Back from Up-River

 The Montana Mission Team (plus two good persons from Colorado) has returned from our trip to visit an indigenous tribe.  It was quite an adventure.  Just getting there took 55 hours of boat travel, and 4,500 liters of diesel.  We left Manaus on Friday night at 10 PM and arrived at our destination on Monday morning at about 6 AM.

 Our destination was the tiny riverside town called Fortaleza, on the Rio Copea’.  This river is a large tributary of the Rio Solimoes, going northwest from the town of Coari.  You can easily find Coari on a map or via Google.  We worked there for a day, and then the next day moved down river to another community called Boa Fe’.  Next day it was Liberdade and across the river to see a couple of people in Porcao.   We were the first medical boat to ever visit.  Most people had not seen a doctor in 5 years or more.

 Calling these places “towns” is more than a little generous.  They are collections of homes along the river, most of them floating on huge logs.  Thirty to fifty families constitute a community, and each family has up to 10 members.  These are indigenous people who have come back to live on their ancestral  lands after decades of fighting for their rights.  Fifty years ago oil and natural gas were discovered here.  The land was seized or purchased for a pittance, and many people were killed if they didn’t want to leave.  We met one man of 78 years who lived through it all.  He told of the terrible killings and how he survived by moving deep into the jungle.  He had been living independently since he was 10 years old.  He told us of his prowess as a jaguar hunter, and of all the huge fish he had caught.  He was much less than 5 feet tall, wiry, bare-footed, and strong as a man can be.  He got a photograph with most of us and was very happy to visit.

 A wonderful Nurse Practitioner was with our team (Kara Addison).  She and I attended 624 people in two and a half days.  She also pulled three teeth, sort of.  They were so rotten that they just broke up as she tried to pull them.  A lot of pus was released, and antibiotics plus ibuprofen was given to them.

389 people got reading glasses. Many others were examined but didn’t need glasses.  A huge (but uncounted) number of people got fluoride dental treatments.  

419 children engaged in exuberant play activities (arts and crafts), but it seemed like many more. 

 We were graciously and repeatedly thanked.  Groups of women tried to teach our women some tribal dances.  Three men brought in a 9 foot caiman that they had harpooned that night.  We bought some of the meat from it.  Watching it get butchered immediately outside our medical site was rather uncomfortable for several team members.  Long after it was dead, the tail was chopped off.  It started to swish back and forth so hard that it fell back into the water off the raised walkway.  It was quickly retrieved.