Five months ago I basically invited myself and my 15 yr old daughter, McKenna, on the Goldsteins’ first volunteer stop of their nine month trip –to Chontapunta, Ecuador. Little did I know what I was getting us into! After 9 days of sweltering heat, torrential downpours, mud, terrifying insects, and clothes that may never be rid of that jungle smell, you would think we would say never again! But the patients we saw, spending time with the Goldsteins, meeting 25 fabulous volunteers and seeing a totally different world has only made us wonder when we will be able to back again! The people of the Napo province, which includes the Kichwa tribe, are stoic, hardworking and incredibly poor. It is so hard to know how much we helped them in our 5 days of clinic, but even if I helped one man have less pain in his “machete elbow” or one woman’s chronic back pain from carrying each of her 10 children in a sheet wrapped around her shoulders to create a baby carrier, it was worth it. We can’t thank Gail enough for finding Timmy Global Health and for her incredible derm skills! (I will never misdiagnose scabies again!) -Karen O’Keefe