day 2 in the amazon:
do your remember in camp when you were younger how the group
would do the rain activity, where you all sit together, but
are divided into smaller subgroups, and one group starts
rubbing their hands, then snapping, then patting their legs,
and finally stomping their feet, and the next groups follow
so that the sound builds and then dies like a big
rain/thunderstorm... I always loved that. well this is what I
woke up to this morning, only it was massive rainforest
raindrops on the tin roof overhead and the sound built up
then died away within minutes and the animals and insects,
normally so loud, quieted at the peak of it, then picked back
up to fill the silence once the rain had passed. I guess
there's a reason they call it a rainforest. the air is so
thick with moisture it reminds me of the tamascal hut, or the
rainforest exhibit at the zoo, so true to the extreme
humidity - (and I love it because I never feel the need to
put on chapstick here, which is my daily addiction in the
u.s.)...
I realize I titled this blue-footed boobies (if you don't
know this bird, you need to watch more animal planet,
discovery channel, and/or planet earth - you can find them
here in ecuador, but only along the coastline, where we have
not traveled), more accurately it should have been titled
blue booted... footies? (blue footed boobies... blue booted
medical students!). we are a pack of blue-clad gringos all in
matching knee high galloshes and we look ridiculous!! but the
muck boots are practical for mucking through the extremely
mucky rainforest - especially given this morning's rain
(creating endless muck), and I have been so happy to have
them, especially when tromping through swarms of ants (the
boots offer some level of protection from the ants in your
pants scenario you heard so much about in elementary
school)...
after breakfast our group trekked down to the river, caught a
boat upstream a ways, and then walked down a gravel road for
20 or so minutes, until we came upon a grassy opening in the
jungle that appeared to be a school yard. we would hold our
brigade here, in an open air, half constructed building with
a raised tin roof and a dirt floor. the familiarly tiny desks
and chairs were brought over from another part of the school
and our health brigade began. in sets of two we worked our
way through dozens and dozens of patients. these people are
particularly remote and we had some gnarly medical problems
we weren't quite sure how to handle given our limited
resources.
patient 1) an almost 3 year old niño who had been in a car
accident a couple months ago and for 2 weeks after had gross
blood in his urine. apparently this has now resolved but he
has, since the accident, had issues with bladder control and
it sounds like there is some question of nerve damage... he
needs a pediatric urologist, but good luck finding that in
the middle of the jungle. to complicate matters, he does not
speak and his mother believes he can't hear as well as her
other children - no kidding... and to top it off, he has a
pretty bad cold, like every single other patient we saw that
day.
it was wild - like the ecuadorian flu/cold had hit this
little jungle village and spread like wildfire. all of our
patients complained of their gripe symptoms: cough, fever,
green mucous, congestion, some with diarrhea... everyone had
it. hope we're not infected now and bringing this bug back to
the u.s...
we had a young niña, maybe 4 years old, who had hit her head
on something in the home about a week ago and not had what
appeared to be an abscess on her scalp under the scab. we
didn't have the sterile tools to lance and drain it so we
sent her away on antibiotics and with instruction to return
to a clinic if she didn't improve in a couple of days.
we treated almost all of the kiddos with parasite meds, which
was ironic only in that we had them swallow these pills with
untreated agua from the faucet - which is what they drink
since it is their only option, but seriously, how futile is
it to treat parasites with a pill that requires swallowing
with the aid of unclean water...?!
here's an aside. diapers are super expensive, difficult to
access, & create waste you can't get rid of -
alternatives for those babies who don't have diapers? well
you could do the cloth deal like my parents did for me... but
what if even the cloth is too expensive & not accessible?
well let me ask you this, who really needs a diaper?... the
mothers here carry around diaperless babies, and at the hint
of a wetting they just adjust their hold so that the urine
gets on them as little as possible and on the ground as much
as possible... when the mom that slav and jon were seeing as
a patient spread her legs apart and the baby she held in her
lap peed, urine splattering on the dirt floor at her feet,
the only awkward thing about the situation was amy and I
attempting to act like that was normal... so a word to the
wise here, when you hold a baby here, if you feel like you're
being peed on, you probably are :)
we made it back for a late (and totally worth the wait)
lunch. it is so funny to get everywhere here by boat and
trekking through the mud... I love it!! and it really makes
you feel like you earn your meals. post lunch I was hoping
for a bite of the taffy candy treat I had kept from baños,
but when I found it in the top of my backpack, I was highly
disappointed to realize it was covered in stupid sugar ants!!
few things, however, come between me and sweets (especially
when good desserts are so few and far between this trip), so
I did what any kid would do - I washed/picked off as many
ants as I could, and ate my taffy, residual protein topping
and all :)
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