New Hamburg woman trapped in Peru, can’t get home

A New Hamburg woman, trapped in Peru in an area rampant with COVID-19 infection, is trying to get home.

Ashley Brunette, a teacher and a practitioner of traditional medicine of the Amazon, had travelled with a friend to a Peruvian jungle retreat March 13, to learn more about the healing powers of the plants and animals there.

They planned to stay three weeks.

More than two months later, they are stuck in Iquitos, a city under curfew, where she says people line up for hours to get food and visit the bank, the hospital is overwhelmed, and bodies are being carried out of houses and put directly into coffins.

I want to get home," Brunette said.

We watched four bodies being pulled out of a residence. People are literally dying on the street. We're still in shock."

Brunette, 41, and her British friend, Sharon Freeman, have been in Iquitos for two weeks. They have tested negative for COVID-19. With financial help from friends and family, they have rented a place to live while they wait and hope for help getting out of the country.

I'm very worried," said Brunette's father, Rick, also of New Hamburg. I'd like to get her home ASAP."

He contacted his MP, Tim Louis, for help. The Record's calls and emails to Louis's office were not returned by late afternoon Thursday.

Peru is one of the countries in Latin America hit hardest by the pandemic. The city of Iquitos is particularly disadvantaged, in part because there is no land access. Everything must be flown in or brought by boat on the Amazon River. Tanks of oxygen and other medical supplies, badly needed by those suffering with the disease, are scarce and expensive.

One of the people trying to help Brunette is Jeff Geauvreau, a Guelph man who has worked in Peru and runs the Facebook page, Canadians Living in Peru.

He said he has helped more than 70 Canadians leave Peru already. But there are hundreds more like Brunette, waiting to get out.

It's terrible," he said. People are panicking."

Geauvreau said he lobbies on behalf of stranded Canadians, and calls on a network of contacts who are in Peru but have connections to Canada, including mine owner Wayne Levert. Together they use their resources and influence to help people like Brunette.

But the last repatriation flight arranged by Canada left in mid-April, when Brunette and Freeman were still in the Amazon jungle, with little access to internet and unaware of how serious the pandemic was becoming.

Geauvreau said it would take approximately 40 hours by boat and road to get from Iquitos to Peru's capital city, Lima. From Lima Brunette could fly to Toronto via Miami. That's the plan he is trying to arrange.

Brunette has asked for help from the Peruvian military and from the Canadian embassy in Lima. She said two staffers at the embassy are trying to get them on a flight to Lima.

But when a country is in a state of emergency and needs its own transportation resources to carry sick patients and medical supplies, assisting a tourist to return home is not high on the priority list.

And Canada's position right now, is they don't think there's enough people to send a plane down for them," said Geauvreau.

Despite all the fear and anxiety she is going through, Brunette said she doesn't regret making the trip, and her experience won't stop her from travelling again.

She is an experienced world traveller, having taught in Latin America, Taiwan, Thailand and South Korea.

Her time in the jungle around the Amazon River was just serene and beautiful," she said.

Brunette's friend, Ralph Phelan of Kitchener, said he is grateful that she helped to heal his chronic fatigue.

Phelan, who works as a special constable at the Waterloo Region courthouse, underwent a procedure that involves making minor burns on his arm, then rubbing in a substance called kambo, made from the excretions of a tree frog that lives in the Amazon.

He said this treatment gave him a sense of health I hadn't experienced in many years."

Phelan said Brunette went to Peru to broaden her understanding" of how these treatments work.

She helped heal me," he said. I felt a real connection, and deep gratitude."

Luisa D'Amato is a Waterloo Region-based staff columnist for the Record. Reach her via email: ldamato@therecord.com