One More Day in the Clinic

(Picture of ruins at Pisaq where Meg and I hiked today.)

Tomorrow is my last day to be in the clinic. I can't believe almost three weeks have come and past. The time has flown by. I'm not sure how much more time I'll have to write so I'll try my best to give some summarizing thoughts in the next two or three entries before we leave.

First, not all that glitters is gold. This comes from "Lord of the Rings" and it's basic meaning, I think, is that just because something has initial appeal doesn't mean that it is always worth pursuing. Our experiences in Peru here have been moving, difficult, beautiful, and thought/career-provoking, but even in three shorts weeks it has not always glorious. Peru is dirty even by my standards (and to the Johnsons that's impressive), people are always around you, I don't understand the language that well, there's poverty all around, the streams are open sewers, and there's simply a lot of things I'd need to get used to here if we were to come for a while.

Second, it takes a village to raise a child. In this case, the child is the clinic. Recently, Dr. Allen has been presented with the opportunity to expand his health services to a care more for the whole person. He's gotten some calls from a local hospital who is unable to provide for housing, community, spiritual, and daily needs to chronically ill patients and they have asked him if he could do these things for them. He's really excited about serving people who are the poorest of the poor here in Peru and these patients qualify. But, here's the village part: He can't do it on his own. This, of course, is true because he's already got tons of help from his staff, other Mennonite physicians, and short-termers like myself coming in, but he and is family need more. Currently, due to increasing patient volume, the clinic is running on a financial deficit. The friction lies in the fact that Hinterland Health Ministry is seeing the expansion of it's services to a more holistic model, but they will be unable to provide the proper medications, foods, housing, etc. if they don't get some financial help. My lesson: I've finally seen first hand the needs of people a long way away from home. When I hear able pleas for donations I think about how far away I am from the problem and how I can't really make a difference in people's lives, but it's now obvious to me how untrue that is. So if you want to give some money to the Hinterland Health Ministry you can click here and find info on how to do it. I promise they didn't ask me to do this, I just know that I want to see people get better and the only people I've seen doing well here are those at Hinterland. Also, if you want to peruse their website, a put a link on the right hand side called "The Allens Website".

Spanish of the day: el sapo meaning "the frog". I have not see one frog since I've been here in Peru. Sapo, in fact, refers to a game who's closest American relative is cornhole. Sapo is a game that is played with large metal, gold-colored coins about the size of 7 half dollars stacked together. The goal of the game is to get the coins into holes cut into the top of a bedside table-looking things. And to make the game more interesting there is a frog set in the middle of the table whose mouth is open and if you somehow get your coin in the mouth you get tons of points. All this to say, Sapo is an awesome game that should be imported to the States and I might do it.