Dane goes to Peru

2010-05-09T12:30:00.000-07:00

May 2, 2010

Intro:
Hey guys! I know it's been forever since I've written anything on here, but I'm still alive and kickin'! It's getting towards the end of our time here and the doctor's trying to cram everything he can into our last month. We just got back from a 3 week trip to Inahuaya, which, if you recall, was one of the places that the dental team went to earlier in the year. And now, this coming week starting Sunday we're having our last big clinic week and it's gonna be at Km. 8 again. I can't believe that it's so close to my time to head home. I've only got like two weeks left! About half of our group has already left and it's been strange without them. But most of us are just excited to get back home. Anyway, I guess I'll get into the body of the post to explain everything else! By the way, I've got a few random pictures that I took around 38 yesterday so I thought I'd post them. Here's the link.

Post:
I guess I'll start with Inahuaya (by the way, that's pronounced "in-uh-why-uh"). The last time we went there, it was only the dental team and we stayed there for 2 and a half weeks. This time, however, our whole group went and we stayed for 3 weeks. It was really nice to get to see some friends that we had made the last time we were there again. The people are just so nice there! Anyway, the first week we were there we had our clinics and they were all over the place. We were in Inahuaya the first 2 days and then we started traveling around to surrounding villages. We actually had 2 teams that went to different places each day and we were able to see lots of patients that way. After our week of clinics, we took a weekend trip to Contamana, which is about 5 hours from Inahuaya. When we got there we headed out for a different Aguas Calientes (meaning "hot waters") and actually spent the night there. It was so amazing... We got there a little after dark after a 3 hour hike and changed into our swimming trunks and got into the river where the hot spring was. It was so nice! It was a regular cold river but right in the middle of it there was a little hot spring that mixed with the cold water so there were varying temperatures depending on where you sat. It was like you could pick your own temperature. It was so nice to just sit in the hot water and be able to lay back and look at the stars. I swear you can see like twice as many here. It kind of gives more meaning to the verses where God is telling Abraham that his children would outnumber the stars. So that was really nice, but then the next day I actually ended up randomly getting a really bad case of diarrhea and wasn't able to go on the hikes that everyone else went on. I still had a good time though. So, after our Contamana trip, we headed back to Inahuaya and the girls and Martin and Puma (one of our Peruvian bible workers) started doing their house visits and the rest of us guys helped Daniel (one of our Peruvian manual labor workers at 38) work on the church there. They had a church already but the posts that were holding up the walls were starting to bow out and so the walls were starting to bow out as well. They were also all eaten up by termites. So, we dug out all the posts and put in new ones to fix the walls and then we started building a little house behind the church for the kids for their Sabbath school program. There was a bunch of earth moving to be done to get the ground level (which was all done by hand with shovels, by the way) and then we started the frame. We got that finished but that was all we had time for so the church members are gonna finish the rest on their own. After that, we headed back to Pucallpa to get ready for our upcoming clinic, which we are now beginning. This should be a very interesting and hectic clinic. The doctor wants to see more patients than we've ever seen. We've actually got a huge group of people here helping us that are from a bunch of different places. Some are from Barrien Springs, Michigan and others are from Houston, Texas and there's a few people from some other places that I don't remember. Anyway, in that group are 3 doctors, 2 dentists and a bunch of other people. I'm kind of wondering how it will be working with two real dentists looking over my shoulder but I'm keeping an open and willing mind!

Intermission:
The staff here at Dane goes to Peru realize that this is a very long post. In fact, this blog post is so long that the author himself had to take a week long break from writing it. That is why we have provided you, our faithful readers, with this little intermission. If you need to take a bathroom break, get a drink, wash your hair, or anything really, this is the time. Part II of this post will be starting shortly.

May 9, 2010

Post, Part II:
Well, clinic week is over now and it went very well. I'll admit that it was a little difficult for me when I was taking out my first tooth of the clinic and two real dentists were standing right behind me watching my every move! It was all I could do to not say anything when one of them grabbed my hand when I started to pull the tooth and showed me that I needed to go slowly from side to side to pull it out. But, eventually I put my pride aside and realized that they really had a lot of things to show me! After all, I'm just some kid who's been pulling teeth in Peru with no formal schooling or license of any kind! They showed me how to give anesthetic better so that it was much more comfortable for the patient and they had so many more tools than we ever had this year. It was amazing! There really is a tool for every situation. It was actually kind of funny when we were setting up for the first day. Dr. Sergio was setting up some of his stuff and Dr. Young told me that Dr. Sergio didn't like to work out of his office so he had brought his office with him. They both had so much stuff though! The week ended up being a really good one. We saw about 200 patients in total and there weren't any big problems. One thing really made me realize how much God was watching over us in the dental team this year. The whole year we didn't have a single big problem that we weren't able to handle. But this week while the 2 dentists were there, we happened to have one patient whose bone had been destroyed by infection on her upper mandible and the only thing that was left between her gum and her sinus cavity was a thin membrane. Now, if I had gotten that patient, I very well could have perforated that membrane and that would've been a big problem. She would've had to have had surgery and all kinds of bad stuff could have happened. But, we just happened to have not only a dentist, but a periodontist whose specialty is doing surgeries involving gums and sinuses (of course, I don't just think this was a coincidence). The patient ended up being his patient and of course he knew exactly how to handle it. He was able to get the problem tooth out and then he had this bone grafting material that he squirted up in there to eventually regrow the bone. I thanked God that everything worked out the way it did. So anyway, that was clinic week and now we're all back at 38. For many of us, this is our last week here. In fact, now that Tara and Andrew have left there are only 9 of us left. It's really weird with so few people! And at this point I only have 6 more days left here! Well, I guess that's all I have for this post. This will be my last one too! Well, I hope you all enjoyed it and I can't wait to see you back in the States!

2010-01-24T13:00:00.000-08:00

Intro:
Well, this was another pretty standard week. We just worked at 38 and it was a pretty good week.

Post:
This week we mainly worked on the fence that we're making. We've almost got the first side done now. The fence is gonna be 3 km by 300 m and we put a fence post every 3 m. So, that will be a grand total of 2,200 posts by the time we're done. Lately we've been speculating about the so-called "rainy season" that Peru is supposed to be having this time of year because we hadn't seen rain since we got back from vacation but today it rained gatos y perros for like 4 hours and we had a small pond in our front yard by the end of it! So we decided that this was the official start of rainy season. The only thing I did besides putting up fence was digging a new drainage hole for the shower today with Brett. The old one got full and was backing up the drain in the shower for the back house. But now there's a new meter-square hole for it to drain into, so hopefully that helps.
Other than all that there hasn't been much new. Oh! Jose got assigned a new job! He is now our full time chef so that means none of us have to cook anymore or worry with the kitchen at all! We're all pretty excited about that. But that about wraps it up for new things this week! See you next week!

Camera Update:
Well, it turns out that PayPal freaked out when I bought my camera because I paid from Peru and they thought it was someone else so they suspended my account and withheld the money from the guy who has the camera so it won't be making it to Josh's house before he leaves The States. And I tried unsuspending my account but in order to do that I have to prove that I live in Portland Tennessee. Which is a problem, because I don't live there anymore. So I don't know what to do. My mom said she'd take care of it, though. Anyway, it'll probably be a month before I have a camera now! Oh well.

2010-01-17T12:44:00.000-08:00

Intro:
It's amazing how the Lord provides. I have a replacement camera on its way pretty much for free! I'll explain in the post. Otherwise, this has pretty much been a normal week.

Post:
Well, about the camera. The other night I got on the internet in Campo Verde (which didn't used to be there before we got back from vacation) and I was looking on eBay to see how much it would cost to replace my camera and I found a bunch of brand new ones for like $125! So I was like, cool I can afford that (I made a budget with my latest stipend check and how much money I had left over from before vacation) and so I went to pay for it and PayPal was saying that I could pay for it with my PayPal balance and I was like, what's that? So I logged on to my PayPal account and I had $282 sitting in my account! So, I paid with that and then was able to transfer $157 into my bank account! So, I basically got paid $157 to get a new camera. I have no idea where all that money in the account came from! I'm sure it was from selling stuff before I left and I just forgot about it.
Other than that, this week was pretty standard. We built a church at the new campaign location which is at km. 4 for everyone to sleep in. Then the rest of the week we were back at 38 and I filled holes in the driveway, macheted the lemon field, and continued work on the fence around the property. Oh, we did lose Martin to the bible workers. He's now working with them at the campaign location and isn't on the dental team anymore. We did get two new people, though. Brett and Julie, and Brett's gonna be on the dental team. Well, hopefully I'll be able to keep up the weekly blog posts like I wanted to initially. Until next week!

2010-01-10T09:09:00.000-08:00

Intro:
Well, a LOT has happened since I last wrote on here. We've been on our vacation and had our clinic week as soon as we got back. I'll start with our vacation.
WARNING: This is going to be a very long, detailed post. Children, pregnant women, people with heart conditions, and those with only a few minutes to spare should not proceed. Also, you must be at least this tall to proceed.

Post:
Our vacation was AWESOME. We started by bussing to Lima which took like 20 hours and that was interesting. Some of the scenery was really pretty because the road went through the Andes. When we got to Lima we spent about three days there just relaxing and enjoying the city and seeing a few of the sites there. It's a really big city. They even had McDonald's and KFC and Pizza Hut! I had a Big Mac and a few personal pan pizzas needless to say. Well, everything was going great until Sabbath morning. We went to church and as we stepped into the sanctuary I noticed I was feeling a little achy, so I was like that's odd... I just sat down and started listening to the sermon though (yes, it was in Spanish!) but I just kept feeling more and more achy. By the end of the sermon I was feeling a little chilled as well and one of the guys let me borrow his jacket. Well, we would've headed back to our hostel then, but if you know anything about church here in Peru, it's an all-day thing. We stayed for potluck, which was really good, and then they have this program called Jovenes Adventistas (Adventist Youth) that lasted until like 6:00 but by the time that started I was shivering and knew I definitely had a fever so I went to a different room and laid down and shivered for a few hours until we got back to the hostel and Brittany was able to start taking care of me. I started having diarrhea that night so she gave me an antibiotic because we thought it might be giardia and she gave me ibuprofen for the fever (it was 102.4!). Well, after about 24 hours I was still having just a little bit of diarrhea, but my fever was gone and I was feeling much better. I decided I wanted to shave so I left the room and pulled the door to and went to the bathroom right outside the room and shaved for like 5 minutes and when I came back my camera was gone. I was shocked and pretty upset, but I got over it and the next day I went and bought a Canon SD1200 with my Christmas money. Two of my friends here had them and I knew it was an excellent camera and I loved it! Needless to say, I kept it in my hoodie pocket at all times. So, all was well.
Our next location was Arequipa, which turned out to be my favorite city. It was kind of small but it was very nice and it wasn't so busy with constant horn-honking like Lima. Well, we only stayed there for a day this time because our goal was to get out of the country to renew our visas. Our next stop was Puno and we stayed there for a day as well and then we went to Bolivia. Crossing the border was an interesting affair... On the bus ride to the border one of our guys realized he didn't have his vaccination card and another guy realized he didn't have his visa! So we talked to the driver and he was all like, "Oh man, you guys are gonna have to pay like $300... Oh, and you do realize that you have to pay the $135 when you cross back into Peru as well, don't you?" So he had us all scared, but we were just like, let's wait til we get there and talk to the border guys. He was all wanting to stow us in the luggage compartment of the bus and sneak us over and we were like, umm... no thanks. So when we got there, you only had to pay $10 for not having your vaccination card and $5 to get a new visa. And you only had to pay the $135 when crossing into Bolivia, of course. So, Bolivia was pretty cool. It was very tranquilo and the people were all very nice. We stayed there for our 24 hours and went out on Lake Titicaca to the Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun) and explored it for a while and when it was time to go we all got on the boat back and realized Martin wasn't with us. So we asked the boat driver if he could wait a while but he said he had to leave and that there would be other boats coming and he could catch a later one. So, we left Martin on this island with only about 4 hours before our bus back to Puno. We were all pretty worried but about 30 minutes before we had to leave he showed up at our hostel. The reason he missed the boat: he was eating trout. Martin is just so funny sometimes! Throughout the whole trip we would be walking around in the various cities and then he would just disappear and we would be like, where's Martin? And he would be talking to some street vendor about life or something of the sort. So, we came up with a new Spanish verb: martinar - to be late for silly reasons. Anyway, we made it on the bus in time and got back across the border with few problems. Some people weren't able to get their 183 days, though, because apparently you can only get that once in a year. I got mine because I only got 90 the first time. And since Keith got here later than everyone else, his new visa expires 3 weeks before his old one would have since he couldn't get the 183 days. Well, we made it back to Puno and then headed to Cuzco the next morning. Cuzco turned out to be a pretty cool city and we were looking for a cheap trip to Machu Picchu. We had heard that the traditional Inca Trail that most people do was like $240 and none of us had that kind of money so we were thinking that we might not even get to see Machu Picchu but we found a bunch of travel agencies that offered much cheaper packages and the one we took was $140 and included a day of downhill biking, a day of hiking, and then a day at Machu Picchu. We were pretty excited on the way up the mountain for our bike ride and then it started raining a bit. And once we got out to get started it was pouring! But we rode anyway and we all got completely soaked and I was shivering almost the whole way down! It was a lot of fun though and the views were amazing... Anytime you looked out over the road it was just like wow... So we got to the bottom and took a van to our hostel for the night and the next day we started our hike. From the very beginning the hike was pretty greuling and I actually started to get a little asthmatic. But our guide had a big bag of dried coca leaves which are supposed to help with a bunch of things like hunger and apparently asthma because when I started chewing them I stopped wheezing! Anyway, eventually it wasn't straight uphill anymore and once again the views were just amazing. All in all, I think we hiked like 9 hours that day and we were all exhausted. My shoes were still soaked from the day before so that wasn't too fun. Our hike ended at this really nice hot springs, though, so we got to relax in that for a while. So, after that we jumped in our van and headed to this place that was like the entrance into the Machu Picchu area where they checked your passport and stuff. Machu Picchu was still a train ride away, though. But, to save money we hiked the train ride, which took another 3 hours. So, once we got to Aguas Calientes, which is the city right outside of Machu Picchu, I was pretty much dead. And to top it all off, we were getting up at 4 the next morning to start our way up to Machu Picchu because we wanted to get tickets to Wayna Picchu which is the tallest mountain that you see in the background of those famous pictures of Machu Picchu. So, to get up to Machu Picchu you can either take a 30 minute bus ride through crazy switchbacks, or hike straight up this really really long set of stairs. So we hiked, once again because it was cheaper. We ended up getting to the entrance of Machu Picchu around 5:30 and got our tickets no problem and it was just amazing. We spent the whole day there walking around with our tour guide at first and then once his thing was over we just explored and climbed up Wayna Picchu, which took another 45 minutes and was pretty greuling itself. The view from the top was amazing though. So we climbed back down after a while and went exploring. We climbed to the spot where all those pictures of the city were taken (like the National Geographic one) and it had been foggy and kind of rainy all day and we just couldn't get any good pictures. We stayed up there for about 30 minutes and the fog would kind of half-clear every now and then but then it would just cover it all up again. So, we decided to go look around the rest of the city. There were so many amazing buildings and the construction was pretty cool too. The walls were all put together without mortar which meant that every stone was perfectly cut so that it fit perfectly with the one underneath it. There were all kinds of neat temples that we were exploring too and then all of a sudden the sun came out and all the fog cleared up and I was like, I gotta go get that shot. So i climbed all the way back up to the spot and got some amazing pictures. I would love to post them all, but unfortunately my new camera was stolen on the bus ride back to Puno. That's right, I had TWO cameras stolen on this vacation. I had it safe and sound in my hoodie pocket but it fell out at some point on the trip and someone found it but wasn't kind enough to give it back. It was interesting though. On the flight back to Pucallpa I was really this little magazine they had on the plane that was in Spanish and English and there was an interview with some Spanish music artist and I just happened to look at one little section that asked the artist, "What's the most important thing you've learned from your travels?" And he responded that it's important not to get too attached to your material things. They either get lost or stolen or broken or something like that and in the end, they're just things. And I was like, wow. That's so true. I think God directed my eyes to that just to remind me of that. So anyway, the rest of our trip was pretty good. For New Year's we were in Arequipa and that was pretty cool. There were so many fireworks! We bought some of our own and had a good time. Plus, M80s are legal in Peru, so that was amazing! They're so loud! After that, we headed back to Lima and then back to Pucallpa just to dive right into our next clinic week. It was crazy... It was the most patients we've had for dental and they were tough cases too! I had two patients that wanted five teeth out! And the last day we had 47 patients. The most we had had before this week was like 32 or something. Every day at this place we were like in the upper 30s though. We finished it successfully, though, although I did end up getting sick again. It was pretty stressful. Anyway, to keep this post from getting any longer, I'll just go ahead and stop now. I hope you enjoyed it!

2009-12-25T15:38:00.000-08:00

Once again, more pictures! Enjoy!

2009-12-21T15:26:00.000-08:00

Post:
So, we've been on vacation for a few days now and I've got a few pictures to post! Sadly, I don't have time to write much, so I'll just give you the link. Enjoy!

Pictures of Inahuaya

2009-12-06T06:16:00.000-08:00

Post:
So, this post is just gonna be a bunch of pictures of the beautiful city of Inahuaya! We have the day off today, so I decided to go around and take some pictures and post them for all to see! Here's the link to them. Enjoy!

Inahuaya

2009-12-05T17:08:00.000-08:00

Intro:
So, we've been in a town called Inahuaya for about two weeks now on our latest dental clinic trip, and I love it! The town in so beautiful and the people are all so nice and we've had tons of patients! We've had a few clinics here and we've been traveling around by boat to other smaller towns that are near by and so far we've seen about 150 patients! There have been a few tough cases, but God's been good to us. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the town yet, but I do have some pictures I took at 38 before we left! Click here to see them! And click here to see a video I posted!

Post:
So basically, Inahuaya is my new favorite town in the world. Besides Pewee Valley, KY, of course. But there's so many trees and hills and greenery here and the weather is really nice since it's right on the river! And all the people are always out doing stuff with each other and asking you to play fútbol with them or just do something with them and they're all so friendly! And one interesting thing I've noticed is that all the animals here seem very happy and well cared for. All the dogs here look very clean and fed and there's actually cats as pets here! Anyway, I wish I had more time to write but the internet cafe is closing in a few minutes! I hope you enjoyed this short post!

Thoughts:
Well, last night we were over at this Adventist family's house that has kind of taken us in and they invite us all over for lunch and stuff like that and they're really nice. Anyway, the dad was talking to me and he asked me how long I'd been Adventist and I said all my life and he was like, "Wow! You must know so much! I've only been Adventist for 7 years." And then he was telling me how much becoming Adventist changed his life and I was like man... Even though I've been Adventist longer and I might "know more", I can guarantee that you're closer to God than I am. How long you've been Adventist or how much you know has nothing to do with how close you are to God, which is what really matters. It just made me think about my spiritual life and how much closer to God I could be. It's all up to you to spend time with Him!

2009-11-08T14:26:00.000-08:00

Intro:
Once again, sorry for the huge amount of time between posts. I have a lot to write about now since it's been so long, though, so here we go!

Post:
Well, I guess I can start off by talking about our last big weeklong clinic we had. It was at a little village called Tupac Amaru 11 kilometers from km. 15. The village itself was really pretty. They actually had grass covering most of the ground and right in the middle of the village was a big soccer field! Every day around 4 o'clock the locals were begging us to join their game and we usually did! On that note, I didn't realize how fun soccer could be. One of our recent projects for the manual labor team was to clear a new fútbol (soccer) field at km. 38. It took about three days and every Sunday afternoon since we've built it, we've had three or four soccer games with a bunch of people from the community and it's been a blast! We're even in the process of having some jerseys made for us with our name on them and everything! Anyway, back to clinic week. It turned out that when we got there, another group of people were just finishing up a weekend clinic they had had there so we were a little worried that there wouldn't be many people to serve but there were! The medical clinic was always busy but our dental clinic did turn out to be a bit slow. We only saw 37 patients for the whole week. But, I guess that's 37 more people who won't be spending their days with toothaches and infections! Also, since we didn't have much to do for the dental clinic, the guys on the dental team got to help out with the vision clinic, so that was pretty neat. I got to learn how to do refractions to figure out poeple's prescriptions and how to do fittings. All in all, I think it was a great week. As for manual labor, we've been building a new fence to surround our property. We have quite a bit of property, by the way, so it's quite a long fence. I forget how wide our property is, but I know it's 3 kilometers long and we've been putting posts every 3 meters, so for just one side we have to dig 1,000 post holes! The weather was pretty good to us this last week, so it hasn't really been too bad. The work isn't all that tiring either. Oh, and for my birthday this last Thursday they cooked a really big meal with lots of good food and Martin made a rice krispy treat cake (it was good!) and Tara made some kind of pudding cake similar to grandma Harning's famous striped delight. It was really good! So, all in all, everythings going pretty good here in Peru. Oh, about 6 of us did end up with giardia after clinic week though, so that was no fun! We just took some metronidazol for 5 days and that took care of it though.

Interesting Side Note:
Nature never ceases to amaze me. Lately we've been having these awesome lightning storms that will last for like 3 hours and you can just stand outside and watch them off in the distance. The lightning literally doesn't stop for more than one second and it's just amazing to see. It's like a heavenly fireworks show where the lightning is a backlight for these huge cloud formations and then every now and then you get to see a huge bolt of lightning streak through the sky in front of the cloud. Then there's the sunsets that we have here. Last night I was driving back from dropping of the Hierbas Buenas group (we split up into two groups of people and we are each fostering a new church) to one of their meetings and it was kind of in a location that was back in the jungle a little and as I was coming out I happened to glance to the left and saw the most beautiful sunset sprawled out over a little river and I was just like "Wow." I could hardly keep my eyes on the dirt road in front of me! Don't worry, I didn't get in a wreck or anything...

2009-09-27T11:40:00.001-07:00

Intro:
Hey guys! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted a new blog post. We've been so busy! The dental team has pretty much been working 7 days a week. We do the manual labor things here at 38 during the week and then on Sabbath afternoon we have a dental clinic (which I kind of didn't like at first but it is serving others) and then we have another one all day Sunday. So! I haven't really had time to do much of anything! We have this weekend off, though, so that is really nice! Anyway, I guess I'll get to it and fill you guys in on what I've been up to.

Post:
Well, for the manual labor we have about six projects going all at once. We have three different crops that we grow here and they are lemons, pineapples (which are amazing), and yucca, which is sort of like a potato (sort of). So we've been clearing all the weeds and other things that grow among the trees with machetes and pruning them when necessary. I really am playing FarmVille in real life, mom! But yeah, so there's that, and we also have a hangar where we cut wood and store tools and things and we've been finishing building it and putting lights and electricity in it. All that time watching grandpa Harning doing electric work has come in handy! There's also an electric fence that we're going to be putting up that will be about 10 km. long. And, of course, there's the general upkeep we do around the houses like spraying for weeds and weedeating and stuff. So, we stay very busy! Our weekend dental clinics have been going very well too. There have been a few patients that we couldn't help because it was too complicated but over all we've been doing very well. I know it's only because of God's help too. I remember one patient that I had that was particularly difficult. I was trying to get his lower right first molar out and the crown ended up breaking off and I just couldn't get a good grip on the root to get it out with my forceps. I was praying the whole time but it was like it had been sheared off in such a way that whenever I tried to grip it, my tool would just slip off. I was getting really discouraged when my patient said that he was starting to feel some pain again, so I had to stop working and Martin said he would numb him up again for me. So, while he did that, I decided that I would just squat down to rest my back and say yet another prayer for God's help. After Martin finished numbing him up, I stood up and grabbed my forceps and stuck them in the guys mouth and it was like suddenly there was some space that I hadn't had before and I was able to grip the root just fine and it came right out! I was like, "Wow! Thank you Lord!" And there have been plenty more of those kinds of experiences. Anyway, I'm super excited because I'm finally going to buy a guitar today! I'll be sure to post a picture of it when I get a chance to.

Interesting Side Note:
It's interesting how a song can take on a totally new meaning when you're in a different situation. About a month or two before I left for Peru I got into a group called Tenth Avenue North and one of their songs is called Let It Go and it's a really good song but once while I was listening to it here it just really hit me and I sort of understood what it meant better. The whole song is good, but I'll just share the lyrics to the chorus:

You say let it go, You say let it go
You say life is waiting for the ones who lose control
You say You will be everything I need
You say if I lose my life it's then I'll find my soul
You say let it go

Click here to listen to the song.

It just made me think about how often times we want to be in control of our lives and just let God help us when we think we need it, but we need to give our lives completely to God and just "let it go." He knows everything that we need and he will take care of us.

2009-08-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

Intro:
Well, this Tuesday we got back from our trip to Masisea and it was awesome! The boat ride ended up being about 4 hours and I took lots of pictures! Enjoy!

This is the view from our peche peche boat!

This is the port in Pucallpa. Lots of bananas!

This is our boat driver driving. Yes, he was steering with his feet.

The view on our motorcar ride into town. It was so much more jungly than Pucallpa! I loved it!

One of the main roads in Masisea.

Our room in the hostel

This is our shower! The only running water was the water that ran out of the soup bowl that you dipped into your bucket!

This is the well that you got water from for showers and to flush the toilet

The island in the middle of the lake that we visited. The sunset was very pretty!

Right before we left it started pouring! It was a nice change from the heat but it made our motorcar ride back to the port interesting!

Post:
Well, our clinic in Masisea went very well. I think I've probably pulled a total of 50 teeth now! Tomorrow we start our first weekend clinic at km. 40. It's gonna be pretty interesting because Dr. Fillman won't be with us! I know God will, though. It's been interesting being back at km. 38 though! We've just been working in the lemon fields and it's tough work! One day, I was merrily hacking at the weeds when I came upon a rather large weed. It didn't look very suspicious to me at all but after 2 hacks to the mid-region of it, my face suddenly felt like it was on fire! I immediately dropped my machete and ran to my friend Martin and frantically asked what was on me. He took one look at me and said, "Run!" So, I ran as fast as I could to the other end of the field swatting at my face the whole way. After I felt like I was somewhat safe, I asked what in the world was going on, and the guys said that I had hacked right into the middle of a wasp's nest. But these were no normal wasps! They were so tiny that I never even saw, heard, or felt a single one of them! All I felt was about 20 of them stinging my face and neck all at once! It HURT! So, I went back to the house and took some Benadryl and Ibuprofen and after about 2 hours of pain they went away and they're fine now! Needless to say, I'll be more careful about where I swing my machete from now on.

God Moment:
So, today when we were on our motorcar headed into Masisea to have our next clinic, my pillow was strapped into the back and I didn't realize it, but it fell out along the way on the bumpy dirt road. We were the last motorcar of three to leave in our group and luckily (I know it wasn't luck) we had actually passed Dr. Fillman's motorcar before my pillow fell out. Except, I don't think it actually fell out. I think my guardian angel pulled it out! The reason I say that is that when we first arrived here in Peru, I couldn't find my little visa paper that had how many days I could stay in Peru on it and Jenni said that if we lost that we could end up having lots and lots of trouble when it came time to renew our visas. So I was a little worried about that, but today, since my pillow fell out on a dirty, dusty road, it got covered in dust. And with no way to wash it, what's the logical thing to do? Turn the pillowcase inside out, of course! And when I did that, what happened to fall out on the floor? My visa paper! I had stuck it in my pillowcase and forgotten about it! So, to recap, if my pillow hadn't "fallen" out of the motorcar and gotten all dusty (which I was initially upset about), I wouldn't have thought to turn it inside out and I would've never found that paper and could have potentially been in lots of trouble when it came time to renew my visa. Thank you God! He works in such strange ways sometimes...

2009-08-19T14:56:00.000-07:00

Intro:

Here are a bunch more pictures! Enjoy!

This is the outside of the building we built for our clinic

This is our little dental corner in the clinic

This is Josh and Dr. Fillman's cousing Mary

This is a Peruvian sunrise!

I feel so doctorly writing up these charts! I even have to sign them! And yes, that is powder from gloves on my thumbnail.

This little girl was sooooo cute! Her mom was actually the patient, but she was deaf and mute and her daughter had learned how to communicate with her with her own little form of sign language and so she would tell her what we were doing and ask her any questions if we needed her to and it was so cute! She made my day.

Here are our showers! A little rustic, but quite fun!

Here's our truck. It's a 3.0 liter turbo diesel and it's pretty powerful! Of course, you need a powerful truck when you have to carry 17 people plus all their stuff to clinic. Yes, 17 people can fit in that truck. 7 in the cab and 10 in the bed! It's pretty cramped.

This is the center of Pucallpa. It's a pretty interesting town!

This is our cat, Thomas, and our monkey, George! We have a monkey!

Post:
Well, we had our first week of our dental clinic, and it was pretty successful! I actually ended up pulling about 30 teeth and it was so crazy! I did break a few of course, but Dr. Fillman was there to help me whenever I needed it and I feel like I learned a lot. The key to a successful extraction is usually patience. Today, for instance, I worked for a while on this one guy's tooth and I almost had it out but then I got a little too anxious and pulled too hard on the last tug and broke one of the roots. Dr. Fillman helped me and we got the root tip out though! It's been a lot of fun learning all these new things but it's also been a little weird being considered a dentist here! I mean, you put on a pair of scrubs and everybody calls you doctor and trusts you with their mouth! It's kinda funny though, cause if we speak English our patients have no idea what we're saying so we can be like, "Well, I just broke all of this guy's roots off and they're not gonna be fun to dig out," or, "Can you help me doctor? I have no idea what I'm doing," as long as we keep a pleasant tone and pleasant facial expressions! But, on a different note, I've felt a lot closer to God this week. I pretty much pray for his help and patience with every patient and thank Him for when I do well. I even thank Him for when I mess up because usually I learn how to fix those problems and I'm gonna need all that knowledge I can get because Dr. Fillman will only be with us for one more week! Then we're pretty much on our own! Well, on Jueves (Thursday) we leave for a 3 day clinic in this village 6 hours up the Ucayali river! It's supposed to be pretty primitive too, so keep me in your prayers!

Interesting Side Note:
The stars here are just amazing... I'm just awestruck every time I look at the sky at night! You can see so many here because there aren't any city lights to pollute your view. The milky way is also in plain view every night and it's just amazing to think that God created all that in one day... One day! We can't even pour a cement floor for our clinic in one day! And on top of that, all God had to do was speak and the stars existed! Anyway, these are just a few of the thoughts that run through my head every time my gaze shifts upward at night here in Peru.

Mucho Trabajo

2009-08-16T14:34:00.000-07:00

Intro:
Hey guys! Well, as you can imagine, I've been doing a lot of work lately (the title translates to "much work"). I've used a machete as a lawnmower, mixed cement by hand, and built a couple sets of shelves by hand! I have to say the machete work is my least favorite... I'm still not that great at it. The local guys here can make it look as good as any lawnmower would, though! It's amazing! Me and the three other guys in the dental team have also been learning and practicing our techniques that we're gonna use in the field.

Post:
Our first day of dental training we went over what a bunch of different terms mean and how to use sterile technique and what some of the diseases we're gonna deal with are. The next day we watched a video from Loma Linda that gave detailed instructions and demonstrations on how and where to inject lidocaine (dental anesthetic) and the day after that, we practiced on each other! It all went very well and one side of everyone's mouth was pretty much completely numb, including half of our tongue. This, of course, made our speech pretty slurred and rather comical, so I thought I'd get Martin to take a video of me talking for your entertainment:

The next day we did something even more interesting. We extracted teeth from a pig's mouth! No, the pig wasn't alive. The girls went to the market and bought a pig head (it was pretty gross) and we took it and Dr. Fillman taught us how to do extractions and sutures on it. It was pretty neat! We didn't get any videos of this, but we did get some nice pictures! I didn't make it to town with them today, though, so maybe next time!

Interesting Side Note:
I've also taken a few pictures of some of the buildings and people around here, so enjoy!

OK, so nevermind on the pictures for now... I sat here for about 30 minutes waiting for them to upload but the internet here is so slow! Maybe next time... Well, bye for now!

UPDATE:
OK, so I figured if I resized the pictures to make them smaller they would upload faster and they do! So, here they are!

OK, this is the house that I'm living in at Km. 38

This is a bunch of us having a reading party in the main hall in my house!

This is my bed in my room! Everythings actually much neater now because I got it all organized.

This is one of the many lemons that can be found just outside our backdoor. They are quite large.

And, as you can see, we have no shortage of them! We have lemonade an awful lot.

This is the other house where the rest of the missionaries live.

This is the stove in the other house. We do all our cooking in this house.

And this is one of the chickens that live here with her little chicks! (This picture is for DahEun)

AHH!!!

2009-07-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

Verse of the Day:
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Phillipians 4.13
(I've got to remember that...)

Post:
Well, I made it safe and sound to the Touch of Love (or, Toque de Amor, as they say it here) home base and had our first Peruvian breakfast this morning. It consisted of some kind of mashed potatoes, a delicious fruit salad, and hard-boiled eggs. Not too bad, really. Then, we were given the tour of the compound and were shown our outhouses and showers. I miss toilets already... But, according to Jenni, which is the director of Touch of Love, we have much more at our compound than most people in Peru will ever have. We do have electricity and running water, so there is plenty to be thankful for. I just pray that I'll be able to adapt and figure things out while I'm here. Keep me in your prayers!

Interesting Side Note:
You have never driven 'til you've driven in Peru. It's crazy! There aren't really any distinct lanes and speed limits are more of speed suggestions (Tara was going triple the speed limit) and passing around blind corners is common practice and there aren't too many stop signs or traffic lights. And while we're talking about Tara, I never knew she could drive the way she does here! She was passing everybody and everything! I was pretty excited about getting to drive, but now I'm not so sure!

My last day in the States!

2009-07-25T08:27:00.000-07:00

Intro:
Let me start off by saying hello and welcome to Dane goes to Peru. This will be my blog while I am in Peru this coming year. I'll be posting interesting stories and pictures (and hopefully a few videos) to go along with those stories so everyone can know just what I'm up to. There may be some not so interesting stories every now and then, but stick with me!

Post:
Well today is my last day in the good ol' U.S. of A. and I'm spending it in Portland, TN with my family. I'm pretty excited and a little nervous about leaving tomorrow, but I know the Lord will keep me safe and bless my time spent for Him.

Interesting Side Note:
I thought it would be interesting to see if I look any different between now and when I get back, so here's a picture of me taken pretty recently...

(Yes, this is my profile picture on Facebook)

...and I guess we'll see just how different I look when the year is over!