Lending a hand in the Amazon brings its own reward

Orlando Sentinel: PRODUCT: TRAV
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DATE: 11-07-2004
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Orlando Sentinel
OrlandoSentinel.com
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2004
SECTION L
Zion
National
Park blazes
with cactus
flowers.
Five national parks,
practically within spitting
distance, make southern
Utah a scenic superstar.
By PHIL MARTY
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
ESCALANTE, Utah — We
were relaxing in the shade at a
table outside the Trailhead Cafe
and Grill while smoke from burgers drifted away from the gas
grill into a brilliant blue sky. On
the road into Escalante, brilliant
blue met reddish orange, compliments of otherworldly redrock formations.
As if on cue, the radio, set to
an oldies station broadcasting
from somewhere bigger than
Pictographs
decorate
rocks near
Delicate Arch
in Andes
National Park.
Escalante (pop. 900), poured
out Billy Joe Royal’s lament,
“Down in the Boondocks.”
It’s not hard to consider the
southern third (or maybe the
whole state) of Utah to be the
boondocks. After all, there
aren’t many people — only 2.3
million for the state, a half-million less than in Chicago. Consequently, there aren’t a lot of
fine-dining options. Or highbrow cultural events, Cedar
City’s Utah Shakespearean Festival notwithstanding (or Escalante’s Labor Day Weekend
“Axles, Hubs and Wheels”).
PLEASE SEE
UTAH, L10
Quiet glens
dot Zion
National
Park.
At Canyonlands National Park’s Island in the Sky,
visitors are treated to striking views of the
neighboring mountains.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY LAURIE LAWRENCE/ORLANDO SENTINEL; PHOTOS BY PHIL MARTY/CHICAGO TRIBUNE;
GOING GLOBAL
Lending a hand in the Amazon brings its own reward
This is one of a series of occasional articles on young travelers and their adventures.
By T. DELENE BEELAND
SPECIAL TO THE SENTINEL
AMAZONAS, Brazil — I am
rocking a 2-week-old baby in a weathered wooden shack supported by
splintered stilts that have a tenuous
hold on the clay banks of the Rió Negro, one of the Amazon’s largest tributaries.
Fatima, the baby’s mother, has
complained of lethargy, headaches
and abdominal pain. She lounges listlessly on a threadbare couch while
Teresa Madedor and Donna Sumrall,
registered nurses from Orlando, set
up an intravenous line for her.
“The family is scared because two
months ago a new mother in this village had the same symptoms and
died a few weeks later,” Madedor
says quietly, her melodic voice skipping lightly across the poverty-darkened room. She’s searching for a nail
or hook on a rafter from which to
hang the saline bag. It will deliver
much-needed fluids to Fatima’s septic postpartum body.
The room’s only light streams
through a bare window, a borderless
aperture to the afternoon rainstorm
rolling across the river. Refreshing
wind precedes it. Scattered rain soon
taps a song on the tin roof. Roosters
and chickens squawk outside.
“This is so awesome! I feel so alive
inside right now!” Sumrall exclaims
as she tapes the IV line to the saline
bag. Eight years after ending her
nursing career for full-time motherhood, it looks as if Sumrall, her face
PLEASE SEE
BRAZIL, L12
In a village, families gather on a porch
for a clinic given by a group of Central
Florida doctors, nurses and volunteers.
T. DELENE BEELAND
FETCH FIDO: MISS YOUR DOG? BORROW ONE DURING YOUR TRIP, L13
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Orlando Sentinel: PRODUCT: TRAV
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DATE: 11-07-2004
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Orlando Sentinel
radiant with passion, is rediscovering lost joy.
The shack is devoid of comforts. Wide floor planks are set
half an inch apart. Through
them, I see two goats. The room
smells of rain and warm, unwashed bodies that pull sustenance by hand from an indifferent earth.
Fatima’s tired eyes look past
us. But an hour and two liters of
saline later, I watch her eat a
full plate of beef and farina
(ground and roasted yucca).
Her eyes grow brighter each
second.
My fingers itch to take a photograph. But sensing the snapping of my shutter will take
something from her, scoop
away her dignity, I stow my
camera and return to her baby.
We are all relieved by Fatima’s improvement, and despite
the oppressive poverty, the
mood in the shack is now lighter than moth wings.
I am traveling aboard a boat
named the Bahamas on a medical and humanitarian mission
trip. There are 54 other volunteers, most from Central Florida churches. Doctors, nurses,
pharmacists, a dentist and willing volunteers without medical
backgrounds, like me, are offering their hands and skills. We
are visiting areas along the rivers that are so remote and poor
that residents lack necessities
such as clothing and medicine.
Rivers are the highways of
the Amazon basin. From this
village, Saraca, the nearest hospital is three days away by boat
in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state. “There are villages
that are weeks away from a hospital,” says Dr. Jonathas Moreira, from Orlando. He is the liaison between the Presbyterian
Church in Manaus and the volunteers. “Can you imagine, if
you are sick . . . weeks!”
Life on the margins
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Ribeirorhos means “river
people” in Portuguese but
might as well translate to “forgotten people.” It refers to persons of mixed ethnicity descending from indigenous Indians, whites and blacks. They
speak Portuguese and farm
yucca, cocoa and plantains, and
fish. Along with indigenous Indians of Brazil, those with preserved languages and customs,
they are marginalized by their
government.
Back on the river, the water
curls behind the boat’s motors
in humped, black waves with
crests of deep tannin-orange.
The wake’s hypnotic undulations lull me into meditation. I
imagine living here by trying to
erase luxuries such as treated
water, refrigeration and paved
roads, and stepping down a few
levels to simply having food,
shelter and health.
Throughout the trip, I assist
my cabinmate, Dr. Cassia Portugal, in the boat’s pediatrics
clinic. She is a petite Brazilian
with milky-white skin who engages patients in lively Portuguese. (Most of the American
doctors aboard require translators. Without them, our presence is an impotent gesture.)
Portugal bids me to run to
our cramped pharmacy for bottles of albendazole. All six children of a family around her
exam table have worms.
I pour the liquid into the
mouth of a 5-year-old girl, who
stares at me wide-eyed and
open-mouthed while the medicine pools around her tongue.
She is unsure what this stranger is pouring down her throat,
but, trusting all the same, she
swallows.
Her mother asks me something, and Portugal translates.
“She wants to know how many
kids you have?”
“None,” I reply, surprised,
“I’m not married.” I wiggle my
naked ring finger in the air. The
woman’s eyes fly wide, and she
looks me up and down. A spew
of Portuguese ensues. The doctor shakes her head, then says,
“She asked if you are barren,
but I told her, no, you just don’t
have kids.”
If I had been born to a ribeirorhos community, I would certainly be, at age 27, mothering
eight or 10 kids by three or four
men. Dr. Tom O’Leary, an Orlando gynecologist, says many
river women have asked him
about birth control, and a few
T. DELENE BEELAND
Volunteers from Central Florida paint a house in an Amazon village. It’s
a simple but significant act that can extend the life of the building.
have the place ready for families to come “shopping.” Kids
hang on windowsills and door
frames as they eyeball the
growing stacks we create.
Giving the clothes away is
the best part. Each family is
given a bag, then they pick five
or six items. If anything remains after everyone had
picked, we invite them to walk
through again until it’s all gone.
Judging by the ribeirorhos’
Food isn’t a certainty
smiles, which seemed wider
By 10 a.m., the boat’s clinic is than the river outside, this realbusy. Our two waiting benches ly is Christmas in July.
are packed, and a line stretches
along the boat railing outside. I Boy holds no grudge
One afternoon, when the pecount 26 people — four mothers
and 22 children. Every mouth in diatrics clinic is slow, I head
the room is smacking gum or ashore to the village, a clear-cut
sucking a lollipop — Madedor span of dry earth. I find our
and Sumrall have been busy painting crew clustered around
giving out candy at triage again. two homes, roller brushes
atop
scavenged
Dugout canoes begin arriv- jammed
ing around 11 a.m. Families, branches for extra reach. Paint
who have paddled hours crowd extends the longevity of meager
housing by protecting it from
beneath frayed parasols.
A young man hobbles from a the elements. The village leader
canoe with an angry, infected decides which homes will rewound on the back of his calf. ceive new life. I pick up a roller
The ragged gash is rimmed and begin helping.
As I take a break, I spy Lucas
with green, and I realize it’s
gangrenous. (Later, at dinner, I downhill. I had held the boy for
hear that he had cut himself Portugal this morning as she
with a machete seven weeks tried to remove impacted earearlier. That he escaped blood wax. “His mom says he’s 7, but
he looks like he’s 5, he’s so
poisoning is a miracle.)
Guilt strikes me when we small. He’s also mute.” Portugal
close for lunch. Our cook is cre- told me.
As she peered into his ear
ative and energetic, and a feast
of fresh fish, vegetables, beans, with an otoscope, she found
rice and melon awaits us on the wax so compacted that it
looked like black pebbles.
boat.
Food is an uncertain pros- Could he hear at all?
The boy may not be able to
pect for many of our patients,
who drift home until we reopen speak, but he had lungs. He
at 2 p.m. I wonder how many howled as I held him, sweating
will eat. Poor families may have and squirming as he resisted
only one meal a day. This morn- the doctor. All gum-smacking
ing, a few kids with swollen ceased in the clinic, and I felt
stomachs passed through the apprehension growing.
“Hang in there, I’m hot, too,”
clinic, an indication of protein
I whispered in his ear, knowing
malnutrition.
Portugal inquires about the he couldn’t understand me, but
diet of one family when she no- hoping that, if he could hear
me, it sounded soothing.
tices extreme tooth decay.
Now he is playing happily in
“The mom said she feeds
them powdered milk mixed a cooking pavilion. His mother
with sugar,” she tells me, exas- is making farina by toasting
yucca grain over a huge iron
peration cutting her words.
stove, turning and tossing it
Flip-Flop Express
with a wooden paddle.
If Brazil has an unofficial naHe recognizes me, waves
tional symbol, it’s the flip-flop. and smiles. And just like that, in
Whether you are on a remote a child’s condensed time span, I
jungle tributary of the Amazon am forgiven.
or in the thumping urban heart
of Rio de Janeiro, everyone Eager to return
I rise with the sun each
wears flips. “We should call our
boat the Flip-Flop Express!” morning amid the stillness left
says Ginnie Poe, an Orlando behind by our boat’s diesel genvolunteer. We are sorting erator, which cuts off on a prethrough 750 pairs of flip-flops cise schedule. Because I’m craon the boat’s deck, packing do- dled in white noise through the
nated items for distribution in a night, the sudden silence at 6
a.m. seems deafening.
village that evening.
This morning I emerge from
As I assist with the donated
items, I feel like a behind-the- my cabin to discover that Impa,
scenes Santa. Mounds of sun- our captain, moved the boat
warmed clothing flutter in the during the night. We are
breeze. Someone stopping in moored off a small village of
might think Goodwill has relo- perhaps 30 families. A rambunctious brouhaha of colors
cated to a boat on the Amazon.
We haul a few filled suitcas- announces the new day 21⁄2 dees to a school or church build- grees below the equator.
I start the morning talking
ing and, within 20 minutes,
with Dr. Mark Sand, an Orlando cardiologist.“I have to step
outside of my skin to do this . . .
step outside the operating room
and become a general practiThe Amazonas missionary trip
tioner,” he tells me.“I feel torn
was arranged through Global
between using the skills I have
Hope Network International (P.O.
and letting myself be stretched
Box 781112, Orlando 32878; 407into new areas. Surgery is cura207-3256; globalhopenetwork
tive and life saving. I know I
.org). Cost was $1,280, including
have an immediate impact
air and ground transportation,
there. But these trips also open
lodging and meals aboard the
the opportunity for me to learn
boat.
new areas.”
Monetary donations also are welcome, as are donations of such
It is our last day in the villagthings as adult or children’s sumes. By serving the ribeirorhos,
mer clothing, soccer balls, chilI’ve tasted this addictive inner
dren’s toys and hygeine supplies.
glow, and I depart the Amazon
— T. DELENE BEELAND
hungry for more.
about sterilization. Unfortunately, we have only limited
means to address these issues
— sex education and condoms.
When I later tell Moreira
about the conversation, he says,
chuckling, “I have a saying that,
if you see a young girl in the
Amazon, 13 years old or so,
then she has a baby either here
or here,” pointing to his shoulder then his belly.
IF YOU WANT TO GO
T. DeLene Beeland lives in Gainesville.