Delivery - Pucallpa Jungle Vision Trip

1 January 2018

We welcomed in the New Year on a new continent and in a different hemisphere for our first time last night. Fireworks went on for hours, and the music and dancing outside our apartment didn't calm down until around 6 a.m. (these people love to party). As we greet the new year, we are reminded that our many humanitarian projects promise to keep us very busy for the remaining 7 months of our mission.

Our main activity this past week was returning to the jungle city of Pucallpa to make a donation of a thousand eyeglasses to children as part of our vision project.

Pucallpa, on the edge of civilization, is surrounded on all sides by jungle. Our vision project concludes with this donation of a thousand eyeglasses for children.

Getting to Pucallpa involves a flight over the Andes Mountains and out into the Amazon River basin.

Christmas in the Jungle - Eyeglasses to Pucallpa

We flew out from Lima on Christmas night to reach the jungle city of Pucallpa and make a time-critical delivery of a thousand eyeglasses for children. (Imagine spending part of your Christmas in a hot and steamy jungle city.)

The children had been measured previously in Pucallpa, but we had the eyeglasses manufactured in Lima and shipped by air cargo to be delivered before December 29 (the last day of the school year). Our job was to pick up the eyeglasses and deliver them to the health officials so they could distribute them.

Unfortunately, the air cargo office was closed by the time our flight arrived at 10 p.m. Christmas night, so I had to catch a taxi early the next morning to return to the airport and retrieve the six big boxes of eyeglasses. Back at our hotel, the local health authorities dropped by after I returned, and we opened the boxes to verify the contents and handed them over. Their job now is to distribute the eyeglasses to the children in 41 schools over the next few days.

After picking up the shipment of eyeglasses from air cargo, Marshall and Mercedes Villacorta from the Ucayali Region Direccion Regional de Salud (DIRESA), the regional health authority, opened the boxes to verify the donation of the thousand eyeglasses. 

The donation of eyeglasses will help children see better and hopefully succeed in school.

We were a little nervous loading all the glasses into the back of the motortaxi, but that is how people get around in this city. The cost of the eyeglasses themselves, not including the cost of the exams, amounted to about $15,000. We hoped nothing would happen en route as they were transported in such a flimsy method, but everything worked fine with the transfer.

Donation of a thousand eyeglasses loaded onto the back of a motortaxi. That is how people get around most of the time in this jungle city.

Many families struggle to put food on the table - glasses for kids are beyond their means. This donation will help those most in need. We are pleased we finally have this project ready to close - it has been lingering for 3 years. Personnel changes with our government partners at the health authority caused this delay, but everything has now finally been brought to completion (thanks to lots and lots of coordination and phone calls over the past few months).

Around Pucallpa

Due to being so far from civilization, it is cheaper to get three-wheeled motorcycles into Pucallpa than cars or trucks. Everywhere you go in Pucallpa there are the motortaxis. They are a cheap (and refreshingly cool) way to get almost anywhere in town - cost is between $1 and $2.

Motortaxis in Pucallpa - open air transportation is a welcome relief in this hot and steamy jungle city.

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It rains everyday in the jungle, so drivers are prepared to put up their rain guards - just a sheet of plastic.

Into the Jungle

Jungle surrounds this city on all sides. Pucallpa is at the edge of civilization - the road connecting to the rest of Peru ends in Pucallpa.

Houses built anywhere near the Ucayali River are built on stilts because the river rises 12 feet or more during the rainy season.

Most of the roads near the river are submerged for part of the year - the only way to your house is by boat. Wooden bridges carry motortaxis over roads that are otherwise muddy year round.

Most areas near the river have elevated walkways to get around town when the river rises.

Elevated walkways keep you dry and out of the mud when the river rises.

Any journey beyond Pucallpa is on the Ucayali River, one of the two main rivers that form the Amazon. Travel beyond Pucallpa is always by boat.

The roads end in Pucallpa. Beyond the city, everything travels by boat. Here a family travels by long canoe back to town on the Ucayali River.

This is a typical family vehicle if you live outside the city - a dugout canoe. Just make sure to bring along a pitcher to bail out the water that leaks in.

We had a few free hours after delivering the eyeglasses, so we went out into the jungle to experience this hot and steamy place first hand.

We took a 2-hour tour on the Ucayali River on one of these river boats. They are actually long canoes with a sunshade canopy and a motor.

The view as we started our journey. Homes built near the Ucayali River are on stilts to keep them out of the water during the wet season.

As we traveled along the Ucayali River, we ventured into side channels.The jungle is just a massive wall of green, and surprises seemed to be around every bend of the river. The jungle was alive with birds, animals, and, of course, lots of bugs.  

Tree Sloths in the Jungle

During our journey into the jungle, we spotted several tree sloths hanging from trees near the river shore. Our guide had to point them out to us because they were so well camouflaged. They move incredibly slow and their fur matches the color of the tree branches so they are hard to see. In Spanish they call them 'osos perezosos', which translates into something like 'slowpoke bears'.

One of several wild tree sloths we saw hanging from trees near the river bank. They look like they have smiles on their faces - theirs must be a good life.

We pulled up to a river village, and jungle kids came running out to see us. They excitedly brought along their pet baby tree sloths to show us.

Jungle kids showing off their pet tree sloths that they collected in the jungle.

The baby sloths were soft and cuddly, sort of like holding live, slow moving teddy bears.

The kids care for their pets, feeding them the same leaves the adult sloths eat out in the jungle. They release them when they get too big, then go out and find another baby to replace what they released.

I gave each of the kids a Peruvian sol (worth about $0.30) for the photo op they provided. This is their chance to earn a little money when boats come to their village.

We sent these photos home to our kids, and now all of our grandchildren want their own pet tree sloths!

At the Port on the Ucayali River

Boats traveling up and down the river bring their goods from the jungle and unload them in Pucallpa. Fruits of every kind are sold right off the boats. But the most abundant of all the fruits are the bananas.

Unloading boats filled with bananas coming to town from the jungle.

The dock is a flurry of activity as the market takes place right as the goods come off the boats. It is jumble of action as people haggle back and forth over the prices.

Fruit market right off of the boats.

Little boy amidst the sea of bananas waiting patiently for his family to finish their transactions in the riverside market.

So we bid farewell to Pucallpa. The enormous sky, the expanse of the jungle, the massive river, all form the background tapestry of memories we take with us to remind us of service were we able to render by helping children to see better.

The sky, jungle, and river of Pucallpa- all reminders of a far-away place where we were able to extend our hands in service.

And so we returned to Lima after this latest jungle excursion - back to our offices where we manage all the other projects that continue to move on in our absence. The jungle trip was a nice break from the rigors of our normal management activities, but it will be good to not be on the road for awhile while we play catch up.