June 2012 Amazon
Boat Trip Journal
Greencastle
Christian Church, Greencastle ,
Indiana
Chelle
Thomas—journal writer
Tuesday, June 05,
2012 (Morning)
I believe the
challenge for me on this trip will be letting go of the details. I planned meticulously for this trip. I thought out every detail….and….most of
those plans have fallen apart. I bought
every type of bug spray I could possibly need and it was confiscated. I packed only carry on luggage precisely
meeting the regulations I found in writing and on the website before the flight
because I did not want to risk my bags getting lost. On the first plane, it was a small jet and
they made us valet check all of our carry on luggage. On the second flight—the one actually going
to Brazil
Tuesday, June 05,
2012 (Evening)
Our group got
together on Sunday afternoon and spent a few hours sorting and packing all of
the items we had collected for this trip.
We had 10 large suitcases filled to the brim with medicines, glasses,
baby wipes, etc. We met yesterday around
3 pm to head to the airport. We arrived
in Miami Manaus 2 liter of water to brush
our teeth and you cannot put any toilet paper in the toilet. There is a little can for it. We have not seen many bugs but we are dousing
on the bug spray just in case. I am in
the room with Megan and Katie. We are all
sleeping upstairs in the Rede’s (hedgies) tonight. Two other people are too…It is 10:15 and I
am ready for bed! Tomorrow we have
breakfast at 7 and then devotions. Then
Earl will go to the airport and when he gets back our first village is about 4
hours away. He said we will try to see
two villages tomorrow and they are both completely under water. I guess I forgot to mention that the river is
the highest it has been in a very long time—maybe ever. I think they said it is 98 feet high.
Wednesday, June
06, 2012
Wow, there was a
lot going on today…we got up around 6:30. Several of us slept in the Rede’s last
night. They are super comfortable! They rock just a little and you can really
stretch out. I was a little worried
before I got here that they would be easy to flip over, but they are not.
There were no bugs during the night that I saw. We had breakfast around 7 am. It consisted of mango, papaya, tapioca (which is not pudding—It is kind of a fried crumbly bread), tapioca with meat and cheese inside, rolls, apples, bananas, fried bananas, grapes, and guava juice. Again it was fantastic. After that, Earl and the doctor left to go see about getting our meds back. While they were gone we packaged up children’s vitamins, ibuprofen, and Tylenol. Earl got back around 12:30 and we were thrilled to see that they got ALL of our stuff back! I have to note here what an amazing job Ruth Ann does organizing all of the meds. There is what you see in the pharmacy, which is well organized….but then there is the stuff in the very bottom of the boat. She has big cases; each labeled and sorted for all of the items they collect. It is amazing to see! We ate lunch next. These ladies can really cook and there is so much food. There has not been anything I have not liked! For lunch we had fried chicken (kind of like chicken nuggets), rice, and a bean and sausage gravy type thing, manioc, pineapple mousse, salad, and watermelon juice. After lunch, we took off down the river. It was great. This place is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. The river is super high and we saw home after home under water….they were covered halfway or more with water. The crazy thing is that they are still living in them. I was told that they just put boards down and keep raising the floor. We saw laundry hanging outside several and boats tied up to them. Some of them had kids playing outside in the water. That part was pretty sad. We also saw a passenger boat. These boats carry people up and down the rivers from their villages to the bigger cities. They may travel for two weeks to get to town. When it went by we could see that it had three decks and about 40 -60 Rede’s on it. People take anything on there they can take—washers, pigs, goats, dogs, anything really. We traveled for about 4 hours and finally arrived at our first village. I could not believe we got the boat into the dock. There were plants and trees totally covering the area between us and the dock. Earl got a machete out and cut branches out of the way and they got the boat all the way up to the doc. We immediately had patients. We treated four or five families. There were a lot of little children. I taught a little girl about 4 years old how to blow bubbles. It was pretty cute. There were tons of bugs once we pulled into the dock. I ended up having a giant green bug bite me. I knocked it off and it played dead and then when I picked it up it moved. All of us in my room screamed. It was pretty funny!
There were no bugs during the night that I saw. We had breakfast around 7 am. It consisted of mango, papaya, tapioca (which is not pudding—It is kind of a fried crumbly bread), tapioca with meat and cheese inside, rolls, apples, bananas, fried bananas, grapes, and guava juice. Again it was fantastic. After that, Earl and the doctor left to go see about getting our meds back. While they were gone we packaged up children’s vitamins, ibuprofen, and Tylenol. Earl got back around 12:30 and we were thrilled to see that they got ALL of our stuff back! I have to note here what an amazing job Ruth Ann does organizing all of the meds. There is what you see in the pharmacy, which is well organized….but then there is the stuff in the very bottom of the boat. She has big cases; each labeled and sorted for all of the items they collect. It is amazing to see! We ate lunch next. These ladies can really cook and there is so much food. There has not been anything I have not liked! For lunch we had fried chicken (kind of like chicken nuggets), rice, and a bean and sausage gravy type thing, manioc, pineapple mousse, salad, and watermelon juice. After lunch, we took off down the river. It was great. This place is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. The river is super high and we saw home after home under water….they were covered halfway or more with water. The crazy thing is that they are still living in them. I was told that they just put boards down and keep raising the floor. We saw laundry hanging outside several and boats tied up to them. Some of them had kids playing outside in the water. That part was pretty sad. We also saw a passenger boat. These boats carry people up and down the rivers from their villages to the bigger cities. They may travel for two weeks to get to town. When it went by we could see that it had three decks and about 40 -60 Rede’s on it. People take anything on there they can take—washers, pigs, goats, dogs, anything really. We traveled for about 4 hours and finally arrived at our first village. I could not believe we got the boat into the dock. There were plants and trees totally covering the area between us and the dock. Earl got a machete out and cut branches out of the way and they got the boat all the way up to the doc. We immediately had patients. We treated four or five families. There were a lot of little children. I taught a little girl about 4 years old how to blow bubbles. It was pretty cute. There were tons of bugs once we pulled into the dock. I ended up having a giant green bug bite me. I knocked it off and it played dead and then when I picked it up it moved. All of us in my room screamed. It was pretty funny!
We had dinner
around 8 pm. We had a chicken vegetable
dish, rice, leftover bean gravy, and a guava paste thing with cream over
it. After dinner we showered and then we
talked with some of the crew for about an hour or so. It was fun trying to communicate and figure
out what we each were saying. I think we
did a pretty good job of figuring out what we all were trying to say. The moon outside was full and shining over
the river. It was beautiful. We ended up sleeping in our bedroom
tonight. There were just way too many
bugs outside! Our room feels good
(AC). I am on the top bunk and I cannot
sit up because my head will hit the ceiling….It has been many years since I
slept on a top bunk…I hope I don’t fall off!
Tomorrow we will see more of the village. It is expected to be really busy. If we have time we will see a second village
as well and then tomorrow night we will leave at 1 am to travel through the
night to pick up the dentist.
Thursday, June 07,
2012
What an incredible
day. We woke up around 6:45 and had
breakfast at 7. We did not do morning
devotions because the people were already waiting to be seen. We saw patients until around 11 and then we
moved a bit up the river to another village.
I just cannot believe how much water there is. It is just beyond words. We ate lunch and then we started seeing
patients again. There were tons of
adorable kids. There were not very many
elderly people. I think someone said we
treated about 175 people after lunch.
They came in groups. The biggest
group had something like 8 kids. So,
breakfast was rolls, cheese, ham, cinnamon cake, and lots of fruit. Lunch was beef cigar (beef stuffed with
potato, cheese, and ham), rice, spaghetti, salad, and the yummiest flan I have
ever tasted! Dinner was spaghetti, sliced
beef, rice, leftover cigar, and cookies.
When we finished seeing patients in the afternoon, we went to
church. We had to ride in small boats
because the whole village is flooded and the church is completely surrounded by
water. Luckily it is still above
water. They just built it two years
ago. The service was amazing. Not so much because of the message….because
it was actually in Portuguese and we could not understand most of it, but
because all of us believers—even unable to speak the same language—were all
worshipping the same God. The people
were praising even though their lives have been turned upside down by this
flooding. They are still just going on
with life and they seem truly happy. It
was just four little walls, an open door and open windows and people praising
the Lord. Today one of the ladies that
came had a sore throat and a cold. She
said that she had to jump in the river under her house because two of her pigs
had fallen into the river. That would be
so scary, but after being at church tonight, I can totally see how that could
happen. Tonight we are sleeping in the
Rede’s again. We will be leaving this
village around midnight and traveling through the night to get the
dentist. We get to sleep in tomorrow
because we will get to Manaus
Friday, June 08,
2012
Last night I slept
so well! We slept in the Rede’s and we
were moving all night. There was a soft breeze
and the sound of water. The moon and
stars were beautiful and there were no bugs.
We all slept really well. Around
7:30, the wind picked up and it got kind of chilly. After we woke up, we ate breakfast
individually and then we all just sat around and talked. Some of us sat on the water tank so we could
see better and feel the breeze as we coasted along the river. We had devotions and we talked about
Galatians 1. It was interesting hearing
Earl talk about Paul and Timothy. I
thought it was interesting that the main point of the lesson was making sure we
are following what God taught us and not worrying about whether it is pleasing
to man. So many churches base their
decisions on making people happy and somehow forget that we are to please God
and that if we are doing what he tells us to do it will all work itself
out. While we were doing our devotions,
the Coast Guard stopped our boat. Earl
said this was the first time that the new boat had been stopped. It seemed to go ok because after about 15
minutes they let us go. They asked for a
list of all passengers to be dropped off when we come back through. It is so funny….on this trip, just about
every difficult thing has happened that I had imagined before the trip, but
every time it has turned out ok. It is a
firm reminder to me that God is in complete control and that we can trust him
fully with all things. After lunch we kept
traveling and we saw the pink dolphins we were hoping to see. They were hard to see and if we had not heard
about them before, we might not have known what they were. They only stuck their dorsal fin out of the
water, but there were several and it happened over and over. That was amazing! We arrived around 4 pm at Sao Sebastiao. We docked and got off the boat and walked to
the Greenhouse. It was about 2-3 miles and it was
hot. I was surprised by all of the
skinny dogs wandering around and the trash everywhere. It does not appear that they have trash
service. A few places you could see
where people were really trying to clean up their yards. The greenhouse and the pastor’s house were
beautiful! While we were there we met
Santana. She made beautiful jewelry,
baskets, key chains, and oars. It is all
super cheap and very nice. We walked
back, had dinner, and now we are getting ready to head up to bed.
Saturday, June 09,
2012
Another great
night of sleep….we slept in the dock at Sao Sebastiao. We drove for about an hour and a half and
went to Santa Maria
We played Uno
tonight---me, Michelle, Katie, Megan, Flavia, and Sales (Salice). It was really neat. None of us speak the other language really
well—(us Portuguese and them English).
We managed to figure it out though and laughed so hard! We did learn not to use the English word
“shuffle” because it means something else in Portuguese and is not a word we
want to keep using! Sales is incredibly
funny and cracks us up all the time!
Right now it is about 2 am and I woke up to
use the restroom. I was struck by how
beautifully calm and beautiful the river is right now. The moon is high in the sky, there are a
million stars, and the water is as smooth as glass. There is a lovely cool breeze blowing through
the top deck. All in all—just simply
amazing.
Sunday, June 10,
2012
Today we woke up
to heavy rain. Katie and I jumped up and put the sides down. It really helps a lot to have those down. Once we were back in our Rede’s the wind
really kicked up. I was very glad we
were docked at the time. The wind was so
bad it blew over the ladder, which made a really loud noise and scared everyone
below. We just finished breakfast and
are getting ready for devotions. We will
then travel about 2 hours to a village where there should be about 100 people
to treat. Someone joked about not
working on Sunday and we remembered how Jesus treated people on Sunday and
discussed it a little. There is so much
that happens here that is difficult to put into words. I am so glad that I was able to come on this
trip. It has been nothing less than
amazing and even though we work hard when we are at the villages, I feel really
relaxed and refreshed.
It is now Sunday
evening…I think maybe I did not drink enough water today. I have been tired and not hungry all
afternoon. Also, if you are using bug
spray you should remove the label from your water bottle, because if you don’t,
the color will melt all over your skin and clothes. Yep, I am saying this because earlier I had smurf
arms! Today we were in Saint
Helena . There were so many
pregnant girls there and girls who thought they were pregnant. These were 13, 14, 15 year old girls. There was also a couple there that had been
basically living together for 8 years.
She wants to get married and he doesn’t, so I guess some things cross
cultural boundaries. After lunch we got
to take a nap for about an hour and a half.
That was great. Katie did 19
haircuts. We have not had very many
dental patients on the boat. I feel bad
for the dentist. This whole trip has
been light on patients—at least lighter than they say it usually is. I know there has been some sort of festival
that some of the people went to. I am
going to go drink some more water now and we are going to play Uno. We will sleep in Sao Sebastiao again tonight.
Monday, June 11,
2012
It is hard to
believe we have been on the boat pretty much for a whole week. It has gone so fast, but also seems like we
have been here forever. It is hard to
explain. I did not feel good again this morning, but drinking water and staying
in the pharmacy did help. I worked in
the pharmacy all day today and it was fun.
Ruth Ann is fun to work with and talk too. I think she likes being in the pharmacy
better than anywhere else on the boat.
We had more pregnant girls today.
It is a huge problem. The
villages we went to were so beautiful.
One of them is normally too hard to get to, but with the flooding we
were able to make it there. It was the
first time they have ever been there.
It had a half built Assemblies of God church. I am not sure how long it has been there half
done. Katie cut 24 people’s hair
today. I felt bad for her because the
clippers were so hot they were burning her fingers. She was so hot out there. Also, the last man who got his hair cut had a
really bad fungus thing on his head. It
was not pretty. He was also a bit
intoxicated, so I am not sure he actually understood what he needed to do with
the medicine we gave him, but hopefully he will figure it out! In a few minutes four of us are going
alligator hunting! I am excited and
nervous about this, but I am determined to try new things! It should be interesting because the three of
us in my room scream over seeing a big bug.
We look so funny decked out in our alligator gear. Maybe we will post photos and maybe not! We had signal again today so we could have
some contact with home. That is really
nice because I was pretty sure it would be 10 days with no contact….
We just got back
from alligator hunting! It was so much
fun! The guys were ninjas! Doo Doo was in the front of the boat. He sat with his feet in the water, with an
oar in one hand and a flashlight in his mouth talking on his cell phone. He would get quiet and then just grab a gater
out of the water! The bigger ones they hit on the head with an oar first and
then grabbed them out of the water and tied them up. It is the craziest thing I have ever
seen. We caught (well honestly, they
caught) five gators but threw one back because it was so small. The smallest we got was about a foot long and
the biggest was maybe 3 ½ feet and about 15 pounds….I guess we will be eating
gator tomorrow.
Tuesday, June 12,
2012
Today we stayed in
Sao Sebastiao. We treated people from
the church here. I think we treated
maybe 120ish people. There were tons of
pregnant young girls. This is just a
really big problem here. I cannot
imagine my daughter, who is 14, being pregnant at this age. I know that customs and culture are different
here, but I still feel sorry for these girls.
The people here are all so beautiful.
They have amazing skin and hair and they are all just adorable. There have been a few people that have not
liked the fact that we are all Americans volunteering on the boat. That is a little tough to hear. I do know that there are not enough people or
supplies here to staff the boat and meet all of the needs here. All of the medicine on the boat is from the USA
Wednesday, June
13, 2012
Today was a really
LONG day! We started with breakfast and
devotions. After that we drove maybe an hour to a village. When we arrived, we were a little
surprised. This was one of the nicest
villages we have seen. They seemed to
have more money than the other villages.
Their homes were very nice and had screens on some of the windows. There were fences all around the property and
they had about 60 steer. This village
needed lots of medicine though. It was
really remote and we gave them more than I remember giving any other village. I was told that it was also one of the
villages they have been coming to for a long time, so they know what to ask
for. We stopped around 12:30 or 1 and
had lunch. We had our alligator for
lunch. It was really good. It tasted like a really good chicken nugget
with all white meat. We also had
lasagna, but it was not quite what we Americans usually think of when we talk
about lasagna. It had noodles and cheese
and some sort of tomato sauce, but the meat was the ham (spam) and there were
different kinds of beans in it. We had
fresh pineapple (yummy), and salad and then they brought out a super delicious
coconut cake. I think that has been my
favorite thing so far….well maybe…..the flan was pretty good too. We had several people from one of the
villages / churches on the boat all day today.
After lunch, we started treating people around 2:30. We normally stop at 5 but today we worked
until almost 7! We saw 70 patients in 2
½ hours! They just kept coming! A lot of them were very sick kids. We gave out a lot of antibiotics—more than
any other stop on this trip. The dentist
was also very busy. After we stopped
working, we all had some sweet bread that Santana (the lady who makes jewelry)
made. It was really good and we were all
very tired. Most of us went to a cookout
that the local church threw for us. It
was very sweet of them and the food was good.
We ate the meat and the rice mostly.
When we got back, I straightened up my stuff a bit, chatted with my
friends here on the boat and then Katie and I played Uno with several of the
crew. I am not going to try to spell
their names because I will totally mess them up, but we had a lot of fun. They LOVE to play Uno and they do a good job
trying to figure out what we are saying.
I bet their English will get better with every trip if the people on the
trip keep working with them and try to learn Portuguese while they are learning
English. This crew is fantastic and they
work really hard. Tomorrow we get to
sleep in till 10 if we want to. I am
pretty sure I will not be able to sleep that long, but we will see. We will travel all day tomorrow to Manaus and then on Friday we will get to shop in the
market at Manaus
Saturday, June 16,
2012
Today is my son’s
birthday. It is really hard to be away
from my kids. They are 12 and 14 and I
have never really been away from them for any length of time. I have been busy most of the time, which has
kept my mind off of it, but when I heard his voice today when I called to say
happy birthday, I started crying and I miss them so much.
I did not write
Thursday or Friday because we were traveling.
On Thursday, we took off around 9 am and we sailed the boat all
day. We arrived in Manaus Brazil Manaus Brazil America America
Monday, June 18,
2012
Wow, so I really
thought I would not have much to write once we got here to Goiania New York or Chicago Indiana America
Here are the stats
from this trip:
DATE
|
VILLAGE
|
MEDICAL
Patients
|
DENTAL Patients
|
DENTAL
Procedures
|
GLASSES
|
HAIRCUTS
|
Thur-7/6
|
Jandira
|
64
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
Thur-7/6
|
Lago Preto
|
56
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
Sat-9/6
|
26
|
4
|
6
|
10
|
6
|
|
Sat-9/6
|
Illra do Modruba
|
18
|
0
|
0
|
8
|
4
|
Sat-9/6
|
Igorapi do Ferreira
|
10
|
0
|
0
|
7
|
4
|
Sun-10/6
|
Santa Helena
|
60
|
2
|
2
|
8
|
19
|
Mon-11/6
|
Inojotuba
|
51
|
5
|
11
|
13
|
21
|
Mon-11/6
|
Monte Siao do Igoropeacu
|
31
|
8
|
18
|
12
|
17
|
Tues-12/6
|
Sao Sebastiao do Uatuma
|
93
|
12
|
20
|
9
|
9
|
Wed-13/6
|
Urucara
|
68
|
8
|
12
|
7
|
10
|
Wed-13/6
|
Taborari—Sao Joao
|
42
|
8
|
18
|
6
|
7
|
TOTALS
|
519
|
47
|
87
|
80
|
100
|
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