Latter-Day Saint Charities and Life in Peru during the World Cup of Soccer

24 June 2018

We are now approaching the completion of this humanitarian mission - we will be home in less than 4 weeks. We are now focused on closing projects that have been completed, including:

• Donations of school equipment to impoverished jungle schools in Nauta.
• Closing the course projects for Saving Mothers and Babies last year in Cajamarca and Huacho.
• Family food production projects in various cities.
• Donations of tools for the blind (canes and punch-card readers) now being disseminated throughout Peru.

After closing these projects, there will still be about 40 on-going projects that our successors will have to keep them busy.

Latter-Day Saint Charities

The legal name of the non-governmental organization (NGO) that we work for is Latter-Day Saint Charities. We work as volunteers, paying our own expenses on this mission. The church pays for our plane tickets and lodging when they send us around the country. Aside from that, we pay everything else.

LDS Charities sponsors relief and development projects in 189 countries and gives assistance without regard to race, religious affiliation, or nationality.

Funds come from donations of both members and friends of the LDS Church. None of the funding comes from government grants or large corporate donations. One hundred percent of donations go towards projects dedicated to humanitarian aid efforts, and all overhead costs are paid fully by the Church.

We, like other volunteers in over 100 countries around the world, count this service opportunity as one of the most significant events of our lives. Serving this mission had been one of our goals for many years. And even though it has been a sacrifice, we count ourselves truly blessed for this chance we have had to serve.

Life in Peru - World Cup of Soccer

When we are not working, we are immersed in life here in Peru. Lately we have been caught up in the soccer craze. For the first time in 36 years, Peru made it to the World Cup of Soccer (currently taking place in Russia).

Soccer-mania has taken the country by a storm, and everywhere we go, we see the national colors and people (and animals) dressed in Peruvian outfits.

Groups of crazed Peruvians in the streets - this is a common scene throughout the country.

Giant Peruvian team shirt on the San Ignacio de Loyola University near our apartment.

Presidential Palace in Lima, all dressed up this past weekend.

Work came to a screeching halt in our Area Office this week when Peru played France. Everyone in the office was given time off to watch the game in the auditorium (and they even gave us refreshments).

We joined in the festivities in our Area Office watching the game between Peru and France. Wearing our own Peruvian team shirts makes us feel half-Peruvian!

On game day, almost everyone in our office wears their Peruvian soccer shirts.

Unfortunately, Peru has lost their first two games in the World Cup, so we only get to play one more game this week. But national spirit still runs high around the country just for making it into the World Cup.

Every billboard around the country seems to have Peruvian team connections . . .

. . . including ads for American companies like Kentucky Fried Chicken.

But our favorite get-ups are when people get their pets into the soccer craze.

This little doggie may not be a soccer fan, but that doesn't seem to diminish his excitement.

And so we march on with our humanitarian work and hope to finish several more projects in the time we have left before going home. 

Our days may be numbered, but we are still focused on going out with a final burst of energy!

Saving Mothers and Babies, Temple Ruins of Kotosh, and View of the Andes

17 June 2018

Each year we present training to healthcare professionals to improve maternal and infant survival in poor and remote regions of Peru. This past week we helped with the courses designed to save lives of mothers and babies on the Pacific Coast and in the Andes Mountains.

Remote areas of Huánuco Region with health posts scattered in villages at high altitude throughout the Andes Mountains.

Imagine giving birth in remote places where the nearest hospital is more than a day's travel away by car on dirt roads.  Most babies in remote regions are born in poorly staffed public health posts. If the doctors and nurses have problems during the delivery, either the baby or the mother (or both) may die. These courses teach ways to save both the babies and mothers in remote places.

Courses: "Helping Babies Breathe" and "Helping Mothers Survive"

The Peruvian Ministry of Health works with us each year to select two remote areas in order to teach these life-saving courses. This year they chose Cañete (on the coast) and Huánuco (in the Andes Mountains).

This year's courses were taught along the coast and in the Andes Mountains in areas of the greatest need.

Our job was coordinating the visits of four U.S. doctors and nurses, along with four Peruvian doctors and nurses who were teaching the courses. This was the second time during our mission to participate in these humanitarian training courses.

Teams of doctors and nurses came from long distances to learn the life-saving techniques taught in the courses.

About 100 health care professionals came to the training in the two cities (50 came per city). Some had to travel for up to a day and a half from remote health posts just to get to the training.

Jennifer Smoot, neonatal nurse from Provo, Utah, teaching life-saving resuscitation techniques using baby simulators and hand-held respirators.

Dr. Mark Bitner from Layton, Utah, overseeing the students practicing on the baby mockups. Many babies are born without knowing how to breathe. The hand-held respirators (in properly trained hands) can mean the difference between life and death for newborns in remote health posts.

Nurse Vilma Baldeon from Lima, Peru, has been teaching these courses with us for several years. The simple manual respirator she is demonstrating can be a life-saver for a newborn in respiratory distress.

These courses are always a major undertaking for us, and they involve lots of logistics and coordination on our part, including:

• Arranging all in-country travel for the U.S. and Peruvian instructors (airlines, shuttle vans, and taxis).
• Arranging meeting locations (typically one of our church meetinghouses in each city).
• Ordering lunches and refreshments for 70 people in each of the two cities where the training is held.
• Sorting, shipping, and then dividing over a thousand pounds of teaching supplies, mockups of babies and mothers, and other basic items such as hand-held respirators.
• Cleaning and preparing the buildings during the courses.
• Serving as the support staff to make sure the courses move ahead without a hitch.

Once the courses got started, we spent part of our time dividing up the thousand pounds of course materials and mockups. The 50 students in each course then take these supplies back to their remote health posts in order to repeat the training with their colleagues.

During the courses, we sorted and divided a thousand pounds of manuals, baby and mother mockups, and hand-held respirators that we had previously shipped to the training sites. Course participants then took back the supplies to their health posts.

Set of training materials, mockups of mothers and babies, respirators, and other supplies that students took back to the remote health posts to use in deliveries for mothers and newborns and for further training.

Letting out a sigh of relief once the courses are underway and running smoothly.

The second day of the 2-day course taught ways to save mothers' lives. Women who die after giving birth often die from uncontrolled hemorrhaging. This part of the course used strap-on modules that simulate ways that hemorrhaging can be stopped. 

(Note that most of the instructors strapped the modules onto men in the class since that is the only time they might experience that end of the treatment).

Strap-on mockups are used to simulate childbirth during the courses. Note the baby mockup that they delivered (along with the cord and placenta).

Strap-on simulators come complete with the baby mockup, placenta, and fake bleeding that students had to stop in order to practice saving the mother's life.

These training courses have now been presented in many cities around Peru over the past 15 years. We are grateful we have been able to play a role in taking this critical knowledge to those who can now save lives with the training and equipment they have received.

Course graduates in Cañete, ready to return to their health posts and save lives.

Courses successfully completed - thanks to everyone's help.
Right to left: Mary and Dr. Jeff Zollinger (U.S. team leads), Dr. Mark Bitner, Neonatal Nurse Jennifer Smooth, Marshall and Sandy (in-country coordinators), Obstetric Nurse Judith Palomino (Huánuco Health authority lead) and assistant Carlos Mendoza.

Getting around Huánuco and Cañete

Both Huánuco and Cañete are smaller Peruvian cities. Each place has one or two malls (which are the pride of each city). Due to the small size of these cities, the easiest and cheapest way to get around is using the ultra-small motor taxis. 

The cost of a ride is about $0.60 to $0.80 - it feels like a fun ride at an amusement park!

View of Huánuco with tiny motor taxis ready to give you a lift.

The motor taxis in these two cities are much smaller than the larger ones in the jungle cities. These are basically tightly enclosed fiberglass shells propelled by tiny motorcycle engines. They are efficient for getting around the small towns. You can't beat the price.

Just hop in these 3-wheeled go-cart motor taxis for a cheap and fun ride anywhere in town.

Temple Ruins of Kotosh

We had a few hours free after the last training course, so we took a taxi to visit some temple ruins just 15 minutes from Huánuco at a place called Kotosh. The Kotosh ruins were built by a civilization that flourished 3,000 years ago, long before the Incas.

Kotosh Ruins - site of multiple temples from ancient pre-Inca civilizations. Note how one temple is built on top of the next one down. Three layers of temples are shown here.

The ruins of Kotosh were first excavated about a hundred years ago, and the excavations are still on going. They have uncovered multiple stone temples, each one built on top of a previous one. At the very top of all the stacked temples is one they call "Temple of the Crossed Hands". This ruin is named based on the two sets of crossed hands made out of clay that were found on the interior walls of the temple.

Interior view of the clay images inside the Temple of the Crossed Hands

The two sets of hand images are embedded in the walls at the front of a ceremonial chamber. One set shows bigger hands representing male hands. On the other side at the front of the chamber is another set representing female hands. 

Close up of the set of male hands. The female hands are on the other side, also at the front of the temple chamber.

While archaeologists are not certain, they believe the images were used as part of ritual ceremonies, possibly marriage ceremonies. These sets of hands put a very human touch on the ruins that otherwise might just seem to be a collection of rocks with little human connection.

It is easy to imagine ancient people placing these two crossed hands on their temple as a symbol of worship or unity. It was a beautiful symbol, whatever it represents.

The image of the crossed hands found in the temple chamber is famous in Peru. The government even included the image on one of their 1 Sol coins to commemorate this touching image.

Crossed hands from the temple at Kotosh Ruins - Peruvian 1 Sol coin.

Time to go Home - Over the Andes

With the week of training courses finished, it was time to return to our home in Lima. We got to the airport, expecting to take a jet back home, but a turbo-prop propeller-type airplane showed up instead. 

We had to cross huge mountain peaks in the Andes Mountains on our return journey. We just hoped the propellers would make it back over the tall peaks.

Getting onto our propeller plane to take us home - over the Andes Mountains.

The Andes Mountains form the longest continuous range in the world and run the length of South America. Most peaks in the Andes Mountains are snow capped year round, even those that sit right at the equator in Ecuador. The tallest peaks in Peru are around 19,000 elevation, directly on our return path to Lima (therefore, the concern over making the journey in a propeller plane).

Spectacular 19,000-ft peaks in the Andes Mountains - photo I shot from our propeller plane during the journey back to Lima. 

Even though we are technically in the tropics, these peaks remain snow capped year round due to the altitude.

People live on mountains throughout the Andes, but these snow-capped peaks are uninhabitable.

And so we made it back to Lima without incident, happy to be finished with another exhausting week of training and travel. 

We should now have about 2 weeks to recover before our next (and final trip) up north to Tumbes near the Ecuadorian border on one of our last wheelchair projects before our mission comes to an end.

High into the Mountains of Cusco, Mobility for the Poor, and Machu Picchu

10 June 2018

Our journeys this week took us to Cusco, high in the Andes Mountains, where we performed wheelchair interviews and took a few days off with our daughter and son-in-law to visit Machu Picchu and other ancient Inca ruins.

Misty clouds during our break at Machu Picchu

Wheelchairs in Cusco

Last year in Cusco, we helped with a donation of 100 wheelchairs. We returned again this week to perform followup interviews with the recipients. This is part of our effort to interview a percentage of all wheelchair recipients to ensure the donation process is functioning properly and that the wheelchairs are still in good shape.

A photo of our 2017 wheelchair donations in Cusco last year. We returned this week to conduct followup interviews.

Cusco sits at 11,000-ft elevation high in the Andes Mountains. It was the former capital of the Inca Empire. Since the days of the Spanish conquest, it has grown into a major Peruvian city.

Disabled people in wheelchairs face special challenges getting around in this ancient city - narrow cobblestone streets with no ramps for their limited sidewalks make it hard to traverse by wheelchair.

Cusco's Plaza de Armas, the center of this major Peruvian city high in the Andes Mountains.

Cusco sits in the Andes Mountains halfway between Lima and Bolivia.

We traveled all over Cusco to visit wheelchair recipients in their homes, verify that their wheelchairs were working properly, and ensure that the donations had been made at no cost to the recipients. As we entered their homes, we saw some sad cases and also some endearing outcomes.

One poor family had a severely handicapped 35-year-old daughter. Their house had dirt floors, plastic sheets for walls, and chickens and guinnea pigs (cuyes) living indoors along with the aged mother and the handicapped daughter. The donated wheelchair provides the daughter's only access to the outside world on the limited times when she can leave the house. Her mother, age 85, cried as she told us how hard it is to provide constant care for the daughter and how she feared for who would care for her after the mother was gone. An aunt was the only family member who would come by to help. At least they can transport the daughter with her wheelchair, a blessing they never had before.

Handicapped woman with her wheelchair - her only means of leaving the house. Her aged mother and an aunt provide her with the constant care she requires.

Another woman, named Aydae, is paralyzed from her waist down and constantly relies on her wheelchair. Last year her husband carried Aydae on his back to the donation site to receive her wheelchair. This year we interviewed her in the wheelchair she has been using now for over a year since then. She told us how her wheelchair serves as her legs and gives her access to everything in the world that she could not access otherwise. Her husband beamed with a smile as Aydae described what the chair means to her - it also means for him that he no longer carries her on his back when they leave their home - a definite plus for both of them.

Aydae in the wheelchair that gives her access to the world (and relieves her husband of having to carry her on his back).

LDS Charities provides free wheelchairs to the poor throughout the world, improving the lives of the disabled in the poorest of places around the globe. We feel fortunate we have been able to play a small part in this work to help those who need help in such a desperate way.

Around Cusco

Since we were going to Cusco and our daughter and son-in-law (Rochelle and Sam) were coming Peru for a visit, we took a few days off from our normal labors to visit Cusco and Machu Picchu, the hidden city of the Incas. (Aside from our weekly days off on Saturdays and a few holidays, this is the only break we have taken on this mission - it was a welcome relief).

Cusco is a beautiful city filled with Spanish churches and buildings built on the foundations constructed by the Incas.

Cusco Cathedral, built on the foundation of a destroyed Inca temple.

Original Spanish balconies and stone columns line the Cusco's Plaza de Armas.

Overlooking Cusco from above the city. Tall mountains surround this high-altitude city.

Cusco was capital of the Incas, and the city has been built on top of the original Inca city. Narrow streets make it hard for cars to get around.

Steep cobblestone streets in Cusco were never designed for modern car traffic.

Andean culture is everywhere in the city, and most residents speak Quechua as their native language (in addition to Spanish, which they all learn in School). Tall mountains surround the city, many of them snowcapped.

Snow-capped mountains surround Cusco on all sides. Here are some Andean women with their festive alpacas. We paid each woman a Peruvian Sol for the photo op.

Andean woman with her alpaca outside of Cusco.

Mountain scenery around Cusco - rugged and inspiring. 

Machu Picchu - City in the Clouds

Discovered just 100 years ago, Machu Picchu has captured the attention of the world and is probably the most famous site in all of Peru.

Rain clouds and mist made our trip to Machu Picchu all the more mysterious.

Views from around Machu Picchu are hard to describe - they are so magnificent your mind can hardly take it all in. Sandy and I came here in 2014 on vacation, and the second time visiting here was as good as the first.

Windows of stone looking across the misty canyons.

Trapazoidal-shaped doors and windows were designed to resist earthquakes.

Steep 10-ft terraces cover the mountainside. The Incas imported all the soil to the terraces in order to grow crops high in the mountains.

Machu Picchu's terraces for growing crops at altitude.

Magnificent views of the many terraces surrounding the ancient city.

A chilly and wet day to explore the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu.

Trumpet flowers and other plants in the gardens of the Machu Picchu complex.

Stone work at Machu Pichu took over a century to build.

The Incas built road systems that extend  thousands of miles from Argentina on the south to Colombia on the north. Many of these roads converged at Machu Picchu. The Incas carved trails right into the sides of steep cliffs. One of these trails is called the 'Inca Bridge' - a trail cut right into the cliff face (tourists can't cross this bridge, only look on in wonder).

Inca Bridge - part of the network of roads and trails extending for thousands of miles up and down the Andes.

More Inca Ruins - Ollantaytambo

Inca ruins are found throughout Peru. Everywhere you go in the Andes, there are massive ruins of temples, terraces, and buildings as evidence of this incredible society. Ollantaytambo is a city at the end of the road before you catch the train to Machu Picchu. Thousands of Incas labored for years to haul all the stones for the construction.

We felt like dwarfs climbing the massive terraces.

Each stone was cut by hand and hauled on the backs of Incas up the mountainside.

The ruins of Ollantaytambo are magnificent but are virtually unknown outside of Peru.

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Peruvians call Ollantaytambo the most Inca city in Peru. The entire city is built from the original Inca plan, and most houses incorporate some part built by the Incas.

Sandy, framed in the doorway of antiquity.

The Andes Mountains loom over Ollantaytambo and the rest of what they refer to as the Sacred Valley.

And so we returned to Lima, ready to travel again next week for the Saving Mothers and Babies courses in two cities. 

Our time grows short - less than 6 weeks remain until we finish our mission. 

Now that the end is in sight, we sometimes feel like we are half Peruvians!