen three accidents so far.

We arrived and started to set up. I haven't been to a place this poor in my life. You will see in the pictures. We did about 200 encounters on 130 people. My test room was not idle but I managed to see several people. I also helped Mike Hayes with the eyeglasses. People that came to be seen varied from simple colds to needing breathing treatments. There were several cases of scabies as well as worms. Many people were suffering from eye and throat irritations do to the smog here.

Lunch was served to us in a small building that served as a communal kitchen. The people here pool their money to be able to buy food. It was a simple meal of potatoes and rice with gravy. I felt the love that went in to providing it.

Because of our late start and arrival, we worked until it was dark. Our team worked frantically to fill the last prescriptions and give the last injections. We hurriedly packed our gear by the light of our cell phones. A man on a loudspeaker thanked us for coming. All the people in this tiny community stood and clapped and cheered to thank us. It was very moving. We headed for home and arrived to a warm meal and a surprise. Because it was 4th of July, the cook made us a special 4th of July cake.

It was a good day.