Hospice

I went this morning to hospice with Cesar a 34 year old Peruvian who is anticipating the arrival of his first child any time now. He is very patient with my Spanish and has known at least 6 other missionaries that have gone before me. We do mainly nurses aid things like vital signs, baths and some tube changes such as foley catheters. I enjoy seeing patients in their homes. It gives me a chance to know the city more and get a feel for what life is like for them. Some homes do not have water. The poorest home today was actually the happiest one I have seen yet. Many of the patients I have seen in hospice are disabled, dementia, and cancer tumors outside the body or stage 4 pressure ulcers. A sterile procedure would more appropriately be considered as a clean procedure in the U.S. The routine appears to be don a “sterile glove” that is not really packaged for your dominant hand. One glove per patient. It takes some finesse but it can be done.

Things are kind of dog eat dog. Stage 4 ulcers and cancer growths outside the body are hard to look at. I was also told one of the hospice patients was hit by a car and the driver actually went back to finish him off (unsuccessfully) because in Peru the person who caused the accident has to pay medical bills for life. You always have to watch your back here too. A 12 year old boy was waiting for the door to open at the church for English classes just Tuesday night and was robbed. He is fine and actually wanted to stay for the class. We are told never to have that much money on you because theft is just a fact of life here.

I made pancakes today but mistook a bag of salt for baking soda so you can guess how they turned out. I should have tasted it but I thought the picture of the tooth on the bag was a sure thing. I now know what to look for. We each take turns cooking the big meal of the day which is lunch. Everyone gets about 3 hours! Siestas are awesome. Cooking in community and just living in community reminds me of college. It is fun. The company is welcomed in such a foreign environment. The house is big too so we have space to get away from each other as well. Laundry is by hand and everything is a chore. It would be nice to have a few things for the kitchen utensil- wise and some extra furniture to set things on in the bathroom because there is no counter space but I am adjusting and developing strategies to survive.

Transportation is by foot mainly but there are busses or most go in a “moto” which is a three wheel battery powered vehicle or a “collectivo” which is a taxi that picks up multiple passengers. The motos are hilarious because each one is really pimped out and personalized by the owner. The motos and taxis make little whistle sounds for women to flatter them but also to get attention to gain passengers. I still am trying to get my bearings on the streets. None of them have street signs and they are all kind of pieced together.

Reflections
Our house was given a book by the IWM program and I wanted to share some of the excerpts. It is very appropriate for us, entitled “What They Taught Us: How Maryknoll Missionaries Were Evangelized by the Poor.” It is a collection of memories of memorable and spiritually moving moments experienced by Maryknoll Missionaries. I found these excerpts moving:

In Foreword by Fr. John Walsh, M.M, “Mission is to go to a no-place, to serve God’s no-bodies, and, in the eyes of the world, to accomplish no-thing. Yet in doing this we realize we are at the heart of what time, meaning and history are all about.”

Fr. Edward Davis posed the question, how often do you meet God during your day? So many of us just expect perfection and wait for beauty when all along we miss seeing our God in the present moment which is often in our brokenness or the less than perfect people.

And finally Ephesians 3:20 “Glory be to him whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.”