After Crossing the Andes

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  Aucayacu, Utah, Peru
Wednesday, December 3, 2008

From the  East side of the Andes,
The last time I posted a blog, if my memory serves me right, I was talking about taking the young people from 
from the patients house in Lima out for a hamburger to very crowded amusement area at the public beach. Sounds
easy enough, however, two had undergone a leg amputation in the past year. The young man from an accident, and the seventeen year old girl from malignant tumor.
Sunday night after the hour ride back to Comas we too off for the airport to Kristine Vanderham, who was a teenager when Fr: Moe was in medical school in Calgary and was celebrating Mass in a nearby parish on the weed-ends. I think that was the last time Fr.Moe saw Kristine and there we were in a packed airport looking
for a person that I had never met and Moe has not seen in about thirty yeas. No problem we picked her out in two shakes of a lambīs tail. Kristine is here to celebrate Christmas at San Clotilde and to be present for the dedication
of the new wing at the hospital at St.Clotilde, the Vanderham family were most instrumental in the realization of the project.
Tuesday morning we were up at the crack of dawn and on the bus by 8.30 for the twelve plus hour to Tingo Maria and one more hour by cab to Aucayacu. Let me just say, that bus trip was like no other bus trip that I have ever been on before,  With in three and a half hours we were at the highest point of our mountain ascent, 4752 meters some change. From sea-level to over 4000 meters in just over three hours, one a bus can sure make your ears pop and feel a little dizzy. Thatīs five times higher than the first and last time I sky dived thirty years ago. All the way up the Andes, we viewed some super-big mining operations. that extract all kinds of precious minerals. The sleeping dorms for the workers, built by these mega companies, right on the site, looks like they can accommodate three or four hundred employees. The issues of who has title to what and all the negotiations over peoples rights, the right of the individual, and on and on, and add to all of the above, the ecology concerns and the relations between people and their environment. I would  certainly include all these topics in the context of
ĻevangelizingĻ.
This morning after morning prayers and breakfast we visited the buffalo herd, that is16 cows and three bulls, owned by the Oblates, as a means of financially supporting the many works. Oh, I almost forgot, the first thing we did was to visit the radio station, owned by the Oblates and broadcasts from five o'clock in the morning until nine
at night, Monday  to Friday. This all happens here at the Parish and has the power to reach over two hundred
thousand people. There are religious programs and many programs dealing with the topics that are in the news and interest people. Interviews with experts in the different health fields in an attempt to educate the people on the  prevention of AIDS, TB, malaria, serious causes of  loss of life.
This afternoon we went and visited the first place where Blaise MacQuarrie and Fr, Moe lived when he began
his medical word in the jungle at Aucayacu in the seventies.
Fr. Joe Devlin, known as Fr, Pepi, Moe, and I con celebrated the 7.00 p.m. Mass in the Parish and then we all went out and had a chicken dinner. This was Kristineīs treat talented young Oblate who looks after the buffalo
herd, drove us around all day and sang beautifully at Mass this evening and also played the guitar joined us for the chicken dinner.
Tomorrow around 5.00 p.m. we board the bus for the ride over the top of the Andes on our way back to Lima.
Thatīs all for this one and may this Advent Season prepare you well for the Gift of the Christ Child's coming.
Peace,
Vaughan
 

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