 |
| The Entire MMI Peru 2013 Team at Shalom |
Friday morning was the greatest
test of “flexibility” that we experienced all week. The bus driver that drove
us M-T-W was not scheduled to drive us because he was having trouble with the
contractor Jodee had been working with. So there was a different driver, with a
much larger bus because we had a lot of equipment to take with us, scheduled to
pick us up at 7am and drive us 2+ hours to Ventanilla, in the northern
outskirts of Lima . By the time 8:30a rolled around, we had yet to see the
scheduled bus. Jodee called and they assured us they were on the way. Thirty
more minutes came and went and no bus had arrived. After much “friendly”
discussion and a lot of entertaining ourselves at the convent, our original bus
driver agreed to come get us if we paid him directly. Jodee, Bev, Carrie, and
Nicole ended up calling a taxi so they could leave and get a head start on the
patients. The rest of the team finally pulled out of the convent at 10:30, 2.5
hours late. A fabulous start to our last clinic day to say the least. We had
devotions on the bus again and ended up eating our lunch on the bus so we could
hit the ground running when we arrived. We ended up arriving at the clinic a
little after noon and the patients were overflowing out the door. The “clinic”
site was pretty much how they described it…a shed that they put sheets up in to
create treatment rooms. What they forgot to say was it only had one window that
received the breeze off the ocean…and it happened to be the only day where it
was pure sunshine and humidity all day long! There wasn’t electricity in the
building so Rich wasn’t able to hook up any power tools. We were low on
supplies (shoes, AFOS, etc) so we modified whatever we could to make it work.
It was frustrating because we felt like we couldn’t give them good enough care
with the supplies we did have. There were also dogs coming in and out of the
clinic (Note to self: Do not shooo away a dog with your foot as they might
think you are going to kick it…and proceed to bite your shoe. Thankfully, the
teeth did not puncture my shoe!)
The last patient of the day was a
man with hemiplegia, meaning his right leg and hand did not have function. He
told us that he had been working as a security guard and a drunk woman threw a
rock at his head, causing the paralysis. He now works selling candy to cars
stopped at the stoplights so he wanted braces for his foot and hands that would
make him quicker, so he could make it to more cars in the same amount of time.
We did not have any AFO’s that fit him and we were completely out of hand
splints. Bev, Steph and Kalee “MacGyver’ed” a wrist splint out of some firm
supports out of a back brace, a soft knee brace (his thumb went through the
kneecap hole), and some Velcro off some other braces we hadn’t used. Although
it was far from perfect, we were able to give him something that he could wear
at night to prevent his fingers from getting stuck in a fist position.
After leaving the clinic, we had a
little surprise. One of the nuns that was originally from Arequipa (where
Jodee, Erin, and Sybil live), was catching a ride back into Lima with us. About
5 minutes from her drop-off, she stood up, cleared her throat, and said, “I
would like to sing you a song.” Let me just tell you…you haven’t lived until a
nun has sung a song to you on a packed bus in the middle of crazy Peru traffic.
J It was delightful. And
just like a scene out of “The Sound of Music”, we sang with her as she departed
the bus into the abyss of the city of Lima.
After two long clinic and travel
days on Thursday and Friday, the SBU team (except for Carrie who had to get
back to the US for her clinical), got a chance to travel to the city of Cusco
and see Machu Picchu. There were many
memorable moments from that excursion, but suffice it to say that witnessing a
man fall from the top of the mountain, slide down 275 feet, and survive it, to
travel back with us on our very train, had to be the biggest picture of God’s hand
on this entire trip for us. He is good, all the time!
No comments:
Post a Comment