Adventure, Community, and Education in the Heart of South America

This past March I participated in CFHI's Amazon Community and Indigenous Health program, which brought me to Ecuador for the first time in my life. My experience was one of personal growth, adventure, friendship, and broadening of the mind. Our first week was spent in Quito - a large beautiful, but culturally rather bland city (coming from a snooty native San Franciscan, mind you). The intensive spanish helped refresh my spanish and prepare me for the challenge of adapting to the various dialects I would encounter throughout my trip. My time spent shadowing a doctor in the emergency clinic was full of excitement, and I left with a better understanding of the routine of admitting and examining a patient. At the end of the first week we took advantage of the days off in Baños, a cool little adventure/eco-tourism town in the cloud forest of the eastern Andes. We had a large group of students from the program in town together, so we had a blast getting to know each other while enjoying the attractions the town has to offer. The next three weeks of the program were spent in and around Puyo, a larget town of roughly 70,000 inhabitants on the western edge of the Amazon. While based there, we spent our three weeks at clinics in Pitirishca, Mera, and staying with a Shuar family 12 km into the Amazon from Pitirishca. The last week in the Amazon was an especially enlightening experience. A challenging 6 hour hike through jungle mud brought us to a beautiful and humble small village tucked alongside a winding river bend. We were immersed in a world completely alien to us, and we experienced the lifestyle of a community completely in tune with their natural environment. Gustavo, our Shuar host and guide, lead us through his world and shared with us his peoples culture and practice of natural medicine. It was an experience I will never forget, and one I will be hard pressed to replicate.