Centro America

Centro America is the village that we stayed at for four days in the jungle. We slept in their school, which is one of two buildings with a floor...the other being the medical outpost clinic that exists in this community. Due to the rain and therefore the astonishing amount of mud (!) we were very grateful to have a floor beneath us to sleep on. We tented in the school room on the concrete floor with our tents acting as our mosquito nets. I won't begin to try and describe the baño (bathroom) to you. Let's just say, I was much happier peeing in the grass in the middle of the night than having to use the baño during the day. Again, the reality of health education in these villages is huge...to have a clean community bathroom where people aren't trekking over other human waste is essential, yet lacking. There's a whole realm of new information to people that takes a long time for them to be able to grasp. The parasite health teaching that Tito (you'll meet him later) did addressed a lot of these issues.

For now, here are some scenes from Centro America...

Arrival day at Centro America - The Medical Team (other than translators): Dr. Sam, Corrine RN (both from Edmonton), Pat, RN, Steve (pharmacy tech in training extraordinaire!), Vicky, RN, Dianne, RN (from Florida), Me.

wondering what all we have in those boats there...

Levi and Laura

No corrals for the animals so it's like one happy barnyard! Just watch where you step.

The gateway from the school house. There was always some little person watching us (:

One of my favourite shots. I don't what this boy was reading but it was just so wonderful to watch him so enraptured by it!

Gema (who came with us to cook) could could anything over an open fire! She is thoroughly amazing. They use a lot of lime in this part of Peru and add some lime to anything and it's really quite tasty!

Central to the village was the soccer field! These kids were covered in mud and played for hours on end! You'll have to double click on the photo to enlarge it and see the goal post at the top end of the picture. The building central is the highschool and the building we used for our kitchen and dining area.

As you can see, some huts have four walls and others have no walls. The raised floors are made of tree bark and the roofs are made of palm leaves.