Until next time, Urada.

Written I can't remember when anymore, posted today.

I woke up early with the birds making noise. Actually, it was one specific
bird that literally screamed us awake. No need for alarm clocks here, more
useful are earplugs. This morning, knowing that the chances of bathing in
the river later were very slim, I quickly grabbed my stuff and went off to
the river. Cold water in the morning is actually quite nice. The river was
wonderful and I felt I could be there all day, but today we needed to do
things better, start earlier and see more people. We were expecting the
pregnant women from another tribe near by to come today, so even more
patients.

I assumed my post at triage again and got to work, holding children down to
take their temperatures, giving out pills, listening patiently and trying to
make sense of histories half told in Spanish and half told in Embera,
calculating weight/height tables to assess for malnutrition, etc, etc.

We made more progress this morning and I even had some time to go help with
the lab, testing people for malaria. In total we found 5 people with
malaria, all children. MSF gave them medication and mosquito nets. One of
the little ones (2 years old) was too sick and malnourished to stay and we
decided we needed to take him out with us. The whole family was very poor
and his 2 brothers were also showing sings of malnutrition. A process of
coordinating and transport with the local hospital was started using the
satellite phone (which is a tricky thing to do). It was decided that they
would leave with us the next day.

We saw a total of 62 people that day, 20 more than the first day. Finished
late again and still had to pack everything for the next day.

That night again the mules came to make us company all night. This time when
I needed again to go to the washroom in the middle of the night, one of them
was actually inside the washroom. Luckily I didn't have much trouble sending
it away with my flashlight.

We woke up at 5am with the punctual gentleman that brought more mules from
Pavarando to carry our gear. Also several men from the community came to
carry our backpacks for us. We left the two high quality water filters we
had brought with us as a donation for the school, in hopes that they will
use it to drink clean water.

This time I used a walking stick to help me walk in the mud and only fell
once :) Also, without the weight on our backs we made it back in only 2
hours!
The family we took out with us was taken to the local hospital and MSF
provided them with an allowance to survive the hospital stay. Later, the
whole family was sent to Medellin, for higher level of care, and our social
workers helped organize with other NGOs for accommodations. The last news I
had was that they were doing well.