The Dilemma

Portuguese Version

My nephew Breno arrived from Acre and encouraged me to write a blog where I could share some of the life experiences I had in different places. I will start with the Amazonas State in the Brazilian Amazon, where I visited many riverside communities or "ribeirinhos" while in charge of the Pastoral Coordination of the Tefé Prelacy, in the Alto Solimões river basin. We used to travel on "Gaivota" boats going up and down the rivers on trips that would normally take a week. Our team was usually formed of two young people from the Rondon Project (designed to provide young graduates with a work experience of the depths of Brazil), one doctor, one dentist, the boat pilot and me, as pastoral coordinator. 

We normally arrived at dusk to be welcomed by the community and people from neighbouring sites. They would organise a party at night. There were fun games, music, regional food (fish and game). That was also the occasion we would plan next day's activities, addressing school and church problems in the morning, health care in the afternoon and a celebration mass in the evening. 

And so it was that once during the flood season of the Amazon river (known as Solimões upstream of the Negro river mouth) we arrived to a community with a name that escapes me now, placed about 10 hours from Tefé. This time around, the doctor did not come, so it was just the pilot, me and a young dentist from the Juiz de Fora university, in Minas Gerais State. 

All went well until mid afternoon when I noticed a lot of people in and out of the community house, a sign of trouble! There I went and talked to the dentist. He was tense, and told me he had pulled a tooth from a young boy of 16 years old and that he was bleeding slowly but persistently. I asked if he had already applied the blood coagulant. He had forgot it Tefé. Then I started to worry. 

The dentist and the peopl e were trying everything to stop the bleeding. It was all vain. They tried coffee powder, medicinal herbs and nothing! The bin under the hammock was already half-full of tissue and cotton soaked in blood. By nightfall I went back to check on the boy. He was pale, with a candle burning next to him. I could smell death. 

Gathering my strength and my faith which were abandoning me, I asked the people not light the candle yet because that boy was not going to die. I climbed on the boat and called a meeting with the dentist and the pilot. I had to make a decision and it had to be the right one. 

The pilot called me on the side and whispered not to terrify the young dentist. He told me the boy's family was swearing revenge against the dentist and that "there would be two burials the next day". I quickly started to weigh the possibilities. I though I could also be in danger. Because if they came to kill the dentist, I would have to intervene to try and save hi m, putting both my life and the pilot's also at stake. I just had to avoid coming to that. 

I asked the pilot if we could take the boy on the boat to Tefé that night. He said it was not recommended because the flood was roaring in the Amazon and there were many huge trunks rumbling downstream posing real threat to navigation. 

I asked the dentist if the boy could withstand the trip to the city. He said he doubted so because the shake of a bumpy trip upstream would worsen the bleeding. So he was also against a trip under those conditions. 

I thought: if we stay, the boy will certainly die, so will the dentist and maybe even me and the pilot. If the boy dies on the boat, at least there we can keep things under control. The boy's fate seemed to be certain. My main concern now was to save at least the dentist. 

I got off the boat and told I would take the boy to the hospital. Lots of people got ready to get on board. I asked that only one family member join us, claiming that "the boat would be lighter and faster with less people". Therefore, the father offered himself to come. 

We quickly got ready to set off and face the river. In that dark and starry night, our boat was so small with nothing but a spot light seeking out for tree trunks on the water dragging everything down with them. At around 11pm I went to check on the boy. He was white as a sheet of paper, so young and so weak! The dentist was wrecked near exhaustion and the boy's father was quiet and starring. 

I climbed to the top of the boat and gazing at the stars I raised a prayer to God. My Father, do not allow that this boy, so young, die here! I stayed there praying but with little relief or hope to be answered. I went down and took hold of the book "For where there is no doctor". 

I searched for the entry on bleedings and there was nothing there we could apply. But it did mention oxygenated water as an anti- bleeding agent. I asked the dentist if he had used it. He had not. Because oxygenated water was deemed for external use, not for odontological use. I told him to use it regardless of that because under those circumstances, we ought to try anything. 

The dentist looked me with a discouraged face of someone who had already tried everything, but nonetheless took a piece of cotton soaked on oxygenated water and applied to the place of the pulled tooth. Fifteen minutes later he said: - It worked, Brother! It worked! 

I climbed to the top of the deck again and presented myself crying in front o God, to thank Him and ask forgiveness for my little faith. 

The boy slept the rest of the night and at 10am, after receiving blood at the hospital he was talking on the radio to his community to say he was in good health again. Ufff!!