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The following story was generously shared with us by Leah Fisher. This past May, Leah, along with a group of dedicated individuals, traveled to the remote Marañon region of the Peruvian Amazon to bring medical eye care that would help restore sight to a number of Achuar tribe members. Originally thinking they would only be helping individuals with cataracts, they discovered many Achuar, including youth, had contracted a river parasite that was affecting their eyes.
Leah, her husband Chuck, and their friend and Pachamama Alliance Journey guide, Daniel Koupermann, undertook this expedition at the request of the late Padre Luis Bolla, a Salesian priest and advocate of the Achuar. Padre Bolla passed away last February after nearly 40 years of living and working with the Achuar and Shuar people in the Peruvian Amazon.
We're honored to share Leah, Chuck, and Daniel's incredible story here.
For just a moment, imagine trying to live and function in the Amazon jungle without the ability to see. This has long been the situation for a number of Achuar tribe members who live in the remote Marañon region of Peru.
I first learned about this problem during a 2010 expedition to meet the revered Salesian Priest, Padre Luis Bolla. To meet this extraordinary eighty year-old Italian peacemaker who lived with, and had devoted his life to the Achuar, my husband Chuck and I traveled by dugout canoe for six days from Ecuador into Peru. We were guided by Daniel Koupermann and Alejandro Taish Mayaprua, and accompanied by environmental activist, Zoe Tryon.
A Request that Couldn't Be Refused
After our arrival, Padre Bolla asked for our help. For years he had been trying, without success, to get someone to bring ophthalmologists to the jungle to provide medical and surgical care for approximately fifty vision-impaired tribe members. Daniel Koupermann, a man who does not shy away from a challenge, gallantly pledged to do everything in his power to fulfill the padre’s request. And thus began an effort that culminated in May 2013 with the successful, first-ever eye care expedition to serve the remote Achuar of Peru.
Planning and executing a surgical brigade in a remote part of the world that is difficult to access is no simple matter, especially for a group with no prior experience. A psychiatrist, a priest and an adventure travel guide...sounds more like the beginning of a joke…(“A psychiatrist, a priest, and an adventure guide walk into a bar…”) than the makings of a responsible medical mission? But the earnest request, the compelling need, and Daniel’s pledge, made it clear we were the ones to undertake the task.
A Project Two and a Half Years in the Making
It took two and a half years to put this project together.
We first approached the established organizations involved in conducting eye surgery missions. They were reluctant to get involved for a number of understandable reasons: the remoteness of the area, the many unknown factors, and the absence of post-surgical follow-up.
This helped us realize that if we were to fulfill Padre Bolla’s request, we would have to organize the expedition ourselves. We already had our guide. And our next breakthrough came when supporters managed to recruit two volunteer ophthalmologists for us.
With these pieces in place, we were able to move ahead, and the project began to attract what we needed almost magically. Generous, caring, and knowledgeable individuals from many sources brought big hearts and broad vision to the challenge. Organizational champions, fundraisers, consultants, doctors and nurses, and a wonderful group of donors all took part in making the project a success.
Additionally, our group of supporters decided, early on, to send a small advance team to the Amazon to examine and diagnose the patients, and to look at the very basic surgical facilities in the town of San Lorenzo.
Discovering More than Just Cataracts
In February, the advance team returned to the Amazon to discover that the fifty patients had grown to one hundred. Some had journeyed for several days to the community of Chuintar deep in the rainforest, or by river to San Lorenzo. Short wave radios provide communication among the various Achuar communities, and the availability of vision care for the first time was big news indeed!. The doctors on the team determined the number and type of surgeries needed. They also determined that, except for operating tables, they would have to transport all of their surgical equipment, medication, and supplies.
During that first diagnostic trip in February, they also made a surprising discovery. In addition to the eye conditions they had anticipated, sixty to seventy percent of the patients showed signs of a mysterious corneal disease unfamiliar to the North American doctors.
One of the doctor’s Internet research convinced him that the indigenous population was afflicted with a parasitic round worm called Mansonella ozzardi, a river parasite endemic to the Amazon. It spread to humans through the bite of black flies. The fact that corneal disease is associated with Mansonella ozzardi has only recently been recognized and documented.
On a poignant note, Padre Bolla died on February 6, 2013, just days before the exploratory trip. However, he died in full anticipation that the mission would be carried out. His passing meant the Achuar Eye Project took on additional meaning and purpose. in addition to its primary purpose of restoring sight to inhabitants of the rainforest, it would honor the life and memory of a great peacemaker and devoted friend of the Achuar.
Toward the end of that first trip, as the medical team traveled back to San Lorenzo on the river, a jaguar swam across the bow of their boat barely three feet in front of them. Everyone took encouragement from this extraordinarily rare and beautiful occurrence.
The Official Achuar Eye Project Commences!
The official Achuar eye expedition began on Sunday, May 12, when Daniel met the U.S. group flying into Lima. When we arrived, the Achuar patients and their family members were already settled into the facilities made available to them.
Morning and evening, patients would line up for exams on the front porch of the mission house with its sky blue steeple. Eye charts were taped to the outside walls of the structure. Passers-by leaned over the gate and watched with interest as doctors and nurses performed eye exams on Achuar patients.
The May expedition took place over a ten-day period and involved several components. Surgery in San Lorenzo was one. Neither my camera nor words can fully convey the intricate choreography that took place in the operating room over two days: a dance combining precision and flow and great interdependence, blending elegant skill and simple kindness.
While the surgeries were taking place in San Lorenzo, Daniel Koupermann and one of the doctors made the wet and rainy journey by boat to the even more remote communities of Mamus and Chuwintar. There they re-examined the non-surgical patients, plus fifty more who had joined them. There, the Achuar were supplied eyeglasses where they were indicated. Other patients received medication for a variety of eye conditions, and blood and skin specimens from about twenty patients believed to be infected with Mansonella ozzardi were taken and transported back to New York for testing.
The Promise of Improved Medical Care for Peru's Indigenous Populations
On our final day in Peru, in an exciting culmination to the expedition, we met with a high official at the Ministry of Health. The official, Doctora María Cecilia Lengua Hinojosa, seemed genuinely interested, surprised, and responsive as Daniel conveyed the widespread presence of a parasitic infection affecting eyes, joints and skin in the Peruvian Amazon. Dra. Hinojosa welcomed the literature we brought regarding the parasite, outlining the source, life cycle and transmission of “el gusanito” – the little worm, Mansonella ozzardi.
As a result of this meeting, the Ministry of Health is preparing to make more concerted efforts to offer medical care to Peru’s indigenous populations.
To leave you with an image, we wish you could have seen Najarit, the twelve-year old girl who has been blind since the age of three, on the morning her bandages were removed and she realized she could see again.
We would like to thank everyone who supported us on this mission. We can assure you that your generous contributions to the Achuar Eye Project have been very well spent.
Leah Fisher
For the Achuar Eye Project team
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The Pachamama Alliance championed this Achuar Eye Project from the beginning, serving as its non-profit sponsor and providing generous financial support.
