For every magical small man angel that abounds exists a beautiful woman angel who created him.
How beautiful that I start my work for women on this International Day honoring… WOMEN! My life continues to be full of beautiful, strong, creative, and brilliant women that never cease to inspire me. You know you all are one of them!
Anita is one of them as well. She works and works and works and her batteries appear to never run out. Her amor, Jose, and family live in Pucallpa, yet she lives full-time in Monte de Los Olivos. Monday through Saturday she works around the clock and returns late on Saturday to spend the evening and 1 full Sunday with the loves of her life. That one Sunday is full of laundry, cooking, cleaning, and preparing for the next week in Los Olivos. Peruvian career culture is serious! Normal hours are Monday through Saturday. Who came up with that silly idea? Saturday??!!???? I am not a fan of the Saturday workday. Granted, I’m a Midwife, so normally I don’t pay much attention to the days of the week, but as visiting Midwife to Monte de Los Olivos it’s impossible not to notice. Imagine being one nurse and one Midwife in a small town of 70 families in addition to serving 13 other small towns that aren’t that much smaller. I’m learning a lot about public health and family medicine. In addition, a family size here is not the family size that we are accustomed to in the US. Families are BIG here and include Gmas, Gpas, sisters and brothers each with their own children, etc. Wooooooooh. In addition, Anita has done this work for 15 years, working either for small native river communities or carretera communities like Monte de Los Olivos. She has been a nurse for 18 years. She tells a good story and I LOVE hearing her stories about birth. She once delivered a breach baby in a river. WOW!!! She is often the only trained medical professional for miles and miles and miles of jungle.
So, as Anita works, I work. Hard.
Anita and I arose in Pucallpa at 0430am, caught a motocar to the central bus station, and hopped on a bus to the jungle at 0530am. This is my new Monday morning routine. The Pucallpa bus “station” is a very small garage where taxicabs vie for your attention and where 1 bus sits waiting to take off. Waiting is the proverbial verb when the bus is concerned J, hence the existence of the taxi cab drivers who stuff 2 passengers into the front seat, 4-5 into the backseat, and 1 or more in the hatchback trunk if possible (we frequently take the taxicabs home from Olivos). We got to the bus station early enough to claim our very own seat which actually makes waiting fun at 6am (sleeeeeeep). The bus involves 2 smooth operators: 1 to do the actual driving and 1 to do the co-piloting. Co-piloting involves 2 things: 1. LOTS of mouth honking and 2. Lots of life risking. I described the motocross track style of this city previously… There are no rules in Pucallpa and there are ESPECIALLY no rules on the highway just outside of Pucallpa. It’s a big huge playground full of moto heaven and the bus is not to be excluded. Cesar is ALWAYS our co-pilot. He has poofy, yet aerodynamic dark hair that appears to be permanently windblown back, helmet style. Like the chicken and the egg, I’m not sure which came first, his hair-do or his job! He hangs out of the door that lies in the middle of the tall bus and calls out or hand signals to potential passengers standing on the side of the road. He is responsible for when the bus stops and when the bus goes and his remote control is his mouth. I LOVE the way he mouth honks. Seriously. He says “YAaaaaaaaaaayva!” (Lleva) to carry on and “BaaaaaaaaaHaaaaa!” to drop a patient off (Baja = down). I have sort of fallen in love with the mouth honking here. It has cadence, a little bit of rhythm, a 2 toned jingle, a life of it’s own that comes alive outside of the person’s mouth that creates it. Who knew I could love mouth honking so much. I even tried it myself the other day. It’s really fun.
The bus drops us off in a small dusty town called Neshuya and from there we take a motocar 7 km north up a VERY bumpy dirt road called Caratera Neshuya Curimana (CNC) because it lies between Neshuya and Curimana. Though traveling from Neshuya to Olivos gives me a headache as my brain knocks up against my skull, it’s also a beautiful journey. The Amazon is just beginning in this part of the jungle and the land is flat. This creates perfect terrain for growing crops and most families own a small farm called a chacra. They mostly grow palm and platano, though there are some sugar cane, maize, arroz (rice), and chocolate J crops as well. The palm is harvested for its oil and used for cooking. Traveling the small road to my new house means being immersed in the beauty of the crops of palm and platano while soaking in the beautiful view of the wilder jungle in the distance. Anita tells me that only 20 years ago this jungle was full of Coca Cocaine crops. Imagine! So much change in a short period of time.
We arrived at Km 7 of the CNC, Monte de Los Olivos and stood in front of the door to my new little house around 8am. AND, guess what!?! Man Angel #1’s (Jose Antonio) mom, Luz, greeted us with a freshly prepared breakfast (EGGS, my favorite). This is only one example of the truth that for every man angel there exists a super star woman angel who created him. WOW do I love Jose Antonio’s mother. She whistles and sings beautiful Peruvian songs every morning. She cooks yummy Peruvian food. She fries platanos. MMMmmmm. She laughs out loud when I say something that I mean to be funny (which can be hard to pull off in my new language). She takes care of Anita and I and I won’t ever be able to express to her how much I appreciate what she does for us. And to think, I loaded up with top ramen Peru style noodles and peanut butter thinking I would be roughing it.
Anita and I got right to work after enjoying our breakfast. We walk up a tiny hill to the health post where patients are often ready and waiting. We attended patient’s all morning and as soon as the clock struck one we descended to our house to enjoy freshly killed and freshly cooked cow. Climbed up our little hill after lunch and attended more patients in the afternoon. Descended in the eve for more fresh animal goodness. And that is how my first day went, up the hill and back down again soaking in the beauty of my new life in the country jungle.
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