In Iquitos, after transporting a man with a broken neck and another with an infected gallbladder, I had the pleasure to visit Aurora. Four months ago, Aurora brought her 35 year old sister America Veronica to our Centro de Salud. Veronica had end stage cervical cancer.
Twenty years ago, Padre Moe and Jack helped transport the mother of Aurora and Veronica to Lima seek treatment for her cervical cancer. Although she had advanced cancer, she was cured.
Aurora held out the same hope for her sister Veronica. Unfortunately Veronica's cancer was too far advanced to cure, so she returned home to Iquitos and spent one more month with her five children before she passed. This photo is taken the home of Veronica, Aurora, their younger sister. There are two beds like the one you see, clothes piled in suitcases and hung over mosquito netting because they don't have dressers. The three boys shown here are Veronica's youngest kids. Her two older children are in high school and weren't present for the picture. The two girls in the picture are Aurora's two kids. They have very little materially, and none of these kids have a father caring for them... but they have each other. They have Aurora and their Aunt and their grandma who do the best they can. Thanks to Auntie Sharon, these kids will receive a little extra every month to supplement the money Aurora makes selling her empanadas around town. If anyone else is interested in donating to Aurora or families with similar hardships, we could make that happen. Donations will go through Friends of PANGO, a non-for-profit that Brian and I are starting to help families along the Napo River.
30 August 2012
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