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closeCouple visits Peru, volunteers at clinic
Hunt, Niven spent three weeks sightseeing, volunteering
Nate Hulings
of the Gateway
Dressed in her scrubs and walking through the Santuario del Senior de Huanca in Cuzco, Peru, Sheila Hunt was constantly stopped and asked the same question.
“Medico? Medico?”
After she answered their inquiry, the Peruvians would say “thank you, thank you” — even though Hunt hadn’t even checked one broken leg or diagnosed one fever.
“They were just so happy to see someone there that was going to just help them,” she said.
Hunt, a Key Peninsula Fire Commissioner and a registered nurse, spent three weeks in August and September volunteering at a Peruvian orphanage and medical clinic with her boyfriend and engineer, Randy Niven.
The volunteer effort began its formative growth in 2000, when Hunt and her son visited Peru on a vacation. They befriended their tour guide, Yure Chavez, who eventually visited Hunt in the United States for six weeks.
When she left Manu, Peru, nine years ago, Hunt heard arguments at the local airport regarding medical supplies. She knew the next time she came back, it would be for a different reason.
This time around, after touring the country’s scenic valleys and Lake Titicaca for a week, Hunt and Niven got down to business.
When they arrived at the Juan Pablo II Orphanage and Kindergarten in Cuzco, darkness already had come over the compound, and the children had gone to their homes for the day.
Walkways of broken concrete and rebar reaching toward the sky placed the trip in perspective: They weren’t in the states anymore.
A large fence with wire across the top created a physical barrier between the children and the rest of the city. There were 60 children at the orphanage who lived in groups of 10 with housemothers.
Armed with 100 pounds of clothes donated by Friends of Port Orchard and the Key Peninsula, Hunt and Niven toured the orphanage and got to meet many of the children. The two were greeted with hugs and happiness.
“They were thrilled just to get underwear,” Hunt said.
During his time at the orphanage, Niven unplugged drains, toilets and installed appliances.
Initial reception wasn’t always warm for volunteers, Niven admitted.
“Every time you say you’re a volunteer, you’d get a standoffish reaction,” he said. “They get a lot of so-called volunteers that come and don’t do much.”
But after a few days of hard work, Niven gained the trust of the Peruvians, who began to ask Niven for more help — which he was happy to give.
Their next stop was to work at a low-income clinic with a local physician. However, the clinic didn’t have many patients, and the doctor asked Hunt if she would like to volunteer for five days at a Catholic festival that would draw more than 20,000 people.
Hunt agreed, and she and Niven took off for the church.
The first day at the Santuario del Senior de Huanca in Cuzco, the doctor sat Hunt down and went through all the medications and how he liked to treat common conditions. She also received a crash-course in questions she would have to ask each patient — in Spanish.
Hunt scribbled the questions in a small book and kept a pocket dictionary on hand.
The clinic room was nothing to be excited about, especially for a woman who spent 15 years as an ER nurse. The medication cabinet didn’t lock, and the sink didn’t work.
Despite the lack of supplies and the sub-par facilities, Hunt knew her job remained to treat the sick and help people through their pain.
Hunt said the thing that made her the most uneasy during the trip, aside from her rudimentary Spanish-speaking skills, was the difficulty of helping patients without her normal arsenal of medical supplies.
For one dehydrated patient, juice from a local restaurant replaced an IV bag.
Another time, four children brought in a man who had a seizure. They plopped him on a bed and took off, leaving Hunt alone to care for him.
“I had the basic basics,” she said. “I had nothing.”
For five days, Hunt and the doctor averaged 50 patients a day. Hunt worked from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., with only a break for lunch.
During her stay, she aided patients with broken ankles, shortness of breath, muscle and joint pain and dehydration, to name a few symptoms.
And while the clinic was free, each person, however poor, would donate at least a small nominal coin for the help.
Niven spent his time at the clinic doing “grunt work” and laying the groundwork for potential engineering projects at the church. Niven began to look for possible water reservoir locations and started to sketch ideas.
The church they stayed at was sinking; a project that Engineers Without Borders could be interested in, Niven said. He also donated a water purifying system called SteriPEN to the doctor.
Nights were spent sleeping in cots supported by floors that sported holes. Bedbugs also plagued a few of the volunteers.
The culmination of the festival, a 4 a.m. mass with 20,000 people in attendance, helped Hunt understand the culture and the practices of the Peruvians. Those who couldn’t fit in the cathedral gathered outside and down the streets, each with a candle burning in the early morning darkness.
“They were very emotional, very demonstrative,” Hunt said. “I’ve never seen so many people in one place being so well-behaved.”
Niven, who called it the “Catholic Woodstock,” said people camped in anticipation for something that would touch them deeply.
Hunt and Niven hope to return to Peru next September, and they may even buy a home in the country.
For now, the three-week chunk was all the time they could donate.
“It was so amazing,” Niven said. “Everyone was so grateful that you did anything at all.”