CQAcllaraccay, August 25 -- Today, instead of taking the lead, our ProPeru team was backup.The medical staff of Centro de Salud Maras was heading for an elementary school to fluoride the teeth of young children, teach them to wash their hands, check their stools for parasites, take blood pressure from adults, and see what else blew in the door. (Answer: An eye infection, a herniated disk and a few other odds and ends)
The vehicles picked up the ProPeru team at Hostal de Maizel about 9 a.m. for the 45-minute drive to the mountain village of 50-60 families beyond the salt ponds we had visited on Sunday. This is an area of extreme poverty. I rode shotgun next to Fortunato, our driver, who spoke very little English, but was most accommodating in practicing Spanish, and very useful in providing some Quechua phrases we could use to talk to people when we arrived: Ari = yes; manen = no; emaynaya kashianke = how are you; and aillimi (I-Yee-Mee) -- well done! That´s about all you need with the kids.
When we arrived in the village square, many adults and children had gathered and were receiving instructions from community leaders. While this was going on, some of us shot photos and made movies. I shared images with the children, who crowded around, pointed at themselves and their friends in the videos and stills and giggled.
Our base of operations became an elementary school play area. We pulled tables out of classrooms to create the location where children would have their teeth painted with fluoride. The person below who is performing this service is Jill Wakefield, chancellor of Seattle Central Community College.
Unlike last year, when they simply spit the solution out, this time they got to rinse their mouths. Our water source was a large water container -- the type used for office water coolers. It was quite heavy, and there was no dispenser, so I was designated the one to wrestle the container into position to pour the water into little plastic rinse cups. My helper was a gentleman named Hector. ¨Usted y you somos equipo Hector,¨ I joked. (You and I are team Hector.) He liked that. The kids would come over for the rinse and Hector would instruct them to spit. We rested the water jug on a table taken from a classroom. To keep the wind from blowing it away, we put a rock inside a plastic grocery bag I had brought to Peru, and used that for our waste basket.
Part way through, a clinician set up a hand-washing demonstration to show kids the importance of having clean hands and how to do it.
As time passed, we ran out of cups. Andrea Insley, head of the Global Outreach program at Seattle Central Community College said they could just spit without water as they did last year. But many of the kids ran to a water faucet for water. I was assured by Hector that it was ¨agua pura,¨ but afterward it was explained to me that he probably didn´t understand what I was asking. No matter. These kids were already exposed to that water. In a little over a week we would be returning to provide water filters for each classroom at the school.
The teeth were serviced, the hand-washing lesson was over. Time for the stool samples. Kids were provided little cups to put some poop in and a clinician examined smears under a microscope for parasites. Virtually all the kids had them (from the water, naturally). They were sent to the pharmacy table to swallow tablets with anti-parasite medication. Running the table was Jasvir,38, a Sikh who takes time off from work for this kind of service. A while back she fought with her personnel department and won the right to go to Haiti to help in the earthquake disaster, organizing the drugs which had been rushed to the scene so swiftly that there was no order to them. On her breaks she practices some pretty impressive yoga--as do other young women on our team.
While I lugged the water container toward the inside clinic, Jill was teaching the children the Hokey Pokey. They loved it. I tried to join in. Not a smart idea at 10,000 feet while holding an office water jug. Later I tried something more tame -- playing the harmonica in the play area. Children crowded around to see this strange instrument and hear the unusual music played by the big pale hombre with the week-old, scraggly beard. Some wanted to play it. (Not possible. I have an illness, I explained.) When we return in two weeks I hope to have the Col. Boogie March ( think Bridge on the River Kwai) down well enough to form a couple of marching lines. I think they would love that. But there´s a lot of in-and-out breathing on that piece, and it my be bit much at altitude.
I wasn´t the only one having fun. Alveena Bhati (Afghanistan-born and living in Seattle) and Linda Nguyen introduced the girls to the fine art of jump rope while the boys competed at spinning old-fashioned tops.
I wish I had written down the slogan painted along the edge of the school´s balcony. It´s hidden away some placed in one of my videos and a little inaccessible at this time. But here is a rough translation: ¨The next generation is our hope.¨
Besos y abrosos...
Roberto
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