The patients in Pisco whom we work with are poor. Most don’t have the money, let alone the time, to take a day of travel for pleasure. This weekend, we took a group of patients and their kids to various attractions around the Ica area. One patient said to me, “The only time I have been to Ica, is when I was hospitalized because of TB, and need surgery.” For you Michiganders, that’s like living in Ann Arbor all your life and never visiting Detroit.
The patients we brought were participating in group therapy sessions in dealing with TB treatment. TB treatment is a long, taxing process that can last anywhere from 6 months to two years. As you can imagine, taking daily medicines that have debilitating side effect can be mentally tough. Add to that the stigma from the disease–which is still a huge problem–and you get a disease that attacks the body and the mind. PIH has group therapy sessions with current and former patients to help work through these issues.
Saturday was a day of fun. The patients, their kids, the PIH workers, and the government health employees piled into a bus to go from Pisco to Ica. First we stopped at Ica’s town square. Taking pictures in front of the fountain and enjoying the sights. Next we went to tour a bodega, a winery. I got to play with the kids a bit while the adults tasted some sweet Peruvian wine. But when I was chasing one kid, he fell down and scraped his knee. The next day, he claimed he fell because he was scared of me because I’m so big.
Later we had duck at a nice restaurant. And when eating meat in Peru, they don’t typically give out knives. So it was a fork-and-hand-to-mouth process. To those who know me well, this form of ingesting suits my style of eating better than the “more civilized” form.
A photo outside the restaurant with me and two nurses. This was taken to show my height.
After lunch, we went to La Huacachina, an oasis that has been so built up, it reminds me of Niagra Falls. People are climbing the sand dunes, sand boarding down them, taking dune buggies. It is a cheesy attraction, but it’s pretty nonetheless. To see trees growing in the middle of the desert is cool. The patients were taken out in row boats, which most , even though they live next to the ocean, don’t have the opportunity to do.
La Huacachina
And so went the day. But more than the sites we went to, the best part was giving the patients an opportunity to relax, away from the harsh poverty in which they live. Who doesn’t need a vacation?
