In the jungle: The only place where two year old's chop sticks with machetes

My camera started acting up on me while I was in the jungle this time (this time for four days), so I was unable to take many very many pictures, so most of these are taken from my co-workers.

Bian Tai Ririn, the new nursery in the jungle!

The past two weeks went by SO quickly. In addition to working at Elijo la Vida, I was also able to shadow a doctor at a hospital called Hospitals of Hope (hospitales de esperanza) in the trauma center. It was interesting to see how he interacted with the patients and worked with them, and he saw seven patients in three hours. The trauma center is for patients who have been in serious accidents, and are recovering. As a result, a woman came in who had been hit by a car, as well as a couple of people who had had broken bones. In all honesty, it wasn't as interesting as I would have imagined it to be, but I also couldn't understand everything that the doctor was saying, so that would have also contributed.

In addition to going to the Yuquis village with Elijo la Vida, we also went to a women's jail to do Pap tests, and I got to do a couple for the first time! We got a new volunteer from the United States, a girl called Karen who is currently in med school, and she guided me through it. It wasn't very hard, and we got to have some fresh pineapple juice after (as irrelevant as that is. It was good pineapple juice). It took us about 2 hours to see nineteen patients. I was really excited to be able to go into the jail, because we had been trying to go in for a couple of weeks, and I'd heard a lot about it. The jails in Bolivia are so different from Canada, as it almost resembles a small city. It's an enclosed square, where the prisoners can roam around in it, and it has a store, chairs, and an open roof. Everyone can wear regular clothes, unlike the traditional bright orange clothes (which I'm actually not sure if people have to wear in Canada). As well, family can visit and go directly into the jail if they want to, and a lot of mothers actually have their children living in the jail with them, because there isn't a foster care system in Bolivia.

About the Yuquis: So much happened that I am going to divide into 4 sections:
1) The project
2) Spare time
3) Food
4) What God taught me
5) What sort of insect bites I got (...just kidding. But it could take up a section)

1) The project

On Wednesday, we left for the Yuquis village again, this time to renovate the church and convert it into a nursery. Over four days, we swept the inside, smoked out all the hornets, gave the whole church a fresh coat of white, painted the tables and shelves, and decorated the whole inside. I was actually really impressed with how it turned out, and am really excited to see how the nursery will run. As I mentioned before, one of the things that I like the best about this initiative is how the goal is to make a self sustainable nursery. Dinah (the girl who I met last time who is my age) is going to be the teacher, and the mothers are going to alternate cooking for the children. As wonderful as this would be if it works out, it will also be a challenge for the women to commit to helping out with the nursery, so they definitely still need a lot of prayer and support.

Kids putting handprints on the sign

Karen working on nailing balloons and posters to the church

The play area

The reading area

Another view of the back of the nursery

We had the inauguration on Saturday in the morning, and the whole village for 50 ended up showing up. After Miguel led worship, Marilyn explained again what the nursery was going to be (the main purpose is to offer a feeding program for the children under the age of 5 as well as providing some intellectual stimulation for them before starting elementary school), as well as introducing the main leaders and telling the community exactly how the program was going to work. Dinah will be coming up every week or two to be trained by a few women from Marilyn's church who are preschool teachers, and then implementing the program when she goes back. Everyone was pretty excited about it, and we also gave out some egg sandwiches to everyone as sort of a celebration.

The inauguration meeting; almost everyone in the village showed up!

Two of the new enrolled nursery kids at the inauguration!

A really cute kid at the inauguration

Marilyn teaching the mothers about the feeding schedule

2) Spare time

My bow and arrows.

So...I was reunited with my bow and arrows. I did end up buying the huge set for a friend, and had a blast trying them out. I managed to get them forty feet actually, although I'm really not strong enough to get them any farther. They're actually a foot and a half taller than me, and everyone laughed at me a lot.

The riverbank (mostly the sand though)

We usually just worked in the morning, and had free time in the afternoon to do other things. One day, we went to the river and swam in it (I still think it's cool that I swam in a tribute of the Amazon) with the kids. I have a lifeguarding certification (although I passed pretty sketchily and never felt comfortable enough actually lifeguarding) and still struggled with the current. The kids were regular little fish though. It was a pretty nice river, but so much smaller than in the summer. The water level lowered so much that we had to walk across 50 metres of sand and mud (that would have normally been covered) to get to the water.

Kids playing in the sand some more

Miguel also led a Bible study for the kids afterwards, and he shared the story of the Good Samaritan with them. It was so cute seeing all the kids know the actions to all of the songs, and that even the eleven year old boys participated! We played '4 corners' afterwards, which I learned from Carachipampa Christian School, although I didn't explain the game all that well.

One of the great things about the jungle is that you can pretty much get everything from the jungle, including bowls and plates. There's an inedible fruit called the 'Tutuma' that you can hollow out and use the shell as a bowl, once it has been dried in the sun, so Karen and I spent some time hacking them with machetes and hollowing them out (with the kids help). Sadly, we used them to hold oil paint to paint the church, so I'm not really sure if they are still usable as bowls, but we'll see.

Jocelyn, Jocelyn (the baby) and Vicky

3) Food


Remember how I said that you can pretty much get everything you need directly from the jungle? Well, this includes food, so I have decided to perform a critical analysis of everything we ate. I'm probably going to get horribly sick (the doctor's aren't going to like me very much when I get back), but I think it was worth it.

Catfish: The catfish was so amazing! Some of Miguel's friends caught some, so they gave us two over the four days as gifts, as we deep fried them and ate them. Miguel knew a great recipe for a sort of catfish fry (I think he made it up actually), and I am definitely trying it on whatever fish I can get my hands on when I go back home.

Miguel and one of the catfish

Tropero (jungle pig): Not as good as catfish, but still very, very good. A man shot a jungle pig on Friday morning, so we actually bought a leg before we got the catfish gift, so we ended up having a huge dinner. We chopped it up in small squared and deep fried that, and it tasted sort of like gamey beef.

Papaya: Dinah's husband took one down for me, and we waited three whole days for it to ripen, but when it did, it was SO delicious! I think that was my favourite fruit that I ate while in the jungle, it was so much better than any papaya I've ever had before.

Grapefruit: I had to climb a grapefruit tree to get at that one, and the one I picked unfortunately had a termite nest in it, which only clicked in my head as a bad idea when I started to get bitten. But I got four down anyways, and another boy got another four down for me (he didn't mind the termite bites, apparently), and I took away one of them. It was good, but grapefruit isn't really my thing.

Banana: Miguel and Karen cleared an area in front of the church, made a pile of leaves and garbage, and tried to burn it. While one of the village girls was fanning the flame, she pointed out a gigantic stack of bananas lying behind the pile of leaves, so I went and grabbed it. I swear, there must have been over 50 bananas there (is it called a stack? Or a stock? Or a grove?). The kids were so sweet, they all asked me if they could have one before taking them, and the bananas were amazing. They were smaller than normal ones though (about 5 inches long). When I called the boys playing soccer to have some, there was a bit of a pile up as they all literally fought for them, and would trot away sheepishly holding ten or so. It was hilarious.

This is what a grove of bananas looks like

Mandarins: I wouldn't have liked them if it wasn't for the fact that they were picked off a tree, because they were really sour. But it was fun anyways.

Oranges: Close to the port as we were leaving, Marilyn noticed a grove of orange trees, so I went off with one of the village girls (Vicky) to grab some. She ended up picking nine or ten (after the termite incident, I wasn't too eager to climb the tree myself), and they were amazing. So sweet!

A sideways picture of Vicky in the orange tree

Cacao fruit: In retrospect, I would have liked to try and make chocolate with it actually, what a pity that I didnt. The fruit was alright, although a bit slimey.

4) What God taught me

The average hut

Being in the jungle really taught me a lot about frugality. It's true that this village is incredibly poor by the world's standards, so much so that if they leave to visit other places, they can only get around by begging. But in other ways, they have a lot. They have so much knowledge about jungle food and different things like that, and have an abundance of fruit, meat and vegetables to eat. The kids all seem pretty happy, and everyone is super friendly. A lot of times, I hear that people who are poor believe in God because they have nothing else and need hope. I think its the opposite, that people who have a lot of money have such a harder time believing, because they don't need to think about hope. I can waste so much time just watching TV, or on the computer, that a whole day can be spent in complete unproductiveness. Is it not the same in terms of money? Can we be so preoccupied with money that we end up spending our whole lives not seeking true meaning in life, not considering Christ and the cross?

I also was really inspired spending time with Karen, the new addition to our team. Because she is actually in medical school, she still remembers all of what she has been learning, and for the first time in my entire life, I was actually fascinated by diseases, hormones and parasites (although I've learned it all before). I think when two people are discussing the likelihood of developing hookworms from the fact that they walked barefoot in  dirt and swam in the jungle, it becomes so much more practical and relevant. Anyways, I hope I can actually remember that what I learn in nursing school next  year will actually have practical application, and can be more motivated to study more and pay attention in lecture.

Anyways, there are a ton more things that happened to me these four days, but it would take forever to recount them all, and I covered the biggest parts, I think. Overall, it was just a huge blessing to be a part of this project, and I am SO unbelievably fortunate.

Prayer requests:
-The nursery (it's called 'Bian tai ririn') and that the mothers would stay motivated to continue it.
-Spiritual and emotional strength for Dinah (she's also about 7 months pregnant with her third child, so I'm really impressed with her commitment)
-Focus on things above and not things on earth.

Thanks a lot!
Jocelyn

P.S. This is a side note that I am writing two days after I typed up the rest of this post, but Dinah is not 7 months pregnant. She is now negative two days pregnant. She gave birth the first day the nursery opened, which I find hilarious. She's apparently still going to start teaching next week...