THE TRAVELING POD

October 22

This was the most remote place that I’ve stayed in and it met every expectation. My inner Tarzan started to be revealed.

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Read more: Galilea Pucallpa, Peru

Pastor David introduced me to Pastor Celin from an evangelical and missionary church in Pucallpa. Celin has been involved in missionary work as a pastor for 25years, and his experience obvious throughout this trip. He had organized to take me to three communities, in which, two were quite rural Shipibo communities by boat from Pucallpa. I had packed all my podiatry equipment, a few clothes, drone and presents for the local kids. I was told that kids love balloons in these areas, so I had bought 3 large packets of balloons, color-in books, color pencils and balls.  We firstly traveled by a fast boat for 4 hours until we reached our first community called Galilea.

We spent a day and a half in Galilea, straight off the boat, and after setting up for our two nights in a wooden shed-like accommodation. I already had my first patients wanting to see me with their questions about their pain and injuries. A close family friends of Celin hosted us by cooking all our meals and helping out with our transportation. I soon realized that Celin’s church was paying for my trip needs, which I felt so blessed and appreciated to be looked after so well. The Galilean family had cooked a typical meal for us, and for me, it looked like a sea monster on my plate. I knew it was going to be delicious but I was not expecting what I saw haha. I am at a point where I will put any food in my mouth after eating worms in Bolivia, and fish heads in Ecuador. To my expectation, the sea monster was tasty and I was proud of my self for jumping right into it. After dinner, we had a church service ran by Celin for some of the local people who were interested. It was hard to stay interested since I still have no idea what he was saying due to my language barrier, and in other words my Spanish still sucks. The community only has electricity for 3 hour at night, so just enough time to recharge some batteries and get my bed organized. When I say organized, there are so many mosquitoes, and I sleep in a material cocoon to protect me from the mosquitoes. I put everything I need in my cocoon like bed before there is no light.

The next day, I had organized with a keen 16-year-old soccer player who asked if he could train with me in the morning. We met at the local park at 5.30am, where we did some running and exercises using my resistance bands. At 5.30am it’s getting warm and there is light, so I was definitely comfortable with the jungle climate.

After breakfast, I started podiatry service at the school where I was met by school kids and adults. A lot of patients of Galilea needed biomechanical assessments, as the adults had knee problems, and the kids had foot pain. I diagnosed issues like muscle strains around knees, ligaments sprains at the ankle, and inflammatory problems like planter fasciitis. Similar to other rural communities in past Latin American countries shoe wear is not common or the use of unsupportive sandals and thongs are commonly used. My goal is not to put people in shoes, as I know that their way of life is different to mine. The way their body functions is different to mine. However, for people who have an unstable gait, participating in high loading activities and who are complaining of chronic inflammatory pain, would benefit of some support that an appropriate shoe can provide.

The clinic in the second community Antiguo Ahuaypa de Iparia was similar in biomechanical complaints, with knee pain, surrounding muscular problems and foot inflammatory pain. In this community we handed out balloons, color-in-books and pencils to the kids. The kids absolutely love the gifts and spent hours finishing the book, and even parents were participating more so than the little kids. This community seemed less developed compared to Galilea, and maybe because it is more rural and harder to reach than Galilea.

This day was relaxing where I was able to take multiple swims in the river, and experience the biting fish within the river which was unpleasantly different. At night, there are so many mosquitoes, and so, I learnt to walk around in the dark so the light wouldn’t attract more mosquitoes. I was shocked to experience that every community we stayed in starts the day at 5-5.30am, when the daylight starts.

The next day we left for our last Shipbo community Antiguo ahuaypa, and here we hung out with all the local kids all day. The kids were so much fun, and so crazy. I treated only kids, and I was surprised how many kids I was treating for machete and knife injuries.

The kids loved the games we played, and pastor Celin and I hanged out the rest of the balloons, and the kids went wild for the balloons. In these communities a lot of the people speak a different dialect which is unique to Shipbio, and Celin can speak slighty in their language. Nevertheless, most people also spoke Spanish, which did not help me so much but great for my learning.

I had down time where I trained in the sun, and some of kids joined me too. The kids went wild for my resistance bands, and between my exercise sets, they fought for which colour they wanted to play with until my exercises changed and I needed it back.

Every night in each community, pastor Celin ran a church gathering at their local church where he spoke and I pretended I knew what he was talking about. On the last night, the pastor mentioned that one of the younger girls at the church event had a rash on her face. I had no idea, I had seen her earlier dancing with her class as they did a presentations within the community. She used her hair to cover up facial rash, and reports this problem starting one month ago and has been getting worse since. I was interested why she was not getting treatment for her issue. I didn’t totally understand the whole condition, but it looked like a fungal problem to me. The pastor told me that there is no medicine for this problem in the community, and only in the city of Pucallpa where we had started our trip from. Also, he continued to tell me that her family couldn’t afford to send her to the city to buy medicine. My heart felt for her, she’s 14 years old with an uncomfortable growing rash on her face. A lot of girls get married there at 15 or 16 years, so these were important years for her.

I am so blessed to have some financial support of people who believe in my vision, I was able to go back into the city, buy the appropriate medications with pastor Celin’s help as we talked to a experienced pharmacist. Then, we were able to send the medications by boat to a nearby community that has a local nurse present. Furthermore, I paid for her return boat trip cost to that community, so there was no reason for her not to get the treatment.

Lastly, Celin has been in contact with the girl to make sure she received the treatment.

I loved this experience and I am excited to get back in the jungle for me similar experiences.