Midnight last night, Katie, Derek, and I snuck up on the already-in-deep-slumber Kim, and woke her up with song, dance, cake, candle, complete with a frog balloon. (See photo below.) She was absolutely shocked but pleasantly surprised. After the midnight snack, back to bed! Work in the morning as usual.
Today in the field was rather interesting. After surveying a majority of the San Juan municipality, there were 10 more families in a community about 30 minutes away. The team split up as so - Derek and Katie back to Iquitos to inquire about lab equipments and water testing, while Kim and I continued on with our guide Wilfredo to survey.
What happened next to both teams can only be described as unexpected, but not unusual Peruvian experiences...
Kim and I took a bus with Wilfredo to a village 30 minutes away and surveyed about 10 families, a process that took us much longer than expected due to chatty village grandmas and ambiguous addresses. The sun was beating down on us, and we were low on water. 5 hours later, we were finally finished. Only to see our bus (which we found out comes by only once an hour) whoosh by right in front of us.
Kim and I then got on a van taxi headed in the same direction back to Iquitos. We rejoiced loudly as our van quickly passed the bus we were supposed to be on. Not so fast... the van turned down some muddy road and told us there was to be a quick "detour" and we'd soon be on our way.
Kim and I glanced at each other nervously, but we knew this was the Peruvian way. We come to a stop, next to giant stacks of charcoal. The driver jumped out, closed all the windows of the van, and started to load the stacks of charcoal onto the roof of the car. Meanwhile, we roasted and steamed inside this metal box for 40 minutes as we watched them do this, one stack at a time, until we were famished, drenched in sweat, and practically on the verge of being delusional. Finally we were on our way again. But wait, not all the stacks made it to the roof, two of them MUST accompany us in the van. Alas, charcoal in van. No big deal. For the remainder of the ride, Kim and I got chunks of charcoal flying at our faces and arms and it was simply no use trying to wipe them off to be simply covered in it all over again. We arrived at Coma y Punta (for Kim's birthday lunch) covered in black, looking as pristine as ever.
Reunited with Katie and Derek, we come to find out their morning and early afternoon was JUST as interesting...
They left us in San Juan to go via mototaxi to Punchana in search of the lab at which we were recommended to run our water tests. They arrived at a branch of UNAP (Universidad Nacional de Amazona de Peru) only to be told that the chemical engineer they were referred to was at a different location. Once at the next UNAP building, they were told the engineer was BACK at the original starting place. Very confused and attempting to explain how they had just come from there, they found a woman who volunteered to take them to a third UNAP location where they could find the chemical engineer at her office. Upon arriving at her office, a janitor told their guide that she had just left moments before for a few hours but perhaps they could chase her down. So began the wild goose chase which involved Derek and Katie running after the secretary around the UNAP building, up and down the stairs, and into a dark auditorium. They at first thought they had stumbled into Mass, however soon realized it was in fact a Peruvian funeral. After being told they would have to wait for an hour until the chemical engineer returned, they were guided back to the auditorium where they were instructed to wait there for her return. And so is the story of how Derek and Katie spent their afternoon attending a local funeral. People were confused to say the least to see two gringos, snacking on Ritz crackers and wearing green scrubs, sitting in the back row of the service. It sounded like it was an interesting and unexpected experience, just like ours. Ultimately, they found a local microbiology lab that has agreed to run our water tests. Success!
So that's all the happenings for today so far. We will be having meetings tomorrow with other municipality health center as we are pretty much done in San Juan. Time for Kim's birthday dinner/celebrations. Talk soon.
Besos,
Chloe and Team Iquitos
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