Day Six, Monday, 30 May

Go to Clinic -- unpack and organize our supplies from the U.S. and set up "Consultorios"

(Dr.'s Offices) for tomorrow. Discover there's no toilet paper (anywhere) in the Clinic. We

pee in a toilet and share small pieces of paper from one another.

We spend all day setting up, head home to Urubamba Eco Hotel and have dinner, then another group meeting -- suggestions from all and "assignments" -- who will work with which

doctor and we also discuss the meds we brought.

I'm to do in-take and be on tap to be pulled wherever necessary. Since I'm not an MD but rather a translator, I'll do, of course, whatever is useful. I'm nervous -- will I be of help? Will what I see move me too deeply? ... after all, they are all trained as doctors and accustomed to seeing this type of hardship ...

Tonight, I have one of my academic anxiety dreams -- you know, I'm at the front of the class and supposed to be teaching Physics, only I haven't ever studied Physics.

With the meds for nasal and eye dryness which our pharmacist gives me, I at least

can sleep through the night ... first time in days!

Day Five, Sunday, 29 May (Day Four is Actually Included in Day Three)

Leave Puno and drive -- Latino music -- Spanish chatter--majestic Andes-- snow-capped/glacier peaks ...

Stop to see condors (Pepe has promised me --didn't mention they were part of a very, very humble animal hospice and so they are within a reserve. But, still, they are impressive as they

swoop down for the carrion provided by their caretaker). We give small donations as we leave.

Everything, mind you, is always dry and dusty and the dry dust/dirt kicks up into the air

as you walk (I think I'm sucking up the DNA of pre-Incan bones...). It's getting increasingly hard to breathe through my nose and my throat feels dry as the desert (weird to think it's a desert climate, since it's not hot and there's no sand -- I keep reminding myself to stay hydrated).

Drive several hours more and arrive Pisac market -- incredible open-air/partially covered

market of artisan wares. It's just closing due to the time and the downpour--frankly, not to my dismay, don't feel like "shopping"-- I manage, however, to buy a cool, gorgeous high quality sterling silver pillbox with designs of the Nazca Lines on it (Kathy buys a gorgeous bracelet with insets of Lapiz). These are both from an enterprise that (of course) Pepe has connections with ...

We wander deeper still within the market and find several textile stalls still open but the

vendors are disheartened by the rain and lack of business ... I also buy a long hand-woven

runner for my dining room table -- and another "tapete" (cloth)/runner for the top of my kitchen table at home .... (I cook for friends "en casa)"

Onward finally to our destination -- the next EcoHotel which will be our home base for

the Medical Mission. The entire group who had come from Cleveland Clinic and Case Western

Reserve Schools of Medicine are out on the street in the dark cheering and greeting us.

Pepe sounds his loud, long siren horn of the minivan and you would think we were celebrities.

Enormous welling up of love and strong embraces. I had actually been counting minutes

to seeing them all, but especially my two students, Pedro (class name) and Bill. I hug and kiss

them and go into the EcoHotel while they go out to dinner (they've been up since yesterday morning).

They return and we all discuss details -- our student leader (this is a student initiative and the students are given the reins) has a well-organized agenda. We discuss and set up a system of triage (in-take interviews, coding system for rooms and patients, etc.).

Tomorrow we'll go to the clinic to set up meds (we brought a dozens of suitcases filled with supplies, and a Pharmacist) and "stations" or consulting rooms. The clinic is in Lamay (small village in Urubamba about an hour from our EcoHotel).

Day Three, 28 May

Awake and leave 8 am to see Lake (Titicaca) and visit the reed people -- "los Huros" are sweet and seem to love us.

We dress up and dance while they sing their Quechuan songs. What a riot.

Back to hotel to rest (I'm hitting the wall with fatigue, and the altitude sickness has me taking Diomox 2x/day ) and then back in car again to view perimeter of lake at night --

view is gorgeous with lights dotting the Andes ...

Return to hotel for the night -- we finagle our hotel charges and very complicated personal debts with one another and what we'll owe our driver in the morning so that tomorrow might be less complicated.

We also have to take into account dollars vs. "soles." (three soles/American dollar). Nerves

are short from trips down and tourista stops ... we settle finances. We crash.

The Reed People

So, these are the Huros (Indians) who live

on the highest navegable lake in the Western

Hemisphere (Lake Titicaca). Yes, the people

actually live ON these floating reed platforms

and live in theses huts made out of reeds; and,

as you can see by the little girl, peel back the

outer part and chew on the white fiber and eat it

(kind of like what you would do with sugar cane...).

They speak their own Indian language, Aymará.

Day Two, Thursday, 27 May

Arrive Cusco -- our pick-up, Pepe (little Joe), arranged by me through Jorge (hotel owner of three Eco(logical) hotels we end up staying in/ social activist/helper) is not here.

Oh, no. Lucky for the rental phone the young woman pushed on me at the Lima airport

last night -- could have sold me anything at that point, of course ... our resistance was way down as fatigue set in ...

We call the driver -- no luck. try. try. try. nada ...

Then we think to call Jorge himself -- yes! the protector of our endeavor scold/calls one of his guys -- within minutes we're greeted by not only his guy but Jorge himself who wants to see with his own eyes that we have transportation and are secure.

Cusco Hotel -- upscale digs, ( we've just come from our Lima stay). Seems weird, in a way, lots of hot coca tea, (yes it's legal and which we need for the altitude sickness we now know we are fighting --shortness of breath, hard to breathe, kind of dizzy, really, really tired). We take a walk to the Plaza -- it's dark -- we end up buying Alpacan Indian hats and gloves and scarves from some street market stalls . My bartering skills, not practiced in the Latin style

for a while, aren't at all bad ...

Back to the hotel -- dinner, laughs, and we decide "What happens in Peru stays in Peru" ...

for some reason we really laugh, it's not that funny, but we are in hysterics.

Then, at 9:30 pm we decide to take them up on 1/2 hour massages for $20 American money. I'm in Wonderland, I also tack on a manicure for around $9 American money ...

my hands are a mess -- nails torn and jagged due to the trip prep and travel ..the delay, though

pleasant, has exhausted me. We sleep, arise and leave the hotel at 8 am to go to Puno --port of Lake Titicaca where the reed people live. Arrive in the dark -- stop along the way to

see some small, pretty unexciting 'ruins' -- some shored up by old boards -- but a good place for

drivers to stop with tourists so locals can sell wares --. So, o.k., we do buy. Little tchatkes

like Andean wood flute (quena) for my music-major son. My companions deliberate on

some textiles and ceramics and end up with little ceramic birds that whistle with one tone when you blow into them and then a different tone when filled with water. ¡Preciosos!

Back in the car, the ride with Pepe is a blast -- great conversations in Spanish .. great Incan

music on his CD player and finally Louis Armstrong (he wants to surprise his American friends) with "What a Wonderful World."

Arrive Lake Titicaca (Puno) in the dark ... check into another Eco Hotel. Crash.

First Day, Wed., 26 May 2010

I'm heading down to Peru to help with a Medical Mission. Not a member of a religious group doing mission work in South America ... I'm a female professor who's going along with docs, a pharmacist and around two dozen medical students from the Cleveland Clinic School of Medicine and Case Western Reserve School of Medicine to a small town situated between Cuzco and Machu Picchu to help out for a few weeks.

I meet my colleagues/friends, Kathy and Federica (both doctors) at Hopkins Airport (Cleveland) and we fly to Newark and board to Lima. Arrive 10 pm and are met by Oscar, a driver known to the family of one of our Peruvian docs whose family lives here.

We have brought extra suitcases (very little personal supplies for ourselves) filled with

donated medical supplies (antibiotics, parasite meds, meds for dry eyes, prescription eyeglasses, pain meds, etc.) and oh, no -- one is missing. The authorities at the airport want

more and more info and documentation (we have documents in each suitcase, copies back in the States, medical licenses, are registered with the State Department and the Peruvian Embassy, and yet we're held up for an hour explaining ...) Our driver, as we come to see with

most Peruvians, is abundantly patient. Big delay. Photocopying of passports, much papelejo ...

Prep for trip had been a sin fin flow of photocopies of passports and credit cards, even just

to make train reservations ... yet we're still held up ....

We are allowed to leave and feel we might actually see the suitcase tomorrow and are told

to return to the special office again in the morning. We are led to the Cuban-style 40 year old

clunker. Oscar is humble and solicitous, but once installed in the car and our suitcases loaded,

the car sputters and stalls out -- won't start -- "no arranca" -- he says -- "arranca, coche, buen

coche, buen coche" he cajoles the car he wants to curse. The problem, he explains to me, is

the ratio of the mixture of gas and alcohol in the lines and we sit for an hour while we hear the engine make its pathetic and recalcitrant attempts -- choke, sputter -- "¡qué bestia!" .. he finally admits.

Why, in God's name, are we not taking other transportation, but "qué insulto sería..."

so, we wait ... incredibly "he" (el coche/bestia) starts and we go into Lima itself at 11 pm --and as we round the corners my eyes become round -- there are metal grates from street level to roof of every single side -by- side house and building. The car stops in front of one and we are greeted by a lovely man with a huge smile and he treats us like family (I had never met him before -- his brother-in-law is the evaluator of my course at the university. His wife approaches, pretty and sweet, in a wheelchair. They offer us anything we want -- food, water... we can't accept, we're zombies.

Actually, I do want water, but can't ask for it since we had a family two year episode with Giardia and I'm skittish (I opt for hot water that had been prepared for tea) . We ascend to two rooms and a bathroom that is quite different from US standards. I unthinkingly brush my teeth with the water coming out of the old spicket. oh, no ... pero, ¿qué hacer?

Across the hall is an old woman (96 yrs old) asleep and breathing heavily. After seeing

the body under the covers, I was actually glad for the loud sounds ...

Next morning, we rise, I brush my teeth with water from the airplane bottle, and use the tiolet, we can't put the paper into it, though. We have to use a waste can to the side ...

Funny feeling, abuelita is the same configuration of bumps I had seen the night before -- oh, no, no sounds.

Suddenly on the scene: two lovely senoritas who are her caretakers -- gracias a Dios, she's

rising for the day ...

We have a super -pleasant breakfast -- these people are simply good, generous, and warm ...

we are embraced by their kindness. Oscar has come back for us and we return to Lima airport to take the flight to Cusco.