“You have come from so far to offer the simple act of charity.
To provide shoes, take a tooth and offer a warm blanket, it is as if the grace of God is raining on Macusani.”
-Don Julio Barreda, 2002
The highlands of Peru are home to the vast majority of all the alpacas in the world.
The Quechua Indians, who domesticated the vicuna more than five thousand years ago, are the source of the alpaca which now reside in the outside world. Their world of high plains and harsh environment resists the probability of profit, providing the Quechua only a subsistence level existence.
A pair of shoes, an extracted tooth, or a warm blanket is out of reach for many of these people that time has forgotten.
Comfort is a luxury experienced by only a few.
To help relieve their extreme need, Dr. Mario Pedroza and his wife, Barrie, Russ Grattan, my wife, Julie, and myself formed the charitable organization, Quechua Benefit, in 1996.
The charity’s trips to Peru began rather modestly, the first one was based on an invitation by Don Julio Barreda who us to provide dental assistance to the children of Macusani.
This established one of Quechua Benefit’s early principals: Serve the children first.
All the shoes, blankets, warm clothes, ponchos, toys, and school supplies that we deliver each year are for children.
At the dental clinic, we see the children first, and work on the adults as time permits.
The Colca River flows deep into the Quechua heart, down through the canyons where condors lift their wings on the warm morning air to spirit the souls of the alpaca shepherds who have passed over, to their high place in heaven.
The valley has always been there, worked by people with walnut skins and high cheekbones burnished to mahogany by the wind.
The Spanish came and conquered, but life today is no different than forever.
The Colca is one of the most productive valleys in Peru.
But rock is more abundant than earth, which is corralled by the stone walls into terraces and tended by hand.
Everything in the valley is anti-tech, people walk everywhere, use wooden plows, and irrigate from pre-Incan canals.
Many of the women still dress in costumes designed thousands of years ago.
No one hurries and little changes.
At the clinic the children blink with shy smiles, their eyes downcast avoiding looking directly at the gringos. There is a fleeting connection when I pronounce their names, recognizing the familiar sound of respect that a person’s name being spoken conveys.
As they leave we hear a muted “gracias. “
They are no different from you or me.
Since we began in 1996, we have seen thousand of patients, extracted many thousands of teeth and delivered thousands of boots, shoes, blankets, toys, and ponchos.
We have supplied schools with paper, pencils, maps, crayons, books, soccer balls, computers and money.
Quechua Benefit even financed the construction of a school building in Macusani.
But, there is another side to the need which Julio Barreda has called a “dripping faucet.”
It never ends.
Our care is a mere molecule in the bulging barrel that contains the Indians’ need.
When we leave, there is always a line of people left that we cannot treat. Quechua Benefit could operate everyday of the year and, just when we shear our alpacas, there would be a new fleece of need grown back before we began to address the existing deficit.
We saw 1,046 patients on our 2002 trip, pulled 1,505 teeth, gave away 1,000 blankets, 300 pairs of tennis shoes, and 600 pairs of rubber boots.
The trip cost $18,672, including airfare, supplies, blankets, shoes, boots, and toothbrushes, used clothing, toys, and ground transportation, etc. Our crew included eight Americans, three Peruvians, including Alonso Burgos, of Grupo Inca, and Ignacio Garaycuchea of Michell Co.
Three of our numbers were dentists.
The value of the dental procedures alone, billed at standard stateside rates, totaled $210,500, and net value of all contributions after expenses was $219,378.00.
Quechua Benefit trips to the highland have not always gone smoothly.
On one trip we had almost $10,000 worth of dental equipment stolen at the Juliaca airport.
The instruments were all from Mario’s practice and you can imagine the problems, both in Peru and at Mario’s office that flowed from this event.
We have had supplies that were held up by customs, generators that would not start, flat tires, diarrhea and altitude sickness.
But every year we have succeeded.
For Mario and I, Macusani is the touchstone of the Quechua Benefit mission.
The need is greater here than at any other place we have been.
We were captivated by the children of the Mosoq Runa, (Quechua for new person), orphanage when we first brought the mission to Macusani.
The girls of the orphanage sang us a song which included a verse which went something like this, “we do not want to be a burden, we would rather drink a poison, leave this earth and join our family, than be a burden.”
Greeta (“Greta”) Iscreab was called by God in her native India to serve the poor by joining the Sisters of the Cross of Chavarod, an order that was formed in 1838, and has missions in 12 countries.
Her own words, which follow, best describe her work at Mosoq Runa, in Macusani.
“I am mainly engaged with the pastoral for children which includes organizing children’s group in the different streets and in the various districts of Macusani and animating get-togethers for them; preparing children for First Communion and Baptism, animating the children’s choir etc…
But what is most demanding is my work as a Directress of the children’s home for poor and orphaned girls.
It is equal to being a mother of 24 children attending to all their material, physical, spiritual, educational, psychological and medical needs, besides seeing to the needs of the house.
The house is open to other children who come during the day to play, study and to have mid-day meals.
Shanty, (another sister from India), helps out with spiritual and moral formation on Sundays.
Though demanding it is fulfilling and enriching to work with the children. It is a joy to see them grow in confidence and freedom and with the joyous sense of belonging.
If the cold chills - the children’s warming smiles give life.
In them I experience the joy of the innocent and pure of heart.”
Two girls at the orphanage seem to epitomize the stories of the children that live their young lives with Greta.
Rula had been at Mosoq Runa for five years.
She is in her second year of secondary school. Both of her parents are dead. Greta says Rula was an introspective girl when she first came to the home, then she began to open up. Today, Rula is a very responsible leader, and was voted best student at her high school.
Greta relies on Rula and sees a bright professional future for her hopefully providing care, in her home town, to those less fortunate.
Then there is Miriam, who is only six years old. She captured my heart with her shy, loving nature.
Her mother died, and her father cannot be found.
Her family owned five alpacas and a small plot for potatoes, all meant to feed a family of eight.
It did not, and Miriam was brought to the orphanage by her uncle.
The entire orphanage is run on a budget of $10,000 per year, which includes feeding the 25 permanent residents and 35 children who come from the outside to eat each day, provided by a Catholic parish in France. They also receive donations of potatoes and alpaca meat from concerned relatives of the girls.
Quechua Benefit has purchased a computer and educational CD’s for the orphanage and two sewing machines, which will be used to make school uniforms on a contract basis for the other schools in Macusani.
The children will help with this task and learn a trade that may be valuable when they leave.
Each year we take clothes, blankets and shoes to the girls.
Quechua Benefit had traveled to Munani five times by November 2002, each time we were the guests of the Michell family at their estancia, Mallkini.
When we arrive at the clinic in Munani we unload the equipment from the top of our van into the clinic.
Each of us has done this many times and the clinic, with its two dental stations can begin operating in about an hour.
In 2002, Dr. Curt Gedney, an emergency room doctor who also delivers a lot of babies and speaks Spanish, was in charge of the triage desk. Larry Black, a geneticist by training and a mountain climbing alpaca breeder by choice, cleaned the instruments, talked to patients in Spanish and hands out pain medicine.
Dr. Frank Winfield, Dr Mario Pedroza and Dr. Willie Uscarmayta alternately pulled teeth; administered anesthetics and rested. They saw more than 20 patients an hour for hours on end.
Kate Winfield, Frank’s wife and crack dental assistant, teamed up with Barrie Pedroza and Mary Jo Sorenson to see that the dentists operated at maximum efficiency.
They also wipe the occasional tear, held hands and created trust with the kids, many of whom have never seen a dentist.
We finished the 2002 trip in Munani by seeing 205 patients in one day, a record.
The local Mayor, governor of the province and the justice of the peace, presented us with an official document--seals and all--of thanks for our work.
As we ate dinner on our last night, Moises, the manager of the Mallkini, toasted the volunteers by saying, “I don’t know if it is proper English to call you a group of crazies or a crazy group, but I do know I feel good being a part of it.”
Willie, the Peruvian dentist who had accompanied us, honored the Quechua Benefit volunteers when he said, “I have known a lot of gringos who come to Peru as tourists; they take pictures and leave, but you people came to work.
Thank you.”
The Quechua Benefit could not operate in Peru without the assistance of the Michell Company and Grupo Inca.
Alonso Burgos and Ignacio Garaycuchea are our primary contacts from each company.
They provide, free of charge, lodging, transportation, and food for our team when it is on the ground in Peru.
Quechua Benefit has been generously funded by alpaca breeders from the United States.
The people who have contributed are too numerous to mention, but without their generosity the charity would not exist.
They have given tens of thousands of dollars since the beginning, and many breeders have donated the proceeds from the sale of breedings to their stud males at their affiliate’s silent auction events. Others have donated warm clothing and toys.
Each year, we send one or two missions to Peru.
We concentrate our efforts in the Colca Valley, Macusani and Munani near Juliaca and Puno.
Dr. Mario Pedroza is the leader of our effort.
He is fluent in Spanish, sets the schedule, allocates resources, and without him we would not succeed.
His wife, Barrie Pedroza, who handles much of the pre-trip planning, has been a dental assistant on every mission that Quechua Benefit has undertaken.
Each of us is grateful for the opportunity to provide care, if only a little, to these people who need so much.
To all the alpaca breeders whose contributions make the Quechua Benefit missions a reality each year; God bless your generosity.
There is a long list of needs to meet at the Mosoq Runa orphanage and elsewhere in the region.
If any of you reading this would like to help, please contact me at Northwest Alpacas, 503-628-3110 or email me at mike@alpacas.com. Please remember that any donations that you make are tax deductible.
Diana Berger
Executive Assistant
Northwest Alpacas
503-628-3110
diana@alpacas.com
