Tuesday 25th May 2010 Home Visit

Today is all construction, no lessons.
Jackie and I went to help Ray in the garden. None of us are feeling to well. We watered all the seedlings and fruit trees. Then we planted potatoes and some more seeds (beetroot, cauli and carrots) and we picked some broadbeens that had gone to seed. We are going to try planting these.

Everyone is coming down with an illness.
Ray and I have both had gassy stomachs for the past 2 days and we are feeling debilitated. Four people have been taken to hospital with salmonella, oemebers and Guardia (parasites in the gut) and so everyone else is having blood, wee and pooh tests just in case. All the results have come back positive for a combination of at least one or two infections. Ray and I have Guardia and small amounts of salmonella.
A course of tablets only for us, fortunately. The whole teams seems to be dropping like flies. There are two more on the critical list.
We had all been away together for the weekend and ate at the same restaurants. Who knows where we have picked it up. Most of us were caught in time and only need a course of tablets and some antibiotics. Everyone is concerned to be fit for our upcoming trip to Machu Pichu next weekend.

Ray Vickey and I were rostered onto community work this afternoon. We went on a home visit with Lauren and Iris (the social worker). A young couple in need of assistance. We took them a bed and some linen and blankets. We helped construct the bed and move the 2 room house around to fit the bed. While we were there Lauren and Iris assessed what further help they might need. They are going to get them some more chickens and help them get a vege patch going. In the mean time they will deliver some food parcels. They are very young and very poor. The house is a 2 small roomed mud hut with a dirt floor. There is running water to a sink in the yard and there is barely room to move inside the house. The mother is 22 years old. She comes from a destitute family. Her mother had epilepsy and some form of mental illness and died a few years ago. The father is an alcoholic and completely neglected the 6 children. Wilma married to get away from a terrible situation. Her husband was beaten as a child and as a result has an injured collar bone and arm and is limited in his ability to work. The have two small children and they have also taken on the younger brother and sister of Wilma.
When we arrived, the house had 2 beds and a cot for 6 people (one of the beds did not have a matress). She has a weaving loom inside the house which she uses to make rugs for an income.
Lauren explained the situation to us through Iris but Wilma wanted to tell her own storey because she was so grateful but the telling made her cry. It is a very tragic situation.

This evening the tour guide came to prepare us for the Machu Pichu trek.
Everyone is very excited, but hoping our illnesses don´t prevent us from going.
This trek is no place for diarrhoea.