The Amazing Amazon

I've been meaning to put up a post of my trip to the Amazon, but there are just too many pictures to go through and pick out. I don't think any of my pictures could ever do Brazil justice, so instead I'll post a video that one of my friends took. My friend Ricky Oliveras came on this trip with us to make a promotional video of the trip for LLU, it's been shown all round campus in Chapel and for vespers. He did a great job at summing up the trip in about 7 mins. Here's his video, I found it on YouTube:



So there's pretty much the gist of what we did in Brazil. It was a medical mission trip, so I got to see a lot of patients, stick a needle in a couple people, hold a flashlight during a few exams. What I loved most was the interaction with the Brazilians because they were so open, friendly, and accommodating to us coming to their home. When I wasn't helping in the clinic, I was playing with the kids, coloring, soccer, games, face painting, it was a lot of fun. After a few days though I caught a viral infection and spent a good 3 days just laying in my hammock on a liquid electrolyte diet, and there was a time I had to get an IV started. I don't know how I still had diarrhea even though I didn't eat solid foods for 3 days. We ended up going back early and stopping at a hospital because so many of us were getting sick, it was really a scary and really sketch experience. But thank God we all came back the next morning healthy and blessed as we headed back to Manaus. There we stayed on our own private beach for a just off the Rio de Negro. And finally, we reached our hotel, checked in, took actual showers (not from river water) and toured the city! It was an overall huge blessing to be able to go on this trip, I was taken completely out of my comfort zone and my eyes were open to a whole new culture. Looking back I am totally missing the simple lifestyle of the Amazon, I'm wishing I was back there right now....