My travel tales

new blogspot

eden — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 03:16:00 GMT

go to edenyoon.blogspot.com for more updates on my travels. I like the format there better.

a school project? i can´t believe it

eden — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 07:06:00 GMT

ok, so one of our girls from the crisis center elvira is studying to be an obstretician. did i spell that right, anyways, her class right now is studying anatomy and the bones. Here in Iquitos and the university they don´t have much access to cadavers, but the class wanted to use real bones to study the human skeleton. So the class finally got a hold of a cadaver..but the thing is they don´t really want the flesh. They just want the bones, so what the teacher did was assign each student a body part to take home and boil off the flesh. Yess, isn´t that gross. and guess what part of the body Elvira got assigned to? The head! Yess, Elvira is going to be boiling a head in a pot outside of the crisis center in some remote area..some of just thought that was wrong..and it´s just for bones. ayaya

the bicycle..not for the faint of heart

eden — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 07:00:00 GMT

i thought it was funny that the people of peru here called diarhea the bicycle..back in the States i told them we call it the runs. The other volunteers say it happens to everyone that comes here, and it´s just a matter of time..but yes, i did get the bicycle..it wasn´t the runs, because it wasn´t like the normal kind of diahrea i have back in the states.. Just picture me running full speed, and then picture me bicycling full speed. i think you get the picture. Ahhh, the wonderful adventures of being in a 3rd world country. I wonder when Brinja will get it...she claims she´s not, because she´s vegetarian. may be i´ll try being vegetarian

Gallery: amazon cruise

eden — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 06:00:00 GMT

our two day excursion on the amazon

amazon cruising

eden — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 05:12:00 GMT

last week i went on a boat trip on what is the biggest river in south america, the Amazon. If there was one word to describe the Amazon, it would have to be BIG. noo..wait..wiiiiiiiiddeeeee. Yes, at times the river looked like it could be a lake, and that´s not all....it´s not even flood season.

The reason we went was for this rice project where were getting some rice form the rice fields along the amazon and selling it back in iquitos so we can make some money for People of Peru. We loaded about 14 tones of rice on the People of Peru boat and each bag was about 50 kilos! it was relaly heavy, and amazing when i saw men half my size lift it above their shoulders. Aside from loading rice on the boat, we got to just relax on our hammocks on the deck and soak in our nice books. I read the Ted Dekker series of the Circle, which is a good series. We left 4 Am in the morning of Tuesday and came back Thursdday.

We saw some fish jump out in the river and some dolphins on the last night during sunset. By the way, i got some really nice shots of sunrise and sunsets on the amazon river. We hit one setback though while on our ways to the rice fields, we hit a sand bank and got stuck in the middle of the Amazon. This was because the waters at some places were pretty shallow because it´s a little dried up and not flood season, so we all had to get off the boat and push. Good thing it wasn´t on our way back when we had 14 tones of rice. Cruising on the amazon river intot he jungles was quite the experience. You can take a look at some pictures of the rice fields, the amazon river, and our boat at my albums of Amazon River Cruise.

Playing Doctor

eden — Wed, 1 Oct 2008 02:35:00 GMT

Last week was packed with so many stories and adventures. Sadly, I can´t remember most of them and I was too busy to jot something down last week. There were a few highlights that I will write about.

The biggest highlight I´d have to say was when I scrubbed in on an orthopaedic surgery with Dr. Murata. Lisa, one of our volunteers met Dr. Murata last week and she mentioned that I was a medical student and would love to see an operation. He was very open to the idea of me watching the operation and said I could come any time. In fact, he had a surgery the next day operating on a guy´s leg from a motorbike accident.

So the next day Brinja and I went to the Ana Stahl hospital, an Adventist hospital that has probably the best reputation in northern Peru for it´s facility and care. I was expecting a really nice hospital since it was the best one, but when we arrived I was a little disappointed. The hospital was beaten down and very old looking. We entered the hospital and looked for Dr. Murata. He found us and luckily he was able to speak English. He was in the States for about 5 years and was very happy to be practicing his english with us. He told us that he would be cutting the guy´s leg up and placing a metal stabilizer, basically an internal fixation of the guy´s leg that was fractured. He told us to scrub in. I was really excited putting on some scrubs, a face mask, and getting all geared up. We went into the surgery room, and the guy who was about 50 years old was completely naked.

But then Dr. Murata, told me to lift the guy´s leg so he could take off the bandages. I was quite surprised, wondering why I would be doing this. So then I lifted leg, and then Dr. Murata told me to kind of pull it and make it straight. As i was pulling on his leg, I felt a few bones of his crush and pop. Then, Dr. Murata told me to go with him to wash my hands. He showed me the correct way of washing my hands. Then the nurses put on some overshirt and put gloves on my hands. This was when I knew I wouldn´t just be watching the surgery. The operation was fascinating, with blades and drills being used. It was also pretty nerve’rackking because I didn´t know what I was diong but Dr. Murata would tell me to gauze up his wounds, hold his leg straight while he was drilling holes in his bone, grab this and use the suction for that..by the end of the surgery I was sweating up a storm. It was successful and we put a big metal thing that stabilized his knee and the fracture. I was wondering hwo he would ge tthrough airport security with that huge chunk of metal in his leg. Anyways, I was really happy to see the whole surgery and actually perform a few tasks here and there. It was amazing and only increases my aspirations to be a doctor, and perhaps a surgeon in the future. At the end of the surgery, Dr. Murata took out his cell phone and took pictures of us three in the operation room. (Unfortunately, we didn´t bring our camera because we thought it would be unprofessional). After we cleaned ourselves up a bit and put back on our clothes, Dr. Murata bought us some pop and ice cream and asked us to come anytime, which I think Brinja and I will be doing again very soon because it was quite the experience.

Romeo Romeo que es tan feo

eden — Wed, 1 Oct 2008 00:11:00 GMT

I´ve always wanted a pet monkey...be careful what you wish for.

Romeo is our pet here at People of Peru Project. He was adopted by Risha Opp. Risha had to return back to the states, so she has left us responsible to take care of her ´baby´.Little did we know that Romeo ins´t your ordinary pet. First of all, he´s a little brown monkey with almost human-features, quite homely. Some will say it´s cute. The rest I will leave to my dear Brinja, who seems to have a better relationship than my non-existent relationship with Romeo since he chooses to ignore me.

So when we first found out there was a monkey here we thought that was pretty much the coolest thing ever, but we soon came to find that Romeo does not like to share the love...unless you´ve got food and then he´ll at least tolerate you long enough to snatch it out of your hand. Ee hates Eden and I´m pretty sure I know why. One day Eden was sitting at the table eating a little bun. Romeo came skipping over and jumped up on Eden´s lap where he sat watching him eat. Eden had one little piece left. He looked at Romeo and then popped it in his mouth. Romeo started screaming like crazy and then he jumped down and ran a little ways turned around looked at Eden again and gave a couple more screeches and then ran out of the room. Their relationship has been rocky ever since.

I think I sealed my fate with Romeo when I attempted to bath him. Risha had been gone for about a week I wanted to give Romeo a little attention, but the little freak stunk. Paul thought he smelled like spit which effectively put a name to the odor. Anyways it was a nice hot sunny day and I thought it would be perfect to give the little monkey a nice cool bath. I filled up a tub of water and managed to shove Romeo in the water up to his neck before he turned into a little psycho devil monkey. He started screeching bloody murder while trying to grab for anything to get him out of the situation. I was pretty much soaking wet and I couldn´t hold onto him anymore so I let him go. He jumped down and ran straight for the dirt which he immediately started rolling in. Now he was about 10 times as dirty as before and he was caked in mud. I was so mad I grabbed a cup full of water and threw it on him. That did not go over too well and he just jumped back into the dirt and started rolling around again. I´m kinda scared to walk by his cage now because I think he might try throwing his poop at me. Actually as I´m typing this Romeo just climbed up to one of the beams above the computer and proceeded to urinate down onto the floor beside me. Maybe he know´s I´m writing about him. Good thing his aim isn´t too good....

Gallery: Galvancitos

eden — Wed, 1 Oct 2008 00:01:00 GMT

Our soccer team

Los Galvancitos

eden — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:52:00 GMT

This past Sunday, on the 28th of September, there was a soccer tournament in one of the many Santo Tomas Futbal Tournaments that are held monthly. This was a special tournament in that it was the week of the village celebrating their 72^nd Anniversary. It was also special for the People of Peru Project team because three of their staff members: Casey Han, Aaron Lynfoot, and Eden Yoon played for Los Galvancitos (The Gavalant Boys). A team that wasn´t originally going to play but got together last week courageously played ad reached the finals

After playing in an exciting game last week, where both defenses were great holding each other scoreless Los Galvancitos won by penalty kicks 5-3. The semifinal game, in what was an exhausting game due to the hot, scorching sun ended in a win for the Galvancitos scoring two goals in the last ten minutes of the game. Unfortunately, the championship game did not end with the same results that brought the Galvancitos to the final. With the Galvancitos having to play right after the semifinal against a team with fresh legs, they couldn’t keep up. After surviving the first half, the opposing team scored a goal in which our amazing goalkeeper who had save after save couldn’t block that one. The match, ended 0-1.

However, the atmosphere afterwards was optimistic. A team that got together last minute made it to the championship. Remember, a team with three Americans from People of Project who really never played soccer against people that have been playing soccer their whole lives faired pretty well. Aaron, Casey, and Eden shared the same positive sentiments that the tournament was just the start of something great. It was a great tournament, where we were able make friends with the friendly residents of Santo Tomas, learn about team work, and show off great sportsmanship. With just a few practices and a couple more games, the Galvancitos have a bright future.

Gallery: peru

eden — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:12:00 GMT

1st two weeks

Missionaries

eden — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 13:44:00 GMT

Warning: This isn't a log of what I have been doing, but more of what I have been thinking about lately. Just a warning

If a teacher had to postpone a test for tomorrow, the teacher would know that he/she would only have to tell one student, and that one student would spread the good news to everyone. Eventually, the whole class would know about it. Why is it then that the greatest Teacher of the universe that has the greatest news of all doesn't get spread as eagerly as a student would to tell his classmates a test is postponed? Fortunately, in the trust given to the first disciples, believers in every age have shared.

I was looking at the peopleofperu.com website, and it has Brinja and I listed as missionaries. It struck me that I was a missionary. Every one who has received the gospel has been given sacred truth to impart to the world, shouldn't they? The more time I spend here, the more I realize how much we could share with the people here. Our money, time, supplies,and our knowledge of health and education are all essential needs for the people here in Iquitos to survive. However, the most important thing we can offer is Jesus' love and His word. We are indeed the light of the world.

I am reading a book called "Echo in the Darkness" by Francine Rivers, which I totally recommend, but there's a group of Jews who believe their knowledge of God and the benefits of salvation belong to only them, their nation. But Christ showed us salvation isn't a laser beam but like sunshine, it belongs to the whole world. Ellen G. White said that Christians that are such in name only are like salt that lost its savor, and through their misrepresentation of God they are worse than unbelievers. Unfortunately, many times I feel like I am a Christian just in name, and many times I live my life like that. Now the more I thought about it, but I believe there really isn't a difference between missionary and a Christian and that they go hand in hand together.

I have yet to speak of God or Jesus yet with any of the children or people here in Peru, but isn't that more important than me feeding them or taking care of them? isn't their salvation more important than their physical hunger? In the next few days I hope i can build the courage and strengthen my faith to do so. All this writing and thinking came from what the word missionary is and what it means to be one. I hope I am or become what God envisioned missionaries to be here in Iquitos, Peru.

futbal jugador

eden — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 07:32:00 GMT

It´s domingo and it´s 4¨45 pm. brinja´s a bit tired from taking care of all the kids today at the crisis center santo tomas while she was watching some of our girls play futbal against other some other girls from the next village. They had a referee and everything. I heard it was pretty exciting to watch but Lisa, one of our volunteers unfortunately made a goal for the wrong side. Getting to know Lisa of lately, i know she was pretty upset about that one. (she´s really competitive) Hehe, i heard she knocked a couple girls down because they were being too rough.

Anyways, I wasn´t there to watch the game because the boys (Casey, Aaron, and I) actually had a game of our own. There was a tournament going on and so had a local team at SAnto Tomas and they needed three mor guys so we decided to play. It was relaly fun, seemed like the whole village was there to watch the tournament. We paid a fee of 10 soles each, 3 soles is about the equivalent of a dollar, and we received a team jersey which i relaly like a lot. It´s a green futbal jersey. Anyways, the people on our team were very welcoming and we came up with a game plan and what our positions will be. I played the last line of defense which i like playing because i like to keep the other team from scoring. The game was a very good game going back and forth, where both defenses were great and the goalies had amazing saves. It came down to penalty shots, which was pretty nerve'racking, but in the end we won! everyone was relaly happy and some of the girls at the crisis center watched our game and were soo happy for us. It was great to be a part of a team and play with some of the local villagers and win my first futbal game! the tournament goes on for the whole month, so we will be playing our next game next sunday, and if we win that we´ll be in the championship. I´ve gotta start practicing a bit more.

Aside from sports, this weekend was a pretty relaxing one. I already talked about watching a movie in the jungle, and yesterday we went to the beach/zoo again. This time we got to see the animals with Aaron and Kelly (a married couple from walla walla that recently graduated). I love watching the animals and the zoo´s really nice. Oh, there´s this reptile section where a guy is holding a hugeeee snakeee, and he charges like a sole if you want to hold the snake and take a picture with it. I was too scared last week to hold it, but after Aaron and I watched Kelly hold it and then Brinja, we were like ¨oh man, i guess we have to hold it now since our girlfriends held it!´I was pretty frekaen surprised Brinja held it and it kind of made me feel like a pansy, so i sucked it up and held the snake for awhile and took some pictures. After i gave the snake back i was able to exhale and my heart started beating again. I´m never holding a snake again...unless i feel pressured. HAha. After checking out the animals Brinja and i took out a row boat on the lake, and again i love that feeling because it seirously feels like i´m on the discovery channel rowing through some jungle lagoon.

After the zoo we headed off to meet the other volunteers and have a godobye dinner for the director´s daughter Reisha. We ate at the Yellow Rose, which is one of the few american restaurants here in iquitos. We were able to get an appetizer, a main course meal, and a drink for 10 soles. That´s about 3 bucks! and yellow rose is one of the better restaurants too in town. Did i mention i will probably come back a lot fatter because i´m eating here so much? Then we came back home and watche dthe movie ¨´Don´t mess with the Zohan¨which had its funny parts, but iw ouldn´t recommend wasting two hours of your life on it. Do somethin better.

Well, i think that´s for now..i wonder if anybody is actually reading my stories. I can see how many would have stopped after the first paragraph. I´ll try making my stories and my logs sound more interesting, and keep it shorter next time...hopefully, until then adios amigos!

movie in the jungle

eden — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 12:35:00 GMT

today we cleaned the office up a bit and then went to the market to buy some groceries because brinja and i were preparing supper for tonight. it was our firs ttime in town together alone, and we were kind of lost searching for markets here and there but we eventualyl found a few outside markets that sold fruits and vegetables and we bought some tomatoes, garlic, onions, red peppers and other things for a delicious sauce with our pasta we had for dinner tonight (specially prepared by the chef Brinja). We also went to the crisis center to set up a big fan for the dining room because it gets really hot in ther ewhen there´s about 15 kids or so eating and running all over the place.

Anyways, there´s a satanic cult going around this area tatooing children with the numbes 666 right now and trying to influence some kids. It´s really sad, actualyl quite scary so we decided to some how draw kids to a christian environment instead of being sucked in tothese satanic groups. The plan was to go out to one of the rural villages, where there´s no electricty so after supper we prepared everything we needed to set up our own movie theater out in the village. The organization has a projector, speakers, a generator, a big white sheet we used as a screen, and we set it up in this rural village where we showed christian cartoons. Tonight we showed stories of David an dGoliath and the story of Lazarus. It was a sight to see. At first a few kids were curious to see what was going on while we were setting up. Then we got the screen up, our movie projector going, the speakers rolling, and eventually a bunch of kids started coming. It was cool because everywhere else in this jungle village was completely dark, but our generator kept the projector and speakes runing and people were curious to see what was going on. We literally set up a movie theater out in the middle of a jungle, and i thought it was a great way to reach out to the people there and somehow touch them by showing them stories of the Bible. It made me see that there´s so many ways we can reach out to people whether it´s preaching, healing, or even setting up a little theater.

Well, i´m not sure what the plans are for tomorrow but happy Sabbath and it´s time for me to go to sleep.

sarita´s birthday

eden — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 01:07:00 GMT

today was sarita´s birthday, one of the smallest girls at the crisis center, she´s also one of the cutest ones there. we had a little birtrhday party for her, sang some songs, danced to some music, and ate cake, chips and cookies. we´re more situated in our place now and getting to know the people here better. We work during the day doing tasks here and there. Sometimes we visit the crisis center and take care of the kids. We´re also making an inventory right now of the medical supplies we have, a bunch of hospitals and organizations send medical supplies here and they´re all in this one room and we´re just sorting that out right now too so we can be better prepared when the med clinics come here soon.

This past Saturday we went to a church, which was basically a big, plain looking room. we sang and prayed and heard a semon. it was one of those old fashioned services where the prayers are relaly long your knees start to hurt and the sermons are soo long you´re about to doze off, hahaha. Plus it was in spanish so i didn´t even understand the whole darn thing. there were no instruments for music but people´s voices. It makes me miss my church back at home and hopefully i won´t take it for granted when i´m back at home and singing with the guitar and pinao playing. my spanish is alreayd improving a lot just from speaking to the people and using it everyday, hopefully it gets to a point where it just spits out so easily without even having to tink about it, although some of it does already.

After church we went to this zoo right next to a beach at the lake. I was wondering what kind of animals the zoo would have if they´re already selling dang alligators and jaguars in the market, but they had a lot of cool stuff. There was a freshwater pink dolphin, big jaguars, monkeys, huge piranhas mike parkw ould love to get his hands on, and i even petted an anaconda. i´m still scared to death by thosee. the lake was relaly nice and brinja and some of the other volunteer girls just sun bathed while i got a little canoe and went to explore the jungles. you know those tv shows you see from discovery channel when they´re paddling through the jungle, i felt like that man. It was really. I taught a girl the multiplication table here, some of the girls have a lot of potential, it´s just that the education and the schools here are in really poor condition. sometimes the teachers don´t even show up. i´m going to take a look at the schools here but alreayd i´m giong to appreciate the education system we have in america, for sureee.the adventist hospital and schools here in iquitos, a city about half a million are the best ones available, but also the most expensive ones. anyways, i relaly wish i could post pictures up but i don´t relaly hav4e that much time for any. when i have t

The first three days of my adventure

eden — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 11:28:00 GMT

I have left Los Angeles in the early morning of September 11, 7 years after the big 9-11 incident to my mission trip in Peru. It is now three days past that time, and I am currently in an internet cafe, my first access to the outside world in three days. I am at the downtown of Iquitos, en la Plaza de Armas. It was kind of hard to say goodbye to my friends and family, (by the way thanks to all those that came out for dinner), but I was also excited for the upcoming adventures in the Amazonian jungles.

After almost a whole day of traveling, taking few stops at San Salvador and Costa Rica, then Lima, we finally arrived in Iquitos. We had dinner, chicken and rice at a Chifa (that's what they call Chinese restaurants here) which was really tasty and already knew i would be gaining weight this trip =). However, we went to our rooms and the direcftor Paul showed us the living head quarters. It wasn´t what we expected. This whole time I thought i would be living in a nice little cabana in the jungle.

But the next day started off great with our cook cooking breakfast, which was nice to know and started realizing that the food here wouldn´t be as bad as the food i had in spain. We went to the Belen market, which is the hugest farmers market i´ve ever been to, only it had stuff that doesn´t grow on farms. Just to name a few, they had alligator babies sold as pets, alligators sold as food, they had the cutest little jaguar (called an oncelot) that you could buy for only $50 and they were selling monkeys, turtles, almost anything you can imagine. It was really awesome. Then we took a tour in the poorest areas of Iquitos, which is hard to imagine because the whole city looks pretty darn poor. The houses were like wooden shacks that were built on stilts, because every spring the rivers flood. I wasn´t able to bust out my camera either because some of the locals told us not to because there were a lot of thieves and robbers that would just snatch it from my neck or hand. Anyways, we had lunch with the other volunteers that are here to offer their services as missionaries. They´re names are Casey and Lisa, Kelly and Aaron, and i list them like that because they´re all married and pretty young. We had lunch at a little restaurant and surprisingly the restaurants here cater to vegetarians quite well.

i´ll stop blabbering and start talking about my favorite part here. At night we finally went to the crisis center-orphanage where little girls have been abused or abandoned, and also some boys..there was like about 15 of them all around a dining table and they were all sooo happy. Right when i entered they all gave me hugs and kisses, and it was my first time meeting them. Just imagine this, think of that scene on the Hook where all those boys are eating around the dining table having a blast, but make them 10000 times cuter. That´s when I felt sure of God´s plans for me to be here. I hope to following a few doctors here at the local hospital and Lisa is a nurse so i´ll be able to see a lot of things soon that I´ll write about.

Anyways, there´s so much that has happened in the past couple days but i´ll keep you guys from being more bored than you guys are already, but i figured this was a good way of letting everyone know how i was doing and what i´m doing instead of e'mailing a bunch ofpeople. If you want me to email you ugys personally leave a comment and i´ll do my best. Oh, I also we also have a pet monkey here at the place where we live. His name is Romeo, that monkey butt doesn´t like me though and is all over Brinja. Anyways, i wish i can post pictures up but my time here is done. I will post pictures up asap, may be on facebook or here. we shall see. In the mean time, God bless everyone and please pray for me as´i will be praying for all of you guys.

Strength and courage,

Eden Yoon

Gallery: Europe/Spain

eden — Thu, 4 Sep 2008 17:14:00 GMT

My travels