en Peru

al fin, he llegado! I am so happy to be back in Peru. It was a long journey to get here to Chachapoyas--left home at 9am on the 18th, flew from Albuquerque to Dallas to Miami to Lima, arriving after some delays at 6am the 19th. Then had a nap, ate one of those amazing Peruvian salads drenched in lime juice and some ceviche (I cannot resist the Peruvian ceviche), and boarded what was supposed to be a 23hr bus ride--turned 26hr bus ride--to Chachapoyas, where I am now.

On the bus ride, I was lucky to find myself sitting next to a doctor who works for the public health dept and goes into the native communities to care for the people. He told me all sorts of disturbing things, like that the native people lie to anthropologists to make themselves appear more ¨native¨and that there is a lot of rape of young girls and domestic abuse. We exchanged contact info so that next time I return, if I can sequester a few weeks, I can go into the jungle with them and do some medical work.

Yesterday was then my first legitimate day in Peru. I woke up at 530 to go to a sweet cave, full of great cave formations, remains of human sacrifices, and ancient pottery and sculptures. Then to see a couple different sites in the cliffsides, which were full of sarcophogi (structures built from earth in the shape of people and painted as such, to house dead bodies of important people). They are the only ones apparently in the americas, and are from the Chachapoyan people, who are pre-Inca. We also saw some Chachapoyan mummies, which were bound in the fetal position to facilitate their rebirth into the next life.

I arrived around dinner time after my day of excursions and was lucky to meet and share dinner with a Swiss couple who are riding their bicycles from Ecuador to Argentina, where they are then planning to surf for a couple months. I also met a dude from San Diego who rode his motorcycle from his home all the way through Central America (took a boat from Panama to Colombia with his bike), and has made it here to Northern Peru, destined for Patagonia, and will then potentially board a cargo ship to Africa with his bike. Ah! I am completely inspired by these folk and now am even more set on biking to Southern Mexico, which Justin and I have been talking about.... I asked the bicycle couple what they did to prepare and they said nothing. They didn´t train nor bring anything special, just some tire patches. When they´re tired they stop. They get stronger every day. They eat whatever they get on the road. They camp and stay in hostels when they are available. They talk to locals about routes and take it day by day. They encouraged me to just do it. That there is nothing holding anyone back but their own fear, because truely there´s no reason not to....

So that´s what´s on my mind now, as I head for Leymebamba, where I will be for a couple days.

Con mucho amor y cariño,

Rachel

Karajia sarcophogi

cliffside tombs

our sweet guide

a Peru de nuevo

I'm heading back to Peru on Sunday, with a totally different mindset then in the two years past. This year I have a job that I have to return to, a boyfriend that I get to return to :), I'm only going for a month, and though I feel like a I have a good handle on Peru--I know the streets of Iquitos, Miraflores, and a couple other of the towns I'll be checking back in on, I've taken almost every bus company there is, I have family and friends there, and have a sort of comfort with the language and feel of Peru....I am prepared to be humbled by it again. I am also feeling nervous since it seems like so long since I've been there and my Spanish has been corrupted with New Mexican phrases like "hijole!" "pendeja" (my favorite, which means pubic hair and also idiot), and "guera" along with other words not used in SA...and truthfully, that's about all the Spanish I have been speaking since I got here, unlike in the year prior when I was living on the border and using it all the time.

I will arrive in Lima after a stupidly long journey at 430am on Monday. My dear friend Pamela is picking me up from the airport and then recuperating me at her house before my 23hr bus ride at 430pm to the northern town of Chachapoyas. There I will do some hikes to various lesser known ruins (in comparison to Machu Picchu) and to one of the tallest waterfalls in the world, and also just hang out in one of my favorite places in the world: Leymebamba, a small town south of Chacha, where I felt like I fell off the face of the earth--or rather into the center of the earth, and was filled with love and admiration for life and nature--almost 2 years ago. Ahh...I cannot wait!

Then I'm meeting my friend Segundo in Yurimaguas--that is I hope I am! Without the modern conveniences of cell phone service and reliable boat schedules, I'm not exactly sure how we'll be meeting up. The journey from Iquitos to Yuri takes 4-5 days by cargo boat. He is making that journey and then taking me back with him, acting as my bodyguard as he likes to call himself. I wanted to make my journey to Iquitos this year via water, as the only way to reach the jungle city is by boat or plane, and the appeal of sleeping in hammocks and eating fish right out of the river which takes us through a national preserve was just too irresistible. Then I will meet up with Patch Adams and the clowning crew in Iquitos for a 2 week session of loving and working and sweating...a lot. Yay!!!!

See: http://www.patchadams.org/belen-project for info on the project

mantenemos en contacto!

looooooove, Rachel

wedding in Kansas City over the 4th

Last night I stood out in the pouring rain in my socks and ate a plum and looked up at the sky, and got completely soaked. Yum.

I just returned from a trip to Colorado with Justin, which involved a cold night of camping in Questa, a meet-the-extended-family occasion, which went very well, and a lot of great walks and talks in my sister's new neighborhood (which used to be mobster and moon-shine central during the prohibition era, along with being the Little Italy of Denver).

I've only worked 2 shifts thus far this week, but the round up of Espanola drama has included a heroin addicted baby born in the ambulance and then transported here, a major postpartum hemmorhage, 3 precipitous deliveries--one occurring into a woman's sweatpants on the stretcher (the best part being that she didn't make a peep and we only knew the baby had been born when we heard some muffled whimpers coming from her pants--talk about stoic!), I held a 14wk fetus in my hands while it was still attached by a tiny umbilical cord leading inside the mom, and I successfully put a catheter in a 300+ lb lady. Now if only telling of such excitement gave me the strength/will to get through the next 4 shifts.... I scheduled myself a little whackily so that I could have time to go to Colorado and to Kansa City for my friends wedding next weekend, which means not having to actually take time off from work, but having to work 75hrs in 6 days.

...So on that note, I have to go to bed now! I'm not honestly sure why I'm still awake!

much love, Rachel

rounding it out

June? What? That means we're halfway through 2010.
That means I've worked at the hospital and lived in Santa Fe for 8 full months now. That means I'm going back to Peru next month...and that the Mayan calendar ends in a year and a half...and that more than anything: time is going really F'ng fast, and so I better be focusing on my priorities before I find myself too deep in something other than what I want to be doing. This comes down to: I want to be practicing as a healer, well more literally: one who helps facilitate the body's own natural processes, helping people be whole and well, without assaulting the body with chemicals and external forces, but acknowledging the body's wisdom and allowing it to do it's work. This is one reason I'm so drawn to midwifery, because it's about empowering a beautiful process and not getting in the way of nature. So...I want to be doing this. But I want to be spending an immense amount of time outside too, learning about the land and the insects and plants. And more concretely, I want to become a certified professional midwife, go to Guatemala and be a hiking guide there, and buy land in Peru or at least hang out on my friend Conrad's land and catch babies there for villagers.
Phew. Just had to get that out the way.

As for updates: I went back to the midwest for a long weekend to celebrate my brother's graduation from Lewis University and my cousin's wedding. I flew into Minneapolis and saw some good friends there--ate at the wonderful Birchwood Cafe with Karen, Alexis, and Kelsey, then drove down to Des Moines. My eyes loved seeing so much green and my skin felt moisturized just by existing there. As always, I had a fabulous time with my cousins and was delighted by the Iowa salsa scene. I went dancing on Sat nightat the Des Moines Embassy Club, and a girl who I met in the bathroom gave me a shot of tequila in a mouthwash cup from her flask. On another night, I enjoyed playing tennis surrounded by big trees and flood lamps that drew mosquitoes...

I was happy to come back to Santa Fe, where you don't stick to your chairs when sitting outside. My friends and I celebrated the glorious weather here, by literally taking all of the furniture out of my living room and putting in the front yard, where we grilled up some asparagus, corn on the cob, and homemade black bean burgers on the grill I bought from a police officer on craigslist earlier that day.

This past week we lost one of our travel nurses, so I had to step up and be a charge nurse twice last week, which meant it was just me on the unit with a less experienced nurse. We ended up having an emergency C-section, who later needed a blood transfusion, and a patient came up so dehydrated that the ER had to put an IV in her neck because her veins were so flat. Fun times. I am grateful for the challenge that it provided me, and that I was able to handle it all pretty smoothly! It renewed my sense of worth in doing this work for now, which I never wanted to do (be in a hospital that is), and made me feel that much more confident in my skillz. However it also strengthened my belief in the fact that for normal healthy women, hospital birthing is dangerous, and that the more we mess with the body's natural processes, the more likely we are to end up with bad outcomes (not to mention expensive!)

And last but not least, I have a boyfriend. I feel very strange using that word, as in the last 2 1/2 years I have become unaccustomed to using it with any relation to myself. But yep. I was wooed by a boy who I met in a cave on the Zia reservation, and who on our 2nd time hanging out dissected coyote poop and told me what he suspected it had eaten, pointed out some bats' hiding place under a bridge, enlightened me about bee reproductive anatomy, then made me dinner in a skillet which I convinced him should be eaten on his roof, where we looked at the stars. Que romantico :)

Well, that's it for now folks! Cheers to bbqs, summer nights, corn on the cob, and thunder storms!
xxxxoooooRO

My beautiful yard/outdoor living room and my wonderful friends

Oh yeah, and I hosted an early 90s themed skating party a couple weeks ago....and I forgot to tell Justin the theme :) see sparkly fanny pack