Back to the land of the living....

Well, it feels like a month of my life is now missing. After a month of absence, I’m trying to get back into the habit of writing as life seems to be getting back to normal for me(except for feeling tired a lot of the time). I feel like such an old lady...

This past week I finally made it to the Josephine house to spend some time with the kids. It was great. Since I had been gone, one child had been adopted and a new baby has come to live there. The new baby boy is ADORABLE(he's 10 months old)!! He was stabbed and mom had left him at the hospital and we don't really know anything about dad. Sounds like a difficult situation and I'm just thankful that there was space in the Josephine house to care for this little boy. Despite the difficult situation this little boy came from, he's the most happy, easy going, good natured little kid. One of the other kids in the process of learning parts of the body and was so excited to play the “point to the body parts I call out” game. It was quite entertaining.... Another toddler has been learning to stand and walk with help and is figuring out how to pull herself up. I don't really like that I have been away for such a long time, but on my first day back,it was cool to see all kinds of new things the kiddos could do.

And......I'm finally working at the clinic full time, yay!!! One of the nurses has gone out on maternity leave, so I'll be working there full time for at least the next three months. It's been great to get back to working there full time and get to know the patients even better. We continue to be super busy just about every day we're open. It should be an interesting couple of months....

MIA

Well, another month has gone by and I've yet to update my blog. The whole month I've had good intentions to write, but it just hasn't happened. It's been a busy month. I finally started the application process for my carnet(residency card for Peru). This included a nice stay in Lima. It was kind of my first time in Lima since before that, the only time I had spent in Lima was passing through in the airport. It was nice to be in a big city for a couple of days, go to a mall, go to the movies, eat at TGI Fridays, enjoy Dunkin Donuts, and much more. I had the opportunity to meet the MTW director for Peru and spend some time with his family as well. It was a good time of rest and refreshment for me. Oh yeah, and I did get step one completed for applying for my carnet(really, there was work stuff in there too).

A couple of days after I came back to Cusco, I took my first trip into the campo (countryside-about six hours out from Cusco)for the start of a year long community health project with mom's and kids. It was quite a trip. Lots of firsts for me and plenty of surprises along the way. I WILL write more about the adventure in the near future. Right now just isn't the best time.

Last week started another new South America experience for me. I was sick last week, so had a chat with the doctor at the clinic I'm working at. The end results were me taking antibiotics and also hearing that there was a high possibility that the answer to all my issues at the moment is that I have Typhoid. Things are getting better, but I'm looking forward to being vertical again. I think my cat is enjoying having me around all the time and I have had more than enough sleep for the next year, but I would really like to get back to work, be fully functional, and maybe be outside again too...

So, that's it for now and I hope to be writing more in the near future.

Muy Comodo

Well, the day started out rather interesting and continued to be so through the morning. I mentioned to my landlord a couple of days ago that there was a mouse in my backyard(the yard/patio is surrounded by walls, so the mouse was trapped in there). Personally, I'm not a big fan of catching and then killing rodents, so basically I was just fishing around to see if my landlord might be interested in helping me out.

After I told my landlord, he immediately told me he'd take care of it for me. Yay!!! He came over this morning(actually three different times, but it was Saturday and I wasn't interested in answering the door at 0730) with his “tools” and went out to deal with the problem. So, he was out there for about 20 minutes or so and as far as I could tell, nothing had happened. I looked into the yard from inside the house and discovered that he had straightened up things out back, washed the patio area, and was now pulling up weeds that were well over a foot tall. I went out back and asked him to stop. I'm just lazy and hadn't gotten to the task of cutting the grass and cleaning up the yard. He quickly explained to me that the mouse was in hiding and he was waiting for the mouse to come out and had decided to do a couple of things while he waited... Then he promptly told me to go back in the house and close the door so the mouse wouldn't come in. A couple of minutes after I had gone back inside, I heard a loud bang. Score!! Target eliminated!!

After the whole event, I thanked my landlord a couple of times for helping me out with something I really didn't want to do(really I was so thankful for the help). The funny thing is that he just kept telling me that he's just glad I'm here and wants me to be comfortable here. He's said that before and I believe he really means it. Yes, I know I'm renting his house, which means income for him, but he also really wants me to feel “at home” and comfortable here and he wants to do what he can to make that happen.

I've just never experienced anything quite like this before, this friends first then business approach. It's just taken me by surprise and is something to adapt to here. There are plenty of difficult things about the culture here, so I might as well enjoy the nice things.

Not exactly sure why I thought the story deserved a post, just struck me as funny today...

Continually Amazed

Well, after a long absence, I figure it's probably time to come back. The past month has been a bit disorganized in lots of ways, full of travel out into the country, special ministry events for Christmas, and then some downtime with the clinic closed on random days. I'm looking forward to going back to a somewhat normal schedule in the near future.

Just a FYI, this is super long, so read at you're own risk....

Yesterday I was able to go on some home visits with the other nurses at the clinic. It had been a while since I'd been on a home visit where we spent a good bit of time in the patient's home. It was great to get back into that routine. Our first visit was supposed to be relatively short(a half hour or so). I think we ended up being there for an hour and a half. It always amazes me how a simple assessment visit can turn into a long stay on many of our visits.

We had heard about this elderly woman through a patient at the clinic. As we came into her home we saw her sitting/lying down in some funky contraption of a wheelchair tied to one of those white plastic outdoor chairs(her legs extended into the white chair). I guess it was comfortable for her as we were told that she refused to be in the bed which was just yards from where she was. Turns out this little 90 year old woman had broken here hip(a year and a half ago). After such a long time after the injury, there really isn't anything that can be done surgically, so we had to explain to the family that it was a bit late for any kind of surgical intervention after a year and a half. This woman basically sits in this chair contraption all day long crying on and of (no one's quite sure if its from pain or something else) and not much else. The family told us that she refused to get into the bed and screamed when they try to get her there. As one of the nurses started to do a physical exam of this woman, we found fractures in her fingers which had caused deformities that no longer allowed her to have full function of her hands(again, something that can't be corrected at this point). It was just incredible how many other medical issues we found with this woman and other heartaches with the family the longer we stayed. By the end of that visit, we did get the patient into the bed without screaming(really, the nurses I work with have “special skills”)

I'm continually amazed to see the Peruvian nurses work in these situations. They have such a gift for educating the patients about their medical issues and about things they can do for themselves, encouraging patients and their families, ministering to them on a very personal level, and in all of this sharing the love of Christ. They have such a heart for the people here and I'm so thankful to be learning from them and being involved in this ministry at some level. As I spend more time going on home visits I'm learning so much and look forward to being even more involved in the visits. It's been great to start the new year with getting back into the routine of going on home visits!!

The day got even better after coming home from visiting patients last night. I found out that one of the little girls from La Casa Josephina went home with her new mom and dad yesterday. What a sweet end to the day!!

Playin

Well, it looks like I'm going to be involved in La Casa Josefina(the orphanage associated with MTW) on a regular basis. Who knew that part of my new job description would include playing with kids a couple of days a week?

Right now, I'm just hanging out with the kids and helping out as needed. For now,I'm trying to get to know the kids a bit, understand the routine, and kind of figure out where I can specifically help as a nurse. Some of the kids have special needs, so it's always good to keep an extra eye on these kiddos.

La Casa Josefina is a good bit outside of town for me(and I already live a good half hour outside of the center of town). So......as you can imagine, there are plenty of wide open spaces surrounding La Casa Josefina. It's about a 45 min walk for me to get there. The mountains and countryside are beautiful, so I've really enjoyed walking there, but I haven't been caught in the rain yet, so we'll see what I have to say in the next couple of months.

It seems like just about every time I go, I end up with a pile of kids on my lap or just a bunch of kids huggin on me. They just eat up all the attention and playing they can get. The staff at the home do an awesome job, but there are 13 kids and it's just impossible to give them all the attention they would have if they had a mom and a dad. One of the things that just breaks my heart is when they call me “mama”. It just makes me sad. So, I'm glad to be able to spend some time with these precious children. It's been great for my Spanish too. Lots of the time, I can't really understand them. They talk so fast, funny, and mumbled, so its good practice. I'm pretty sure they don't really care about my grammar, so there's no pressure.....

If you're interested in reading a bit about these adorable kids(there's some cute pictures as well...), here's the link to the website for La Casa Josephina. All of the kids are lots of fun, but Jose definitely has a special place in my heart. He and I are becoming good friends.

http://www.josephinehouse.org/

Chocolatada

Yesterday I had the opportunity to participate in an outreach to one of the communities affected by the flooding last year. Due to a river overflowing in the community flooding many people lost everything. One man lost five family members during the flood. Many destroyed houses are still standing as they were almost a year ago now. This was the first time I've been to towns deeply affected by last year's floods. It was an incredible sight.

Christmas came a bit early in Taray. A group of missionaries who have been ministering to this town since last year's flood came to give a big party, a Chocolatada(a big Christmas tradition here). About 150 people came, which was about double what we expected would come... Hot chocolate and a special bread were served, there were clowns for the kids, a craft for the kids, gifts for the children, special packages of food for the elderly and much more. It was a great event for all. There was a time of singing (Christmas songs of course) and the gospel was presented. The craft we did with the kids was a paper candle with “Jesus, Light of the world” on it. As it was linked to the message given, our hope is that the kids might remember this very important message as they bring these little candles into their homes.

Although this town has been through so much in the past year, it was great to see them enjoy this time of fun and celebration. Here are a couple of pictures from the event.