The best beer I ever had

The best beer I ever had, came from an icebox in a somewhat remote Amazonian village. But I’m getting ahead of myself, so let me back up.

Dorado, a Spanish word for “golden” is the perfect way to describe the enormous fish covered in shiny, bright scales our host had pulled from the Amazon River. He handed the fish off to the cook, a Peruvian woman from a nearby village, and she turned it into an incredible culinary delight.

At least, that is what I heard.

During dinner, I was puking in the bushes from heat exhaustion.

Just a few days prior, a team and I had left wintery Connecticut and flown first to sunny Lima and then to thick and humid Iquitos. We were a couple of dentists, about ten 3rd-year dental students (myself included), and two hygienists. We brought boxes of dental and medical supplies, (which, thankfully made it through customs without confiscation), and then boarded a bus that took us to a boat. The boat, loaded with people and supplies, ferried us another hour along the Amazon to our final destination.

The organization that invited us, worked with local elders to help preserve the river and rainforest. They routinely brought medical teams as needed to support the communities. They housed us in primitive accommodations and hired that wonderful cook to prepare local food during our stay.

Myself and the rest of the students on the trip were asked to join due to our interest in oral surgery, a highly competitive specialty. What the villages needed the most was the extraction of teeth that were painful, infected, or broken beyond repair. This was an incredible opportunity to help people as well as to continue to hone our skills.

UCONN dental school was known for sending most of its graduates on to dental specialties, due to tough academics that consistently resulted in high board scores.

This mission included a competitive bunch of people.

A lot of us, myself included, came on the trip to help people, sure, but also to boost our Curriculum Vitae. Yes, it was a dental mission, but it was also a way to set ourselves apart from our competitors.

The first night there, I slept on a cot surrounded by mosquito netting, gulping down anti-malarial prophylaxis with bottled water.

The next morning would set the routine for the rest of the week. We woke, dressed in scrubs, ate breakfast, and packed our supplies into the boat. We rode down the Amazon to the first village an hour or so away, and gathered our equipment. We were directed to an open-air structure, usually a thatched roof hut, where we were to set up our primitive dental clinic.

The first day, we started out in the coolness of the morning, but before long, the heat and humidity overtook us. My bandana, soaked with sweat, slipped off of my head. When I went to replace it, I realized that I felt dizzy. We had been working almost 6 hours in the heat, and I was showing signs of heat exhaustion.

The rest of the afternoon was a blur. We made it back to our campsite. The whole of the crew ate the fresh-caught Dorado while I curled up in my cot with a bottle of Gatorade.

This experience was a humbling one. I was the only female student there, and all things being equal, I was as smart and as talented as the rest of the crew. But now I’d shown a certain amount of weakness. I had faltered. I worried if the dentists on the trip would ever be able to write a letter of recommendation based on what I perceived to be a poor showing. I felt like I had failed.

It was at this point, I’m sorry to say, that I realized the trip wasn’t about me. I know that’s pretty obvious…but I had been so caught up in the competitive vibe of school that I viewed everything through this lens. (In my defense, UCONN actually had to switch to a pass/fail system instead of class ranks because of the historically toxic culture.)

After that day, I relaxed a little. I remembered to drink Gatorade, and stay out of the direct sun for the rest of the trips down the river. Each day and each village was different, but the needs were the same. They had very little, and lived in contentment with that fact. Here I was, worried about letters of recommendation and getting into a specialty program when all around me were people who had so little and were still living their lives.

When I stopped focusing on myself, I suddenly saw everything around me.

I saw the artists making necklaces to sell to us (I still have those, twenty years later). I saw the curious faces of the children as we did our procedures. I watched the commotion around the arrival of a woman from a village deep in the jungle, bringing her child to see if the western doctors could help. As we went back to our accommodations, I saw the legendary pink dolphins, a freshwater mammal, leaping along the boat.

The next few days were like this. Every night we returned to our temporary home and washed off the grimy coat of dust and sweat, then ate dinner, exhausted, and played cards.

One night after a delicious dinner of Cuy Peruano, somebody mentioned that there was a store in the next village. Rumor had it that they carried cold beer. Who was game for a short hike through the rainforest? I was the first to raise my hand.

A group of about five of us found the trail and headed towards the village, hoping to get back before the sun dipped too low to see.

We heard the village before we saw it, owing to the gasoline-powered generator. The generator cooled the small beverage refrigerator, which was likely the only electric appliance in a 30-mile radius. We bought about a dozen beers and trekked back as the last bits of sunlight disappeared.

This beer, the glass sweating in the dense jungle humidity, is the best beer I ever had.

The type of beer is inconsequential. I only vaguely remember the label. The fact is, no beer before and no beer after will ever taste as good as that one.

Why?

Because it was an unexpected luxury. A hard-won bit of enjoyment after many hours of working in the sun. And, it was the first sense of comradery I had in my entire time in dental school. That really hit me.

All of us, the doctors, the students, the villagers, we were all just people. At the end of the day, we want to connect. We want to be seen. We want to share a cold beer and shoot the shit without judgement. I hadn’t failed because I got heat exhaustion, I failed because I was too competitive and not connective.

When the week was over, we said our final goodbyes to the cook and the organizational liaison, packed the remaining equipment into the boat, and headed towards Iquitos.

The second-best beer I ever had was when we returned to Lima. I had an actual shower (unaccompanied by tarantulas, which was a daily occurrence in the jungle) in a real hotel, and meandered to a restaurant with a patio and outstanding ceviche. It was blissful.

 Even though that was twenty years ago, I still remember it fondly as a peak experience in my life. It was also the first glimmer of understanding about happiness in a real way. I had touched on something true on that trip that took many years to unfold.

Sharing the story, I realized that some of the people on that trip are no longer with us. That I can never have a beer with them again. And I continue to be humbled and grateful for the comradery we shared in the jungle all those years ago.