La Brigada

The less frequent contributor to the blog here (Josh) to update a little on our Ecuador experience. I'm working as a volunteer medical "professional" in rural Ecuador. Like in lots of developing countries, Ecuador does okay with healthcare in the cities, but is often lacking in giving access to the rural areas. The NGO (Non-Government Organization) I'm working for partners with the Health Ministry here to provide healthcare to these rural communities. I just returned from my second medical brigade (brigada) to two communities. It was a great experience and I continue to fulfill my dream to see international medicine from the front lines.

The brigada required lots of walking to get to the communities. Here I am with our nurse, local health provider, educator, and others from the community who donated their time and their mules to get our equipment and us to the community of Viche.
There's a lot of mud. This makes walking fun but makes getting places a little more difficult.


Here's an example of some jungle we walked through to get to Viche. It is beautiful and wild. It is also disappearing as more people clear land for their cattle and farms, the only way they know to survive economically in these rural areas.

This is the house where we stayed in the community of Nuevos Horizantes. This is typical of this costal area. The family received us very well with great food (home made chocolate) all grown on their land.

Here's my medical suite. We set up in the local schools. I mostly see kids and some adults. Many of the kids have intestinal parasites or have colds. We did see some hypertension. We also did a vaccination campaign and doled out the vaccines.

Here's some classic landscape with secondary rainforest on one side and the cattle grazing on the other.

Here's a picture of the little center of the community of Viche. You can see the school, some houses, the soccer field, and the large clearing where people can meet. There's maybe 150 people living in this community, mostly in farms up to an hour away.


This continues to be an exciting experience for us. Melanie survived a week alone in Quito, and I am learning how to manage patients on my own. My Spanish is better than ever and we are having a great adventure.

If anyone would like to donate money to the foundation they can go to http://www.f-h-n.org/ and follow the links to donations.