“THAT FILLING IS NO BANANA”

Timothy A. Robieson, D.D.S.

Presented October 10, 1988 at the Chicago Literary Club

ÓCopyright 1988 by T.A.Robieson

The South American continent is home to a great number of Indian cultures. Some of the Indian groups are so large that they are spread over great geographic distances. The largest of these groups have even developed subgroups with some distinctions and dialects of their own. Although the numbers of people are large, they remain separate and they overlap the modern borderlines that describe the sovereign nations of today’s South America.

Historically only a few alliances between Indian groups have ever had significant political success. Greatest and best know was the Incas. But with the coming in the 1500’s of the Spanish conquistadores, the two thousand mile long and 4.5 million people empire of the Incas was destroyed.

The highland area of what we today call Bolivia was the former Inca province of Kollasuyu. The northeastern lowlands never really came under Incan domination and the scattered tribes remain there today largely as they were then.

Three main language groups occupy significant portions of the South American continent. They are the Aymaras, the Guaranis and the Quechuas. These and many other smaller language groups have become the focus of an international missionary group call The Wycliffe Bible Translators. They have taken on the job of making the Bible available to everyone in their own language. The scriptures have been translated from Greek and Latin into modern languages for years and it is easy to take that for granted. Getting the Bible translated into many of the smaller Indian languages presents a difficult undertaking worldwide. So many of their languages and their cultural traditions have never been written. In fact many do not even have any type of alphabet to write with.

Through the dedication and sacrifices of linguists and non-linguistic supporters, great strides are being made to help these people receive their own written language.

In 1976. As some very cold October winds blew across the Midwest, I flew south with my new bride of three months. We would call our trip a working honeymoon and it would last over half a year. My wife, Cathy, has some very good friends who are career missionaries with the Wycliffe Bible Translators. They were positive that her nursing and my dental skills would be put to good use at their jungle center in northern Bolivia.

We laugh now when we think of all the supplies we packed because we knew there would be no grocery stores in the jungle. For example, a three pound tin of honey was extra baggage since they had a local bee project that kept everyone well supplied. Then there were the two bottles of pancake syrup that broke on the way down. The customs official in Santa Cruz sure gave us a dirty look when he stuck his hand into that sea bag to look and found a sticky mess. Then when that sea bag was delayed in reaching us for about six weeks, the entire contents were found to be glued together into one piece. We had soup mixes, cake mixes, teabags, cereals and assorted other pantry items. When we washed and soaked the mess we ruined much of the dry foods. Then labels on the foil packets and cans floated off. Thankfully, since we packed so many extra things, we didn’t miss the stuff which was spoiled.

Our flight to Bolivia from Miami was very long with several intermediate stops. Getting to Bolivia wasn’t the end of our flying though. After a four hour rest at the Wycliffe facility in the highland city of Cochabamba, we flew by Cessna north to the jungle lowlands of the Beni river area.

After climbing over some mountains we flew for hours over miles and miles of jungle. The green below us had the look of broccoli. Rounded green tufts were both regular and irregular. Some were tall stalks, but most of it was low rolling flowerets of broccoli.

This was an exciting time for us. We had just gotten off of a very large commercial jetliner and now we were on a six passenger Cessna. We were feeling a little sick and excited at the same time, which is an uncomfortable combination. We did not really know what kind of workload to expect where we were going. It depended on what their diet was like as to whether there would be much tooth decay or not. I figured if they ate mainly native fruits and vegetables with a little meat and fish, then their teeth may be in pretty good shape.

As we dropped in altitude in preparation to land the pilot pointed out various landmarks and buildings. My heart sank when, as we circled on final approach, he described one large brown and well weathered building as the sugar cane mill. He passed low and to one side of it and since it was very old looking I guessed that the impact of sugar in their diet has been here for some time. We learned later that tooth decay wasn’t the major negative impact of the sugar mill. Its biggest destructive influence came from the further processing of the cane sugar into rum.

The jungle center we flew to is called Tumi Chucua. The name is what the local people call the island in the middle of the lake on which the jungle center boarders. The lake itself was once a loop of the Beni River which meanders through the jungle on its way to the great Amazon.

The force of the river is very great during the rainy season and it frequently changes course. It was one of these course changes that isolated this loop of the river and formed a lake. The lake is about a mile long with a slightly smaller width making it a teardrop shape. The island is less than three acres and it makes for a very picturesque landscape. The lake is full of many varieties of South American fish, including the infamous piranha. It is home also to the cayman which I shall tell about in detail later.

The missionary’s jungle center is a base camp for themselves and the support people who make their work possible. With it’s airstrip, called a pista in Spanish, it connects their work with supplies and civilization. It also allows the transport of individual linguists to their remote tribal locations that otherwise might take arduous days of travel if they had to do it by boat. The jungle center is also a safer place to rest and study. On tribal locations a significant amount of time and energy is spent just living, eating and trying to stay well. At the center the more customary 20^th century type housing and food preparation facilities helps to bring much needed relief from the camping out style of the bush. At the center a burst of high technology word processing, printing and outside consulting helps a team of linguists to optimize their efforts. The labor of weeks on location is carefully analyzed and recorded. Hand written notes are recorded and compared with previous work and the process of creating a new written language with a very customized alphabet is completed. Then armed with printouts, dictionaries and loads of their collated information about word usage, the linguists return to their remote tribal location with a written language where before there was only the limited oral tradition.

When we arrived at Tumi Chucua, a beautiful home was made available to us. It was temporarily vacant while it’s owners were on furlough. The center is about two thirds the length of the lake and follows its contour in a gentle curve. Different styles of homes are built on short pillars. Most of them are wooden. The wood needs to be a certain type of cedar that the termites won’t eat. Insects of all kinds are a constant nuisance. Unbelievably wide varieties of ants including the leaf cutter, army, red, and carpenter. These along with candy bar sized cockroaches, rhinocerous beetles, all sorts of spiders and on and on and on adinfinitum. Every high school student at the jungle center has a museum quality insect and butterfly collection of common and rare South American Specimens.

At the center’s post office we found our name on a signup list. On that list people had requested the opportunity to have us over to their homes for either a breakfast, lunch or dinner for our first few days. Eating and fellowshipping is the main form of entertainment in this isolated community. We really enjoyed meeting new friends and we began in ernest the big task of learning how to live in that jungle setting. Along that line we were served some really exotic fare at mealtimes. One of the first non-domestic type meats we tasted was tapir. No problem there, it is much like beef.

Almost instantly we felt ourselves part of the grouop and we became part of that “gringo” tribe next to the lake. Cultural differences we have with the local peoples were constantly reinforced with our technological advantages. Even in the remote areas where computers and air-conditioning is left behind, we still have radio contact with the center. Air support providing supplies and transport makes the missionaries a focus of power and authority. These facts are not lost on the linguists and they feel the weight of this solemn responsibility.

We treasure the memories of friends and families that shared with us so many jungle experiences in Northern Bolivia.

Cathy and I enjoyed the challenge and opportunity to hold dental clinics in some of the remote areas where they have no healthy services regularly available. Due to the lilmitations of material and equipment, we could opnly extract. In most areas we worked for hours pulling tooth after tooth after tooth. The people were happy to at least have their bad teeth removed andthey were especially happy to have it done with the benefit of pain killing anesthetic. On one tribal locatgion we were met by a woman who wished to have a badly broken front tooth removed. While her whole family and tribe watched, I anesthetized and pulled out the tooth. She was a good patient and she acted very pleased to be done with it. When I turned to see who would be next, they all headed for the bush. There would be no second patient at that tribal clinic.

Cathy and I did another remote clinic at a combination saw mill/orphanage. We flew into the location on a sunny but cool day and treated eight young boys. We held the clinic on the front porch of a wooden house that was built out of solid rough hewn mahogany, locally grown. I worked while Cathy held the flashlight. It is troubling to take out teeth that you know could be restored if only you had the right facility. The scene on that front porch will remain especially vivid for us. As we treated our patients we became aware of the dusty and rain stained curtains in the window behind us. A fold of the curtain gently moved every now and then as if it were being blown by a slight breeze. Since the window was closed we knew that some one must be there watching us. Before we finished our work we discovered that the curtain was the current resting place for a large dark brown bat. He slowly inched upward, most likely in response to the unusual activities on his front porch.

I still feel a twinge of guilt as I wonder how those kids remember us. We flew in on red and white wings of excitement and wonder, only to pull some teeth and fly away, never to be seen again.

Missionaries have been condemned by concerned people who see the missionaries as responsible for destroying their native cultures in a great zeal to force upon them the white man’s religion and culture. That is a relevant issue and I know that certainly in the past there have been instances where that has happened, the first Spanish Conquerors for one. In this day and age the native cultures and peoples are being stressed or even destroyed by the advance of modern civilization in general.

While we hear arguments from some ethnologists and anthropologists against the ardor of the missionaries who are seeking to save souls and promote Christian ideals, is anybody watching Shell Oil or the United Fruit companies? In persuit of resources for profit, with no less ardor, private enterprises are making their impact felt. The jungle areas have already been crisscrossed with seismic cables and crews looking for likely places to drill for oil. Trading companies ply the rivers with alcohol, sugar and all sorts of goods that are not native to the areas where they trade. These commercial entrepeneural activities show little regard for their negative impact on native peoples. It is very common for the missionaries to be asked to advocate for the local tribes people. Who else is around to keep them from being duped in to selling another Manhatten Island for a few trinkets?

Here is a little story about one of the trading practices that was going on in the Manupari River region of the Beni.

The Araonas are a very small tribe of indigenous people who have one cash crop a year. They harvest from the ground where the brazil nut pods drop. They weave baskets on location to carry the nuts back to the river where the boats come. The trading company boat will travel up the river to collect the nuts and take them to market. Although the nuts are pooled and sold in one lot, the individual workers know how much each of them have harvested.

What happens next is amazing. A check or bank draft is issued for the full amount of the nuts harvested. One lump sum is given. A crisp, clean and official looking check is issued right there. So as the traders small boat leaves, it’s little wake gently laps the mud banks and the tacky, tacky tacky engine sounds fade little by little mixing with the bird and insect concerto of the jungle. There, left standing by the edge, is a single tribesman holding a slip of paper which he may not even be able to read. That little slip of paper is allthey have to show for an entire year’s income for the whole tribe.

It doesn’t take someone with an M.B.A. or a PhD in economics to see how vulnerable the Araona people are at that point. For the Araonas it is several days down river by canoe to get their check cashed. It is a long anvery arduous upstream return trip with whatever goods they purchase in town. The treatment they receive in town is sometimes pretty shabby.

What treasures do you thnk that frontier Indians of the 20 century bring home? We were privileged to see the distribution of some of those goods when we were on one of our tribal clinics.

The items we saw included: lye soap, mosquito netting, flashlight batteries, sugar and rifle ammunition. Any change left over was given in the Bolivian multicolored currency. The different colors indicate the different denominations for those who do not read.

Paper money is an interesting item in itself. With the very high humidity and temperatures, paper money softens, fades and quickly becomes moldy. It tears too easily and in the jungle areas it is not uncommon to find individual bills that have been mended in multiple places by sewing, gluing and taping.

The work of the Wycliffe linguists in Bolivia has been encouraged by the Bolivian Government’s Department of Education. They agree to pay the salary, called Items, to the Indians who have been taught at the jungle center when they return to their tribal locations and re-teach what they have learned. This way literacy and community development is reaching out and has become a byproduct of bible translation.

These Indians are brought to the jungle center for what is called in Spanish, “Curso”. Curso is a ninety day intense training program designed to teach native people basic skills and Spanish, which will allow for their eventual productive assimilation into the mainstream economy and culture of Bolivia. Obviously ninety days of training, no matter how intense, won’t do it all. Most of the participants have attended or will attend more than one level of Curso. Also they will have opportunity in their tribes to be with a linguist who can give added training and advice.

It was to this environment of learning that we came with an aim to provide an additional dimension of dental health care. This would be a good opportunity for those people who live their lives far away from any health care facilities.

With many completely different language groups present, I needed to have the various linguists each accompany their respective students in order to communicate. Since Cathy and I speak a little Spanish as do some of the returning students, we tried a few times to get along on our own. It was upon these poor guys that I perpetrated my favorite linguistic faux pas.

The Spanish word for silver is Plata Accent on the Pla. The Spanish word for silver filling is Platino. Accent is on the ti. Pla-TI-no. Unfortunately I pronounced platino with the accent on the Pla. PLA-ti-no. To people who live in that area the word I pronounced PLA-tino sounds like PLA-teno. There are great plateno plantations surrounding the vicinity of the center. In retrospect I would say that myi patients remained pretty calm about having this “gringo” dentist fill their teeth with bananas.

Scheduling appointment for our clinic was another chuckle. It is easy to understand that wrist watches and clocks have no place in their culture. To signify a time of the day that you wish, you raise your hand to indicate the elevation the sun will be relative to the horizon. For example, twelve noon or mid-day would be indicated by pointing with the hand straight up. For early morning or late afternoon you would point just above the horizon, eastern or western respectively.

To indicate more precise times such as ten thirty or three thirty would be anybodies guess what arm elevation to use. In their lives such precise time is not important. As far as keeping a “normal” schedule for a dental clinic we discovered we couldn’t do it. As it turns out, time did not turn out to be a problem. When necessary, my patients waited patiently. It was only I that was used to the constraints of precise schedules.

When curso was over the majority of the people went back to their tribal locations. Now we turned our efforts toward taking care of the missionary’s dental needs.

There was a staff physician serving in an office along side of mine in the clinic building. Additionally we had several nurses, laboratory technicians and a couple of Bolivian aides.

Early one morning, before clinic hours, we got a telephone call from the clinic head nurse.

She asked me if I would come to clinic and suture a young boy’s head which had been cut. It happens that he had fallen out of his bunk bed and hit his forehead, cutting it above the eyebrow. Normally this would be the job for the staff doctor. But, as is the case many times, he was out of the area helping another jungle center, in nearby Brazil, with some medical administrative details.

The young patient was waiting for me in the doctor’s office, in his treatment room. I began looking for the necessary supplies to do the job. I found the prep tray, the suture, the gloves and anesthetic. Eventually I got it all together and finished the job. The cut was about an inch long and within a total of about forty minutes I did what I thought was a good job for the young lad. I felt very good as I rode back on my bicycle to finish my breakfast. It is a good feeling to be challenged and to be able to respond positively and effectively. Within the next twenty-four hours I would discover what the real value of handling this minor emergency was.

Early the following morning Cathy and I were enjoying our breakfast again. Through the kitchen window we saw the big civil defense truck go speeding down the path from the hangar. You don’t see big vehicles like that zooming down our little path every day. The usual traffic is bicycles, motorcycles and pedestrians. A wagon or jeep now and then too can be expected. We knew something was up and in short order our shock at seeing the huge truck accelerating toward the center was explained. The head nurse was on the telephone again, this time with the news that one of the two small planes had crashed on takeoff. All but one of the passengers were injured and were at the clinic where the civil defense truck had taken them.

Our legs were wobbly as we peddled to the clinic. We fretted knowing what kind of injuries you can expect from a plane crash and from not knowing which of our friends were hurt.

“Dear God,” I prayed, “I am a dentist! I can sew a cut on a forehead and I love giving expert medical advice, but an airplane disaster is out of my league!”

The clinic was staffed now by a well marshaled army of nurses, volunteers and a dentist. In the treatment room that was so calm, clean and enjoyable yesterday, there was an intense kneading together of elbows, bobbing heads, bent over people land loads of white gauze blushing scarlet. Everyone was doing something and there was no sense of panic or confusion. I was let to the first most obvious problem which was a split lower lip. This person was the chief finance officer for the center and was in the co-pilot’s set when the airplane hit the dirt. His face met abruptly with the instrument panel splitting his lip through and through. It was kind of an upside down hare lip. It was very upsetting for him to look at and it had bled a great deal. I began to go to work putting it together and I was perhaps a little glad that at least I was suturing in the mouth since that is part of my usual domain.

Now as I reached for the gloves, anesthetic, prep-tray and other supplies, I knew right where they were! I thanked God for preparing me for this moment. Yesterday’s emergency was a dry run for a much bigger emergency today. Yesterday in the treatment room I had all the time in the world and I needed it. I familiarized myself with the location of everything and today when seconds count, my hands move automatically for whatever I need. I know God was caring for us and I thank Him for His presence with us in that clinic.

Cathy and I finished suturing other cuts and we consulted with the nurses and volunteers to assess what other injuries were going to need more in-depth attention. An emergence flight of the Wycliffe’s DC-3 was made. All of the injured were flown to the capital city of La Paz as quickly as possible.

It could have been so much worse in so many ways. There were two very serious internal injuries that we wouldn’t have been able to treat even if we had correctly diagnosed them. With the rapid evacuation to the finest hospital facilities in La Paz, more permanent damage was avoided.

As a result of the follow-up investigation of the plane crash, some mechanical were made on the rest of Wycliffe’s airplanes to prevent this type of accident from happening in the future.

The jungle center afforded us some other once in a lifetime experiences. We were told, almost casually, that President Banzar had been to Tumi Chucua to hunt alligators. “You really mean it? I asked. The President of Bolivia has been to Lake Tumi Chucuja to hunt alligator and the two Richmond brothers took him in their little aluminum boat? Cathy quickly wondered out loud if perhaps they would take us alligator hunting too? I didn’t really feel like I wanted to go looking for trouble with alligators and I said so. We regularly swam in the same lake with them and that was risk enough for me. Cathy pursued the idea of alligator hunting and before I knew it we were signed up to go. I stuck to my guns, so to speak, and agreed to go along but only to shoot pictures with my camera.

The technique of the hunt requires that it take place after dark. It seems, at least on the surface, to not sound very sporting. With a bright head-mounted light the hunter scans the lake edge while the boat moves parallel to the shore. The critters that we are calling alligators are really South American cayiman. They are really a type of crocodile. Since they have a very effective green camouflage, they are difficult to spot during the day. At night though, they can be easilyi spotted asd their eyes reflect light. As they sit quietly in the shallows with only their eyes and nose out of the water, you can spot their reflectors with the bright beam from the head-mounted light. They stay very still even when the boat comes near to them. We spent quite a bit of time “chasing down” some very small ones that were too small to ghoot. After a while we came upon a good sized one that looked to be over six feet long. From a distanace of only about ten feet, Cathy stood up in the small boat and took aim. She squeezed the trigger of the 12 ga. Shotgun popping it loudly. Wt was a perfect shot and our friends quickly grabbed the ‘gator with their homemade gaff. This seven foot freshly shot crocodile was hauled head first into the boat.

Now this is the part where I began to wish that I had been more persuasive in myi arguments against this hunt. As the official photographer for the mission, I was doing the best I could. The boat rocked a lot. My flash attachment needed time between pictures to recharge and the mosquitos were a thick as the smoke that always follows me around the campfire. I really had to work to keep from inhaling any of those mosquitos.

After shooting and gaffing the creature, it was necessary to take him inside the boat. As they began coaxing this great green lizard, bleeding from his head wound, into the boat, he began to revive. With two great swishes of his thick armor plated tail he convinced those holding his mouth that he was strong enough yet to go another round. With a big splash he slipped back into the water and darkness. He was gone. Before we started this hunt we were coached kthat you have to hook these guys quickly after you wound them because theyi seek the safety of the bottom instinctively. They sink fast and if they are able to they swim quickly away.

Our two field experts didn’t think that our ‘gator was in any shape to be doing much swimming, given the size of his head wound. It did seem possible that he would just sink to the bottom and die. That would leave the piranhas to be the only beneficiaries of our kill.

We sat quietly and waited a little while. The water calmed down, we calmed down and the smell of gunpowder drifted away. Then almost imperceptibly the big green guy’s nose broke through the surface. He was about three yards away on the opposite side of the boat were hauling him in on before. Nate Richmond very quietly and slowly maneuvered the boat closed to his head. Then, with a revolver in his hand, he brought it’s suffering and fight to an end.

Now with a lot more respect, we again brought him into the boat with us. It was not an easy task and it made me wonder about the first person that decided that it was alright to share such a small rowboat with a seven foot cayman. Within another hour we had bagged our second cayman and we motored back to the center.

The meat we got from those cayman was wonderful. It is a white fishlike meat with a tender consistency. Since they swallow their prey whole, the meat is said to be loaded with calcium.

In our retelling the story and all the events of the hunt, all of the stories agreed except mine. When I described the hoards of mosquitoes which billowed like smoke and the fear of choking of them, Cathy and her fellow huntsmen were puzzled. In the excitement of the hunt, they didn’t even remember that there were any mosquitoes.

The day following the huynt, Ii went down to the dock where we left our previous night’s quarry. I took some pictures that made us look very brave since a dead caman and a live caman look exactly alike in a still photo. I get a lot of mileage out of the picture showing me holding a

large snout while pulling out a long pointed tooth. In truth, I wanted a couple of trophies and I took a pair of dental forcepts so that Ii could relieve those fellows of a few teeth. They were as hard in death to deal with as they were in life. Ii expected it would be difficult but I underestimated the job. I had to be satisfied with the top part of one tooth which broke off. Ii believe it would take a skill saw to remove a tooth intact. So we settled for the pictures, a broken tooth and a small piece of hide to to prove the validity of our story. The meat as I said before was superb and I will eat my words about the hunt not being very sporting.

By the time we brought our South American odyssey to a close we had experienced many more places and events that Ii may write about another time. We did not leave the continent without seeing many of the usual tourist attractions such as Tiahuanaco, Lake Titicaca, the reed boats, Cuszco, Machupicchu, Sacysayhuaman, Pisac, Ollantaytambo and the Urubamba River Valley.

The distinctive dress and noble bearing of the Indian cultures impressed throughout our travels in Bolivia and Peru. We sensed their strength through their willingness to work hard and endure hardship. It is clear to us that through the work of groups like the Wycliffe Bible Translators, many separate groups of Indians will become literate and then they will have a chance to make further positive differences for themselves and to all the nations to which they belong.

It has been over a decade since our visit to South America. We have kept in touch with friends there, both missionary and Bolivian. There is so much to be gained by reaching out and sharing anything that you can. Our time in Bolivia was short and our contributions were limited, but our memories we will cherish and the message for everyone is that there is room there for your work and efforts too. International peace and goodwill should not be left to governments to accomplish. They seem to be better at fostering disharmony and the spirit of clientage. We are universally at our best when we can give without getting. One of my favorite sentiments has been put this way: If you give expecting something in return, then you really took. Let us truly learn to give without taking!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Bailey, Bernadine. Bolivia in Pictures, 1974