Vision Project in the High Jungle, Chocolate Factory, and the Water Tank

24 September 2017

This week's journey took us into the 'high jungle' of Tarapoto to finish coordinating a vision project that gets underway in October and November.

High Jungle of Peru

We arrived in Tarapoto and were greeted by a wave of heat. Although not as overwhelming as the heat in the Amazon (when we were in Iquitos), Tarapoto is nevertheless hot jungle. The altitude is higher, so it is a little drier. At least we weren't as drippy wet like we were in the Amazon.

High jungle with mountains, rolling hills, and grasslands outside of Tarapoto

Tarapoto, about 600 miles north of Lima, sits in the Peruvian jungle. Half of Peru is jungle, but only 5 percent of the population lives there. Nevertheless, many needs exist in jungle regions because of how remote they are.

Coordinating the Vision Project - Glasses Donation

After arriving in Tarapoto, we immediately boarded the car we had hired from a member of our church and drove 2 hours to Moyobamba, the regional capital. The purpose of the trip to Moyobamba was to coordinate the donation of 1,000 pairs of glasses that we will be making in mid-October. We came to Moyobamba to meet with health officials who will coordinate the glasses donacion. From the time this project was setup until now, many of the health officials had changed, so our boss had us return to reestablish contact and ensure the project goes off without a hitch.

Coordination meeting in Moyobamba with Carmen Tipian (right, from Regional Health Department), another regional health official, and us.

Our donation of 1,000 glasses to children and adolescents includes the visit of a team of optometrists we hired who will fly into Tarapoto and Moyobamba to measure each patient and obtain the prescriptions to make the glasses. There is lots of coordination to make sure all of this happens in both cities within a 5-day period.

After our visit in Moyobamba, we drove the 2 hours back to Tarapoto along the twisting jungle and mountain roads, passing farms and jungle villages along the way.

Jungle villages scattered along the highway. Most of these humble homes only have a tin roof. Most of the remote places have no electricity or running water.

The landscape of the high jungle offers contrasts, including rivers and mountains. This region is far more interesting than the flat, low jungles near the Amazon.

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Swinging nests of the cacique birds towered overhead. The birds build these hanging nests that have the advantage of allowing maximum air flow for cooling in this hot jungle environment.

Ophthalmology Surgeries and Donations

Back in Tarapoto, we met the next day with the director of the new (and still unfinished) hospital and his team of Peruvian ophthalmologists. Our project in Tarapoto includes donating ophthalmology surgical equipment to the new hospital and coordinating the visit of a US ophthalmologist in November to teach techniques and perform cataract surgeries. We serve as the in-country coordinators for that visit, so we return to Tarapoto with the US ophthalmologist when he comes.

We coordinated with the team in Tarapoto for the visit of the US doctor and reviewed the contract we have on this project, including the donation of the ophthalmology surgical equipment. We feel much better about this project now that we all know each other and what to expect.

Meeting with the hospital staff in Tarapoto. (Right to left: Dr. Arevalo, Dr. Villafuerte, Dr. Naccha, Carmen Tipian, and us)

The new Tarapoto hospital, where the training is to take place, has been under construction for a few years and has been delayed in opening. The Tarapoto doctors and hospital director asked us to hold all of the donation of ophthalmology equipment in our office in Lima until the hospital finally opens in the next week or two, just to keep it safe. Until then, I have about $25,000 worth of high-tech surgical equipment packed up under my desk.

The new (but still unfinished) hospital in Tarapoto. Our project is on hold until they actually finish the hospital (which they promise will be done in the next week or so). This is a real improvement over the current hospital - a dilapidated wooden building that looks like it was built during World War II.

Around Tarapoto

Typical of most Peruvian jungle cities, Tarapoto is filled with motor taxis. Cars are a rare commodity here.

Downtown Tarapoto - mostly motor taxis and motorcycles. Cars are rare.

Motorcycle parking lot. The attendant collects one or two soles ($0.30 to $0.60) to watch your motorcycle for the day. What she gives you is a sheet of cardboard to cover the motorcycle seat from the sun and thus make it cooler when you get on the motorcycle to ride home at the end of the day.

Riding on a motor taxi costs between $0.60 and $1.50, depending on the distance. It is actually a fun and cooling experience (and also a noisy one) to ride around town in a motor taxi.

Every Peruvian city (including Tarapoto) has a central plaza, which they always call the 'Plaza de Armas'. That translates into English as something like 'parade ground'. Day or night, it is a popular place to relax.

Jungle Cuisine

We always like sampling the food when we go to the jungle. We often find things in the jungle that are not available in Lima, and the food is always tasty.

Yummy food from the jungle. Chorizo sausage (extra spicy in the jungle),  a slab of smoke-curred beef called 'cecina', and mashed bananas (instead of mashed potatoes) called 'tacacho'.

Jungle Chocolate Factory

No trip to Tarapoto is complete without a visit to the chocolate factory. In the short amount of free time we had after all our meetings, we were able to take in the tour.

Orquidea Chocolate makes all of the chocolate bars that they send around the world in their one and only factory in Tarapoto. They make 3,000 bars a day at this factory.

Orquidea Chocolate Bars. All of these different bars for export come from this one factory in Tarapoto.

Peru grows 4 percent of the cacao in the world (cacao in Spanish, cocoa in English). Putting a chocolate factory in Tarapoto makes perfect sense when you consider that the plants are grown in the jungle. Peru has been encouraging production of cacao to replace the production of coca (which is used to make cocaine). Of course, chocolate may be an equally addictive substance, but it is a lot better for you that cocaine.

Many farmers throughout Peru have now switched their crops from coca to cacao. Orquidea buys cacao beans from local farmers all around Tarapoto.

Cacao trees growing around the Orquidea Chocolate Factory. Notice how the pods grow right out of the trunk of the tree.

Cacao pods contain up to 30 cocoa beans.

Farmers cut open the pods and send truckloads of cocoa beans to the factory for processing.

Cocoa beans after being removed from the pod.

Cocoa beans are set on large trays outside to ferment and then dry in the sunshine for a few days.

After drying is complete, workers gather up the beans and take them into the factory for roasting. Then they remove the meat from the husk, grind it up, blend it for 72 hours in large mixing machines, combine it with the other ingredients like sugar and vanilla, then form it into bars.

Touring the inside of the Chocolate Factory. We had to dress like we were going into surgery with booties, masks, and hair protection - everything is kept super clean inside. No photos were allowed inside the building so they could protect their 'secrets'.

The Orquidea Chocolate Factory sits on the edge of Tarapoto overlooking the beautiful rolling hills, rivers, and mountains of this high jungle region. If you have to visit to any Peruvian jungle, this is a good one to visit.

View from the Orquidea Chocolate Factory overlooking the beautiful jungle valley and river. 

And so we returned to Lima to recover from the three trips in a row over the past two weeks (Cerro de Pasco, Arequipa, and Tarapoto). These trips, far from being vacations, are intense and exhausting work experiences. We relish our time back in our Lima office just to recover.

Only in Peru

Once back in our Lima office, we completed a project that had been lingering since last year. A local social agency had asked for help with a desperately poor and at-risk woman. The last thing on the list of needs was a water tank for her home (actually a shack), which did not have a water supply. 

We met the woman and the social worker at a local hardware supply store, we bought the tank, and we were getting ready to put it into the van we hired to haul it to her house. However, the tank would not fit in the van, so a local taxi driver came to the rescue. For $5, he agreed to haul the tank on the roof of his taxi, unload it, then carry it up the stairs on the side of the mountain to her shack. The photo shows how unusual (by American standards) this looked. 

Water tank for the home without a water supply. The taxi driver had no problem lashing it on the top of his taxi and delivering it for us.

Here in Peru, scenes like this are common. We laugh at things like this and often repeat what one Peruvian told us early on our mission: En Peru, todo es posible (In Peru, anything is possible).