The Hug

The homes my students live in are about the size of a cluster of six office cubicles. Often, a family of eight will reside in these four walled structures made of plywood and tarps. When I first saw entire communities living in these boxes, I gaped at it. I had a similar reaction of disbelief when I first saw small children frolicking in the open sewer systems that ran out onto the street. However, just like a body being exposed to disease, one gets immunity to such sights with time of exposure and they become normal. As a resident of a developing country, you are constantly surrounded by wretched quality of life. The needs are so immense, that you cannot spend too much time pitying people or loosing sleep over what you see. Otherwise, you would never get any sleep. You live on idealism and optimism, a shield from the reality.

However, even for the most hardened SM, the shield will crack, your optimism will run out, and your hope for humanity along with it. This happened to me yesterday.

It was afternoon, and I was out walking through the community where I teach. It has a large population of around 2,500 people, yet there always seems to be at least one of my student’s homes on every street. They will call out to me, and I’ll go visit their homes and their families. I very much enjoy visiting my students. Some of my fondest memories here have been sitting on front porches with a Peruvian drink in my hand as the sun sets, shooting the breeze about politics, education, what the United States is like, or just listening to stories of weathered old grandparents about their hunting days in the deep jungle of the North.

Yesterday was no different. The first house I visited was of a third grade student, and I found myself captivated by the stories of the girl’s mother. She had grown up in a family that raised cocaine. The drug trafficking world was something she had known intimately from a child. There were stories of good harvests and bad, stories of close calls with drug police, honest and corrupt. But more than those, there was the story that unfolded of many Peruvian families, and the decision they had to make. On one hand they could go into agriculture, raising corn and beans, and eek out a living often times insufficient to provide their own family with food. Or, they could grow cocaine, a crop that can be harvested four times a year, as opposed to one, and a crop that will be paid for in American dollars, as opposed to Peruvian currency. For many, this means that your family will eat and you may be able to send your kids to college.

As I walked to the next house, my mind was filled with ethical decisions and catch twenty-twos. In the rhetoric about drug wars in the U.S., the side of the Peruvian or Columbian family is lost. Nevertheless, I continued on and soon found myself on the front porch of another family, this time one of my second graders. As I chewed away on fresh coconut, the mother of the home began unloading her concern for her younger sister. Apparently, her sibling had slept with a neighbor boy four times. She was thirteen. Even for Peruvians, where the average girl enters motherhood at seventeen or eighteen, this is young. As she continued on telling me about her brother who was steeped in drugs, all I could do was shake my head and continue listening, feeling like lending an ear would help relieve her pain a little.

Her husband, a well respected man, walked up about this time. Upon hearing the topic of conversation, he said, “Mateo, our primary concern should be for our own family, not for the family of our parents.” It was obvious the couple had had this conversation before. He explained how he wanted to move away so they wouldn’t have to deal with the wife’s family, but she wouldn’t hear anything of it. Marriage counseling isn’t my specialty, but I offered a few words of advice, doing the best I could to peace make, and then stood up to leave. As I did, a scream of anguish pierced the evening sky from a neighbor home. It continued in bursts. I shot a questioning glance at the mother. “That’s Gerald she said”, shaking her head sadly. “His mother is beating him.” I was astonished. Gerald is one of my second grade students. He always wears his pants too high, exposing his ankles. He is an awkward but intelligent kid, who is always first to shout out an answer of some kind in class. He is picked on frequently. I’ve noticed signs of neglect before, but no bruises. Upon further questioning, the beatings are an almost nightly occurrence, screams as predictable as the rooster’s crowing.

I walked away. I did not want to hear Gerald crying. A dark cloud was settling over my mind. My shield of immunity was cracking. All I could think about were cocaine raising families, thirteen year old mothers, and Gerald’s screams. And now a new thought, as I remembered the student missionary who was murdered a few days before: a fallen comrade. I trudged through the street, hung my head, and said aloud, “the world is lost.” I can say things like that aloud here, and no one knows what I’m saying.

I felt helpess, powerless, and useless against the problems around me. It was a low point for me. However, my depressing thoughts were interrupted. Three small children playing in the gutter spot me. They giggled, and started running my way yelling, “Professor Mateo!”, no doubt younger siblings of some of my students. They all surrounded me, hugging me with all they had. Now, I’m not a huge hugger. I can go some time without a hug and not feel any withdrawal symptoms. But let me tell you, I clung to those children with all I had too, feeling like I was clinging on to the last pieces of innocence in the world, and also feeling that God himself had sent me human touch and love, just when I needed it. As the four of us stood there in embrace, I looked up at the sky, which was crimson and ribboned with the rising smoke of the evening cooking fires. As I did did, God seemed to say to me, “No Matt, as long as there is just a little love left, good was still worth fighting for, and the world was not lost.” And as I said goodbye to the three little angels who disappeared back to playing in the gutter, and as the sun completely sunk out of the sky, my worry was washed away and I had a new resolve in my step. Because any day where stories of humanity are heard, and a powerful lesson is learned, that day is not lost either.

I’ve never struck oil before. I imagine however, that the feeling of discovery can’t be all that different than drawing blood. My patient comes in, and I immediately size up the juiciness of the arm veins. I tell them it won’t hurt, and that it will be quick. I don’t tell them that I’m secretly thrilled to tap their life liquid and check it out under my microscope. Out come a needle and test tube. I pinch the two together with my forefinger and ease in the metal. Red eases out. Success. I make a smear on a microscope slide, stain the slide, and evaluate my patients leukocyte army under my scope. There is a disproportionate amount of eosinophils. The verdict is clear: parasites.

This is an all too common verdict here in Peru, but I’m all too happy to render it, and to fight this adversary. As a third year chemistry and biology student, I recently got a dream assignment here in Peru. I was given a two week crash course in hematology, parasitology, and urology, then, armed with some archaic donated lab equipment, was sent deep into the jungle of Peru to be of use during a medical clinic. I could hardly contain my excitement as I first stepped through the crowded waiting room, armed with my microscope and centrifuge: an arsenal ready to battle infirmity. It was an excitement that never died down that week; even when they started bringing me poop.

The poop came slow at first. Doc had ordered a stool test for one patient. The lad shyly handed over his sample jar, and I took it at arms length. I said “gracias” as sincerely as I could, but my eyes didn’t light up as my nose did. The patient didn’t even try to smile. I gingerly dipped the poop on a slide with a popsicle stick and placed it on the platform. I peered down at the green slop and into the world of parasites. Aliens in all different shapes and sizes peered back. Some were easy to identify, while others were so camouflaged that a focus a fraction of a mm off rendered them invisible. My lab partner, Kevin, and I found four parasites in the first patient’s sample, and the hunt was on.

Dozens and dozens more patients brought us their poop. Some in old pill jars and some in zip lock bags. And the smells, oh the smells. The lab, and us, were steeped in the smells of various body liquids and solids. Other humans didn’t want to interact with us, save for a poop hand off, or a blood drawing.

But none of this mattered to Kevin and I. The more poop we saw the better we became at snipping out parasites, even Guardia: the ultimate prize for the parasite hunter. It needs a special stain solution; it is entirely clear and excruciatingly small. The first time I found it, and had my discovery confirmed by our clinic doctor, I felt I did many years ago, when I discovered a Chipper Jones rookie card in a random baseball card pack I bought at wall mart. But this discovery was even better. Because as I peered down at the tiny form in my scope, I got to whisper, “your friends are all gonna´ die soon,” knowing that my patient would be liberated from the pests with much needed medicine. As a parasite hunter, you fight for your patient.

That’s not to say that we were error free lab techs. There was the pregnancy test fiasco. When the first woman, a girl of 17, came to us for a pregnancy test, we dug around a box and found some generic looking pregnancy tests with no instructions. After obtaining urine from the suspectant mother, we plunged in one of the sticks and waited. A single red line appeared near the top of the stick. Kevin and I looked at each other, and shrugged our shoulders, clueless as to the sticks meaning. “Maybe we should flip a coin?” I ventured. Kevin suggested we ask the doc. So, in one of those fleeting moments as he rushed between rooms, we shoved the stick in front of him. “Positive,” he said. So, I rehearsed quickly on one of our SM nurses (who also confirmed the result as positive) what I would say to the seventeen year old. Then, I broke the news to her. Her face lit up into a smile and rushed out of the room. (Realize that here, if a girl hasn’t had a baby by twenty, she is looked upon a little strangely).

Four of these positive test results down the road, my infinitely wise lab cohort suggested we test his urine so we would know what a negative test result looked like. So, after he had done his business, we plunged the stick into the liquid, and three minutes later a red line appeared near the top, no different than the last four “positive” tests. There were two options. One was that we had given out four false positives and that four women were now preparing for babies that they will never have. And the other option. . . . .well, Kevin said he would name his baby after me. So we fixed the system, and not a moment too soon. The very next pregnancy candidate, upon hearing that the test was negative (what would have been read by us as a positive moments before) looked to be infinitely relieved.

So, errors and all, and smelling like out-houses, we made it through the week. I loved contributing to the medical team. What’s more, is I felt like I had, in a literal sense, got to know the patients better, more intimately, than anyone else. We had exposed their afflictions under our microscope, afflictions that would not harm them any longer for the time being with the right meds. I thought it ironic, that a few months ago, I used microscopes and centrifuges to receive only a letter grade in a class. The opportunity I had to take what I learned in academia and use it to practically help folks out is something I will remember long time. Long after my scrubs smell nice again.

Eye Doc

The student missionary life in Peru presents a smorgasbord of medical experience. Filling prescriptions, taking blood pressures and glucose levels, giving penicillin shots and starting IV’s are all in my rudimentary repertoire. This week another item was on the menu: a vision clinic. A kind couple from north Georgia bought fifteen hundred pairs of prescription lenses a few months ago. They aren’t ophthalmologists or even optometrists, but nurses that decided they wanted to help folks in the word see a little better. Lucky for the folks in my area of Peru, the kind couple from north Georgia decided to come to them. And lucky for me, I got to be apart of the miracle of “giving sight to the blind.”

They came in droves, and the droves came at one in the morning to line up for our eight o’clock clinic. Whether they were near-sighted or far-sighted, young or old, needed glasses or not, they came. We first refracted their eyes. We had an old Spanish Bible that they would peer down at as we placed combinations of lenses in front of their eyes. At the correct combination, the patients would let out a resounding “Si”, or if they were older a tear might fall from their cheek as they realized they might be able to read the Bible for the first time in many years.
Then they came to me. I was the fitter of glasses. I would look at their papers and grab the correct prescription. I had a rough drawing of the eye, and I would give them a thirty-second explanation on myopia or hyperopia, whichever was the case. This I thoroughly enjoyed. And besides, at barely twenty-two, I had to do something to build up my credibility before I handed them their prescription lenses. Or maybe I didn’t. Those that came were incredibly trusting with whatever we did to them or gave to them during our clinics. To a twenty two year old with no medical experience, this is wonderful and scary all at the same time.

After myopia 101, out come the glasses. Out come more smiles from the patients as they can read again for the first time in who knows how long. If only everything in life had these immediate results. Of course there are many we couldn’t help. Many have cataracts. With the worst cases we could only shake our heads and send them off empty handed, doomed to peer at things through clouded eyes the rest of their life. I grew tired of sending people away like this, and more than once I pondered the thought of finding a mail order course on how to do cataract surgery. I tossed the thought away and focused on the patients we could help.

Quite a few of the patients were my students. I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to teach a student that can now see the board you are teaching from because they are wearing the glasses you fitted them with. Nope, I can’t tell you. A blog entry can get you only so close. Just trust me when I say it’s a a great feeling.

They haven’t been paid in three months. They still work. They still come to the rustic school in the dusty town that has become my home, and they teach. When I first heard that the Peruvian teachers of grades one through six at my school hadn’t been paid in three months, I was filled with anger. Anger isn’t specific enough. Righteous indignation is more accurate. I felt righteous indignation that something deep in the web of bureaucracy of the education system in this developing country was keeping hard working educators from the salary that they deserved. Oh, the system officials spit out excuses. The surrounding area of the school was poor they said. There simply wasn’t money. According to the teachers, there was money, but it was in the pockets of the officials. A poor struggling school and accusations of corruption were the ingredients of a great cause and I wasn´t going to miss out.

The journalist/activist being awakened inside me, I went home from class that day, and with my jaw firmly set, I grabbed a pen. The pen is mightier than the sword, I thought. I will write in elegant prose the need for education and the un-justness of the situation. I will set the matter straight by sending this eloquent hard hitting letter to the Peruvian education system. Halfway through “To whom it may concern” my pen fell limp. Well, first because the higher-ups in the education system of a Spanish speaking country would certainly not understand if I wrote in English. Second, because even if they did, what would they care if some gringo English teacher told them off in a letter, no matter how much he was filled with righteous indignation.

Plan B. I would lead a strike. Yes, we would all strike from going to school. That would show them! I even brought my Martin Luther King shirt! But as the bells of revolution resounded in my head, I paused. What kind of strike? All kids and teachers just don’t come to school? I came down here to help kids learn, and then we have a strike from school. Makes sense. Actually, if I led a strike, the only strikers would probably be those kids in the back of fifth and sixth grade who just tell jokes and eat cheese puffs during class.

On to plan C. I could raise money from the states. It would be about twelve thousand dollars to sustain the school through December. My thoughts hit roadblocks yet again. By the time the money would be raised and down here, if it could be raised, the school year would be over (theirs ends in December).

My visions of hero student missionary faded. There would be no heroic saving of schools for me. I threw my “to whom it may concern” letter across the room. I dropped my not-so-mighty pen on the floor, frustrated by how little I could do. Frustrated that I couldn’t save the world. Frustrated by a city that didn’t put the education of its next generation first. How would this country continue developing when it treats its teachers and students in such a manner? My thoughts trailed off. My rant wasn’t doing any good. My rant was fueled by my idealism and by my American mindset. The latter of which never does anyone any good down here.

School continued without teacher salaries. Here, south of the equator, spring was coming, and it was time for the annual spring picnic. I wondered if the festivities would go on as planned. The teachers announced to all the students that the festivities were on. Everyone was to bring a little something to help out, a cucumber here, and a carrot there. The teachers were going to supply the rest. It was to be a fish fry.

What a fish fry it was! It was raining, so the festivities were moved inside. All the students gathered in an upper grade class. We cleared an area on the dirt floor in the middle of the classroom for a fire. One student’s dad is a fisherman on the Ucayali River. He brought bags and bags of fish. We fried them up right there in the middle of the classroom. Once the last fish was fried, we turned the classroom into a dining hall. The desks became dining tables, and fresh Chicha Morada (refreshing Peruvian drink made from corn) was set out on each table. Then the fish basket was passed around. The lone basket was pilled so high that fish were falling on the floor. We all waited in eager anticipation for our serving. I was served by the head teacher herself. As she put fish on my plate, I asked her the purpose of the meal. I’ll never forget what she said. She said that this was a feast to thank God for all the blessings he has given us. There was no hint of sarcasm or irony in her voice. There was no trace of bitterness. Here, the lady that wasn´t even getting money to make copies for class or buy chalk for the board was having a leading out in a meal of thanksgiving. I squint my eyes and look off in the distance, the way you do when you´re contemplating something really difficult.

We ate. It’s was some of the best fish I’ve ever had. I look around the room. Folks were eating like was the best fish they had ever had too. Maybe was just the circumstances around the meal. It was a meal about a school that came together for thanksgiving even when they had no money. It was a meal about six Peruvian teachers who truly know how to be thankful.

I wrote no letters, I gave no speeches, I led no revolutions. I didn´t even wear my Martin Luther King shirt (it was dirty). I would love to take on the corruption of the officials in this country, and if God leads me to these ends I would be thrilled. It is not likely. I have come to the humbling realization that I can´t change the world. What I have realized is that if change is to come at all, it must come from the bottom up. I may not be able to change the hearts of corrupt officials, but what I can do is teach my students morals, and teach them Christ. They can become the city officials of tomorrow, city officials that have integrity and a respect for morality and education. You may say this is still idealistic, and you may be right. But as for me and my fellow fellow teachers in a forgotten school in South America, what have we got to lose?

Blood Pressure

Maybe its because they have never seen a blood pressure being taken. Maybe its becuse I´m blond, a site about as rare as a solar eclipse. But for whatever reason, as I move from person to person in the crowded clinic, blood pressure taking is a spectacle. The patients are all seated on benches, and i kneel down by each one and set up my stethascope and pressure cuff. As I do, the four patients on the sides of my patient lean in close to see the pressure guage. Children gather around behind me to play with my hair, and stare wide eyed at the pressure cuff. At any given time, there are no less than nine people watching. As the needle goes down, the crowd shouts out numbers, numbers they think correspond to my patients pressure. The noise resembles the New York stock exchange: but entirely in spanish.

If that doesn´t make it hard enough to hear, often the mothers have babies and small children in their laps. The babies like to play with the cords. Sometimes they are creative enough to play with the cords methodicaly, giving me an artificial heartbeat. I check a young mother. One-ninety over twenty? Nope, just junior using my stethascope as a guitar string. I thwart the future musician with my elbow and try again. Success.

Most of the patients are sweet older ladies. They call me doctor. This, I have no problem with. I have earned this title because I am a male, and have a stethascope around my neck. I do my best to look like a doctor. I carry multiple pins in my scrubs shirt pocket and write the blood pressures on their cards as sloppy as i can.

I move on to the next patient. She is a lady of about sixty, and has the nicest smile. I check her left arm. One-forty over one-thirty. Something is worng. I check the other arm. Same result. I frown and look up at her. Its her shirt sleeves; they are entirely too tight. I tell her this, and begin to roll them down, when she suggests that it might be best for her to take her shirt off entirely. I stare at her blankly. There are seventy people in the clinic, and there are at least nine spectators leaning in. Before I have time to say anything, the blood pressure crowd agrees that taking the shirt off would be the best thing to do. The shirt is coming off, no matter what the doctor says. Off it goes. I take the blood pressure as quickly as possible, and pray that I can get it in one try. Success.

I move on. I call out number fifty seven. A mother in her 30´s raises her hand across the clinic room. At the moment, she is breast feeding. In Peru, breastfeeding in public is a common site. I am beggining to become accustomed to this. As I walk toward the mother she continues to breast feed. Surely she will cut lunch short for junior. She doesn´t. In fact, the entire time I take the pressure, she continues feeding her child. I glance around. To everyone else in the room, this is normal. Its me, the only American in the waiting room that feels uncomfortable. And then it hits me. Its the me, the blond "doctor", that needs to become apart of Peruvian culture. Its me that needs to be okay with this standard of decency. Its me that needs to change. Not them. The Peruvian people are open and kind. In order to serve most effectively, I must reach a level of openness too. I must be okay with this. My goal is for Peruvian normal my normal too. I finish with the patient, and realize that this goal is a little closer. And if nothing else, at least mom´s feeding kept junior from playing with the cords. I smile and call out the next patient. Another wild day at the clinic. I wouldn´t have it any other way.

Impresiones primero (1rst impressions)

(Surprisingly) chilly weather.
Warm people.

Complicated Visa process.
Simple living.

Dirty Streets.
Crystal clear sky.

They are short.
I am tall. (yessss!)

The busy city is overwhelming.
The peoples living conditions underwehlming.

Fast driving! (3x the speed limit not uncommon)
Slow internet.

Letting go of America.
Holding tight to God.


I can already feel myself coming alive here. I´m in the so-called honeymoon phase of student missionary life. I´m running high on oprimism and idealism. Its going to be quite a year! So stay tuned to From the (really) Deep South.