Endlessly am I amazed at the group of people Luis is able to pull together to one table in the jungle of Peru. After a FULL day of complicated surgeries, holding cameras and filming, painting, and teaching kids and adults (all with no time for food, in between down pours of rain, and often lacking a common language) each person is still standing - or sitting - at the table at midnight clinking their full glasses of pisco sours and laughing. Thank you Luis and happy birthday, may we all be half as amazing as you when we are on the "other side" of 70 years.
Only two more full days in the Yantalo area - the fastest trip here yet. It does feel like the right amount of time though, since really all the film needs now is a finished clinic, fully functioning. But - isn't that what everyone needs?
But, this trip was made 100% worth it yesterday. Sometimes when filming a documentary for over 5 years, you loose track, or wonder what the film will look like. Other times, it is perfectly clear. Yesterday as the group of over 20 volunteers / visitors saw the construction
site for the first time, Luis got a call that parents with a sick baby had flown all the way from Lima to see the visiting physicians. When they arrived in Moyobamba, they heard the American doctors had just left the hospital to go to Yantalo. So, the parents drove to Yantalo - came to the constructions site - and there, among the blue prints, mud floor, and construction material, the doctors performed an examination. The Yantalo clinic's first patient.
Now this is the film.
What an awesome story about the hospital's first patient! What a perfectly cinematic moment~
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