This is my year of many “firsts” and this past September, I finally crossed off one of the last things off my list of “nursing goals in five years plan” – going on a medical mission.
I spent 10 days in Huancayo, Peru – a rural town about 8 hours from Lima. I spent a night in Miraflores and the next morning, we headed up to Huancayo, through mountains, past lakes and llamas, and little towns with little people. The whole time, it reminded me of driving through the Philippines… unpaved roads, roaming animals, and carefree children wandered about each town. The people themselves also looked a bit Asian? And that’s when I learned that there were Chinese “immigrants” that came to South America to build their railroad. I put that in quotes because the reality is, these immigrants were slaves and had to do the work, just like in the US. They were second-class citizens, but just like the Chinese are, they made their own path with hard work and now, many of the successful businesses in Peru are owned by Chinese families. They also influenced their cuisine, creating their own fusion Peruvian-Chinese food called, “chaufa.”
The first day arriving in Huancayo, we went straight to our homestay where we met Miguel and Sophia and their two children, Miguel and Sophia 😛 Yes, it’s quite cute and funny at the same time. The hospitality they provided was so heartwarming, it was like we were their family. They provided us with a bed and roof over our heads and also filled our stomachs with traditional Peruvian food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I already miss my breakfast of air pressed Peruvian coffee, fresh fruits, scrambled eggs and bread. And while we had our variations of chicken, rice, and potato, I miss talking with Miguel at the table the most. Even though we had a language barrier, the sincerity in his attempt to connect with us and talk to us about our day was so fatherly, again, I have to say it felt like coming home to family each day.
I didn’t get a chance to do any real volunteering the first day I was in Huancayo, we pretty much shadowed in the OR for one morning and in the afternoon, our activity was cancelled so they sponsored an activity to visit Torre Torre with our driver Pedrito. The drive up here was so scary! We had a little mini-van and I know it may seem redundant to say that, but it was literally a minivan, but smaller than the ones we have in the US. The road was unpaved again and we drove up a windy and bumpy hill. I would have never found it on my own for sure… As we walked through the trails, our driver jumped from point to point, flying over crevices at least 100 feet high with no rails or anything. And of course, he teased us to follow him each time.
I’ll continue this in another post, but safe to say, there were a lifetime of memories from this short trip and I’m really excited to go on a trip like this again.