Ventanilla: The Window

In the northern cone of the sprawling metropolis of Lima there sits a large peri-urban slum called Ventanilla. Today our team ventured to this urban wasteland of shanty homes and dirt roads to bring medical and dental care in collaboration with the Anglican Church of Peru.

I had been to Ventanilla once before, on my way to an area just to the east of Ventanilla called Carabayllo. HBI has worked in Carabayllo for a number of years and our plan for this trip was to take our team of healthcare professionals back to this very impoverished area once again. Well, the best laid plans are often the first to change. Rather, our team ended up on the sandy hillsides of Ventanilla.

The drive from our tourist hotel in Miraflores to Ventanilla on a Monday morning took just a little over 2-hours. The traffic and the distance conspired against us and put our team on the curb awaiting our bus at 6:50 a.m. With a couple of time delays - we were finally out to the clinic site around 9:20 a.m. This meant that we had to hurry to get ourselves set once we transformed the mission church into a healthcare clinic. We had an army of people from the community there to help.

Once all of the tables were moved and the tents set-up to protect our fair-skinned bodies from the blazing sun, we attended to our first patient around 10 a.m. It was a 100 mph race from that point on to see as many patients as we could before the team broke down the clinic at 3:30 p.m. Why did we stop clinic so early you may ask? Well, three of us had to get to the airport for our flights back to the US. In fact, as I type this message I am sitting in the Lima airport.

By the end of our clinic day we had provided dental and medical care to over 95 people. Not too bad for a team that just got down with a weeks campaign in Ancash less than 36-hours earlier.

One story that really stands out from the days clinic was a young mother that I had the privilege to help. She was 30-years old and pregnant for the sixth time. She told me that she was not prepared to be pregnant again and feared the "unknowns" of another person to take care of. She told me of her relationship struggles and of the "new man" who was a part of her life. She told me that she did not "particularly care for him," but that he had at least been kind enough to feed her children.

Her arms and torso were covered with flea and mosquito bites. She said that her home was near the sewer and that the bugs were constantly biting her skin and the skin of her children. She said she did not know what to do. I asked one the priests that was working at the clinic with us to speak with me and this woman. She told the priest a similar array of sorrowful and very painful stories to those she had shared with me. When she had spoken enough for her needs, she stopped and asked if she could give my priest friend her telephone number so that she could call. She wanted to talk to someone, a caring someone, who could help her to manifest a different life.

I am not entirely sure why we do this work; but I know one thing for certain - if we can help people like the woman I mentioned above to connect with people like Reverend Pat, then everything we are doing is worth it. I really feel like the whole reason we were in Ventanilla today was to help this woman to know that she is not alone . . . and that there are people out there who care and want to help her to move to the life she so desperately desires.