Well, you will never believe where we are today!  Yesterday we drove out from Tena even further into the rainforest and THEN we hopped aboard a little eight seater airplane and flew further into the jungle to a little place called Tiasha.  The airstrip is  just a dirt clearing.  It took 8 trips to get all our team of 18 doctors and dentists and workers AND equipment and supplies here.  It was an amazingly beautiful flight! You could see all the rivers and mountains and waterfalls.  The sky was full of clouds and we flew through rain for a little bit.  If you know that I am scared of heights you will know that I had to gird up my loins and fresh courage take to stuff my body into that little plane and fly off into the jungle.  But I felt a little like the lady in Out of Africa as we slipped into the sky and saw the forest from a little above the earth and a little below heaven.  It was thrilling. Even when I saw where we were going to land, I had a peace that I needed.

There is one hotel.  It is a clean place, cold showers, no air conditioning or fans.

It does have a pool that is so refreshing after a day of work and having sweat rivers that have left you wet.  The sunsets are spectacular and the sunrise beautiful.  The work has been good.  Today Gordon and I helped fit 51 people with glasses.  We have also packaged tons of vitamins and Ibuprofen and acetaminophen.  I have spelled that so many times that I can finally do it without looking at the bottle.  We had all the doctors and dentists busy.  I’m not sure of the count of people we served yet.  We will be setting up shop again tomorrow until 1 pm.  Then we have to call in the planes to get us shuttled out of here.  This is a very small area.  It is sad to see the conditions of the people. They are not dressed in any native wear but in shorts and tee shirts and jeans.  They are trying to improve this area.  There are some big trucks that move dirt and a saw mill that is producing lumber.  A few little stores and a couple of places to eat.  We eat fish, chicken and lots of RICE.  Today for lunch we had the “chicken feet soup”.  We have tasted lots of different fruit juices.  Clint we have had tree tomato juice several times.  Tonight we had some dark purple juice with pineapple in it.  It was served hot.  Not my favorite.  We are a little tired tonight but the swim in the pool helped to revive our dragging bodies.  We should be back to civilization tomorrow night.  We are weathering the travel pretty well.  We continue to pray for all of you and hope you will remember us as well.

Love to you…the jungle girl…

Susan Carter