Hope for the Disabled in Tumbes, Wheelchairs for the Poorest of the Poor

8 July 2018

We had a busy week of travel to Tumbes up north on the Ecuadorian border. This trip, the final one for us on our humanitarian service mission, was for reviewing the progress on the wheelchair donation project we oversaw last year.

Colorful Plaza de Armas (main square) in Tumbes, with its decorative performance stage paying homage to native heritage and Peruvian wildlife.

Tumbes, as close as you can get to the Ecuadorian border without leaving Peru.

Wheelchairs for the Poor

Our original trip here in June 2017 was to help donate 150 wheelchairs to the poor and disabled. In addition, we worked with our partner at the National Rehabilitation Institute to teach local health workers and technicians how to evaluate patients and repair wheelchairs. We came back this year, in part, to review their on-going repair workshop, but more importantly, to interview 10 percent of the recipients to make sure the donations were handled properly and to verify the state of the wheelchairs.

Jose Crisanto, from the regional health authority, showed us the work they were doing to repair broken wheelchairs using the repair parts we had given them. This is an impressive program they have organized with many of the disabled actually doing the repairs. The 'before' and 'after' versions of the wheelchairs were remarkable - they had restored beat-up wheelchairs to almost-new condition.

The wheelchair organization, run by the regional health authority, is the best partner we have in all of Peru for helping the poor and disabled.

Jose Crisanto, the representative of the regional health authority, showed us the repair workshop where they restore broken wheelchairs and return then to the disabled.

Wheelchair graveyard where they take beat-up and broken down wheelchairs and restore them to like-new condition.

Wheelchairs in various stages of repair - these will again serve the poor and disabled of Tumbes after the work is complete.

Here is the 'before' and 'after', along with the technician who did the repair. The region tries to employ the disabled to perform this work - they contribute in a significant way by helping to make life easier for other disabled people.

Wheelchair Interviews

After viewing the wheelchair workshop, we went into the homes of the wheelchair recipients for the interviews. In total, we were able to visit the homes of 16 people who received wheelchairs in June of 2017. All were grateful for the mobility their wheelchairs provided.

Most of the recipients were very poor and lived in humble houses, most with dirt floors. But their austere conditions did not diminish their cheerfulness as they greeted us and described how their wheelchairs have changed their lives.

Into the humble home of one of the wheelchair recipients. He calls his wheelchair his 'legs'.

Without the gift of a wheelchair, most of these people would be bed-ridden day in and day out.

This 4-year-old had a brain tumor that was successfully removed but not before leaving her crippled for life. Shown here with her is Angie Custodio, a young adult from our church who went with us and asked all the interview questions - she was a real natural in dealing with people and really enjoyed her time assisting with this humanitarian project.

This man sells candy everyday on the streets from his wheelchair. Without this mobility, he would be stuck at home with no hope for the future.

This man fell out of a tree, broke his neck, and is now quadriplegic. His family can move him around in the wheelchair he received last year. He cannot sit up without being strapped into the wheelchair, but at least he can get outside during the day thanks to the mobility of the wheelchair and the help of his family.

Most of the neighborhoods we went into were very poor with dirt streets and houses made of crude building materials like mud and sticks. It is hard to imagine how many people in the world live in places that are so poverty stricken. Life is especially hard if you are both poor and disabled.

In poor neighborhoods like this, you are considered rich if your floors are cement. Most are just dirt.

This was the poorest home we visited - made from just sticks.

The stick house has no windows, no electricity, and no running water. The best item this man owns is his wheelchair.

Typical interior of most of the homes we visited - along with the dirt floor. This woman is now able to get around well with her cane and walker, so she decided to give back the wheelchair so someone less fortunate could now benefit.

What a blessing these wheelchairs have been for those whose lives were changed as a result. We feel joy in having been able to play a role in this incredible project that restores hope and dignity to the most vulnerable in this world.

Life in Tumbes

Downtown Tumbes was filled with the typical traffic jam of motor taxis, the preferred form of cheap transportation in most smaller Peruvian cities.

Rush hour in downtown Tumbes.

The town comes to life at night as many of the locals walk around the downtown when temperatures cool down. Tumbes can be scorching hot most of the year, but temperatures were in the upper 70s (F) during our visit, so the locals complained about how cold it was!

Tumbes night life on the pedestrian-only streets. Locals come out when it cools down at night.

As we walked around the downtown one evening, we came across an interesting store. They sold each item for one Peruvian Sol (worth about $0.30 USD). We have seen 'dollar stores' throughout the USA and around the world where everything inside the store costs the equivalent of $1. Tumbes is a poor place, so the 'One Sol' store made sense. The locals call it a 'Solsito', or just 'a little tiny Sol'. We couldn't believe a store could exist by selling items that cheap.

Like the sign says: "Thousands of Items, Everything for 1 Sol" (worth about $0.30).

The next afternoon, I popped my head into the kitchen at the place where we ate lunch. The cook staff was a happy bunch, and they obliged my request to take their picture.

What a happy crew, cooking up our lunch at the restaurant in Puerto Pizzaro on the coast outside of Tumbes. 

We have found Peruvians are a fairly happy people, quick to smile and who also love to laugh. Some of the best memories we will take with us from Peru involve the many great people we got to meet along the way.

Last Get-Together

Senior missionaries in our Area Office got together last week to bid farewell to four of us as we draw close to the end of our missions.

Senior missionaries from the Area Office at our farewell get-together. These other volunteer missionaries work in areas such as legal, medical, auditor, church history, and self-reliance. Some have served up to 8 missions, and they just keep going with more energy than what we have. What a great group to work with!

In less than 2 weeks, our mission will end and we will return to our home in Albuquerque. Our replacements arrive in Peru in 3 days, and then we will have about a week together to teach all we know about serving in this humanitarian role.

We can't say that this has been an easy mission, but we have tried our best to help the poor throughout Peru. We take with us the memories of the many incredible people we have met in the many places along the way, and we rejoice that we had this chance to serve.