She said yes!

Dr. Linnea said yes!! Well, kind of. There are a few stipulations. She said that they do not need volunteers, and also that I must have my medical degree before I can come down. So, this means that first, I have to graduate from medical school. Second, I have to learn Spanish because none of her patients or staff speak any English at all so I would really be very unhelpful without that knowledge. I can either come before or during my residency. Still though, that is five years from now andLinnea is already only in Peru 6 months out of the year now. The other 6 months she works in the ER in Wisconsin, which is also where Jerry (her lover) is. So, I am not sure if she will even be around by the time I could come. She also mentioned that she does not have anyone to take over the clinic when she leaves and although she is said, she said that over 50,000 patients have received care and that makes her life worthwhile. She does not know what the future holds, she has no idea of the “end.” Dr. Linnea is a true example of what it means to live in the moment. While we were at Explorama, we hiked over to the rum factory again and saw how they press the sugarcane and ferment it before flavoring it. They also make molasses. They have four different flavors of rum: plain, ginger, 7 raices (seven roots), and one that is sweetened with the molasses. On our walk back to the lodge, we watched as the water buffalo waded into the lily pad pond. It was really cute. We took a few hikes, one on the Bushmaster trail and the other on the lake trail. The Bushmaster is the deadliest snake here in the Amazon, and the trail was named so because they came across so many while creating the trail. Don’t worry, we didn’t actually see any! Last time, the lake trail was flooded and we had to take our shoes off to walk across; at one point we had to swim because the water was so deep. This time, there were a few muddy spots but definitely much drier and than last time! We saw poison dart frogs, red and blue, and monkeys running through the tree tops. We took two night boat rides, one was through a narrow tributary, where we saw sleeping butterflies, frogs and hummingbirds. The other was out into the open water of the Amazon. It was beautiful under the moonlight. This morning, it was raining so hard that we couldn’t even hear the alarm go off. We eventually woke up, got packed and headed to the last lodge, Ceiba Tops, which is like an Amazonia resort. It has a swimming pool, air conditioning and indoor plumbing. Because of the rain, we have the morning free and then this afternoon we will be going to Monkey Island, to play with all of the animal refugees!