Report From Peru

Rotarians Lyn "Whereabout Unknown" McInnis (L) and Jean "Tiny Buns" Aitcheson (C) are seen here with Club President Kent Chisholm holding club banners which Lyn and Jean took with them to Peru.

Jeans first report follows:

Received by email 4 Oct 2009.

Dear fellow Festival City Stratford Rotarians,

It is with great pleasure that I send this report from Iquitos Peru regarding our medical project here, and ask that you share it to our club and area 3 as it also involves Goderich club.

After months of planning and months of work and preparation, finally we were off Wednesday mornng. All the hockey bags we packed were right on 50 lbs. Air Canada only cares about the bottom line. We had one piece, a dental suction machine in it´s own secure shipping case that wieghed 62 lbs. Even though some were under weight, they charged us $100.00!!!! What a rip off. Easy flight and all our luggage arrived in Lima.

Rotary club San Borja Sur (Lima) met us at the Airport with greetings from their club and gave us their precious charge, International Rotary exchange student, Geneva Neal, who was outbound from the Goderich club. She is an absolutely delightful young woman and a great ambassador for us. The club also gave us 3 Peruvian flags to fly along with our cherished Maple Leaf in the villages where we will work. We were able to check in for the flight in the morning and then most went to a hotel for some much needed rest. I met two of our group who came in separately and then promptly crashed on a 3 seat bench for a much needed sleep.

Lan Peru Airlines was most accommodating as they checked all our 42 50 lb hockey bags and did not charge us for the extra bags, as everyone was to have only 50 lbs in total. That saved us $360.00!!! 47 hockey bags, of 50 lbs was transported in 2 mini vans! Rotary Iquitos Amazonas met us at the airport with very warm greetings, and plans well laid out for our work and stay.

All is well with our accomodtion including the very much needed air conditioning. Meals are good, but constipation seems to be a problem with the rice we are eating. It is so hot here, it is like a constant sauna. The first day at clinic, we each drank 2 to 4 litres of water and still did not pee. Mind you, it was not an inviting place to do so, but the only one for the kids at the school. Yes, this is the summer we never had.

Friday we went to the first village, El Triunfo, where Dianne Yundt and others from Stratford had helped collect money for the Rotary well. What a joy to see the blue and yellow Rotary wheel on the water reservoir from the road. Unfortunately the well is not working at the moment because of an electrical problem and we are working to get that fixed. So the village is back drinking the very bad water they had before.

Lynne Ternosky, you are so wise. We had such a go back and forth regarding the electricity for the dental team, yes we could have it and no we could not was the last answer before we left. Thankfully, we brought all the equipment anyway and by buying the gas for the generator, we had electicity for the suction machine and the sterilizer. The Dentist has done much work in the military, and worked on identifying bodies after the air disaster off Peggy´s cove. He has been doing amazing work, including some restoration to front teeth of young people.

After the patients are registered, they all receive eduction in water related health issues, including hydration which is a major problem here. Most people only drink 2 or 3 glasses of water a day in this incredible heat. Everyone has chronic dehydration. Everyone gets a new toothbrush and practice using it. Then the children ages 5 to 14 get dental fluoride treatments on their teeth. Then they go to the dentist or eye clinic for reading glasses or to the medical clinic. The reading glasses which are the only ones we are giving out are a hot item You an imagine what a change it is to be able to see clearly. What a shame I could not recruit a Rotarian Optometrist to join the team as it is so important for literacy to be able to see distance vision clearly. Maybe next time. Joe Odumodu is the Pharmacist and a Rotarian from Woodstock. He had great space to work in with little childrens desks up on bricks to make it ergonaomically easier. He has help from a youth and a nurse and it takes all of them to keep up. We treat everyone for worms and parasites as they are all infected, especially with the 3 or 4 weeks without safe water from the Rotary well. All get vitamins to boost their immune system, as well as other medications needed.

Dr. Bruce Tomlinson has done a great job. He sees the patients that require special expertise and he has incised a huge absess, removed a lesion the size of a golf ball, suturered and dressed and given special examinations. One of the nures diagnosed Strep Throat in 3 members of a family that had had it for 6 months!!! With consultaion, proper antibiotics were given. We have seen scabies and worm infestation in little babies which is always difficult. We have to buy that treatment locally here as we never see that at home. Makes you wonder how they are able to survive at all until age 5.

Rotary has been invaluable here with knowing where to make the referrals etc. The President of the local Rotary club here is a Dentist. Dr. Jerry had a very difficlut extraction on a 17 year old girl who had her whole jaw bone infected from the tooth. She had been in excruciating pain for days when she came to us. He could not get it out despite lots of local anaesthetic. To top it off, she fainted severely and spent an hour on the floor, out of the straight chair we were using for the extracions. We started an IV, and stimulated her with painful stimuli to have he come around. After another half hour of cold cloths, a litre of iv fluid, we got her up to walk and eventueally walked her home where she sat in a chair and we removed the IV. She was the first patient of the day, where the dentist infiltrated the whole jaw with long acting freezing to make her comfortable. After clinic the next day, we took her to the clinic of the Rotary President where their staff and our staff completed the still difficlut extraction. What great working together to serve when needed.

Friday night, Rotarians, Lynn McInnis, Joe and I along with Geneva Neal, the exchange student and our very capale translator, Ross Penton from Stratford, the Dentist and his wife and another nurse went to the Rotary meeting. There was much good will and greetings, and the dentist indicated he would investigate becoming a member when he gets home to the Midhust area. With great pride, I presented them with our banner and received their very pretty one for our collection. They have arranged for 12 translators every day which is invaluable to our work, and they are very dedicated young people from the local university.

Tomorrow, we go to a different village, called 13 of October, for 3 days. We stopped in the village to see the set up on the way home on Saturday. We will work out of the local health clinic but as there is not enough space, the
Baptist across the hiway has offered us a house and the church to work from which will be great. Then we will work in two villages on the Amazon.

We are all well. all working extremely well together. This is a great project and I thank you all for helping make this happen.

Greetings to each of you.

In Rotarian service,

Jean Aitcheson