FINALLY – Back in Peru!

Because of COVID-19, which hit Peru pretty hard, we had not been back with the Komedyplast doctors supporting their medical mission since 2023.

This year’s January mission was Komedyplast’s 15th year supporting kids in Peru. Our clown contingent was Flora, Flossy, Scooter, and Duffy.

These doctors are special people to all of us clowns. They all volunteer their time and expertise for these missions. We never cease to be amazed at the work they do and how profoundly they improve the lives of these young Peruvian kids.

(Typically, we clowns don’t connect with the doctors during the year, but each time we are together is like family reunion week.)

The big surprise to all of us this year was that for this mission, we were not at the “new” Children’s Hospital with 300 beds but returned to the old 700-bed hospital. We had not been to the old hospital for several years. Most of Komedyplast’s 15 years had been at the old hospital. Just being there brought back some great memories. It had a good vibe for all of us.

The new hospital was built several years ago to take care of children with “special” circumstances, such as burns, lung and heart problems. The old hospital is for more general issues. Both are the only free children’s hospitals in the country.

As we clowns have experienced in most of our trips, former patients of Komedyplast returned with their parents or grandparents just to say hello. Many of these “kids,” who had surgery when they were 5-7 years old are now young adults. Some parents brought out their cell phones with pictures of us clowns with their kids from years back. This is always very heartwarming. Although we do not know the names of most of these kids, they are all like family to us.

Since we have been in the old hospital, the hospital director and administrative staff have all changed. And yet, these marvelous people treated all of us like royalty. It was obvious that they were very grateful to have us return. And the Komedyplast doctors again connected with their Peruvian counterparts. This has always been a wonderful relationship.

In addition, the staff went out of their way to feed us. In a large room dedicated to use, every day the hospital kitchen prepared all of us traditional Peruvian meals for lunch. They were much appreciated.

We clowns were also given a dedicated PR person, Flavio, to go with us to visit the hospital wards. Flavio, who speaks Spanish and fluent English, also made sure to know when the Komedyplast patients were out of surgery and where they were, so we could reconnect with them, post-op.

On this mission, the doctors performed twelve major surgeries. Most were planned 8-9 hour full facial reconstructions, but there were two additional cases. One was reconstructing a child’s ear, and the other was removing a large nonmalignant tumor from a teenager’s face and fashioning him a new jaw from one of his small leg bones. One of the doctors told us that the most complex element of the jaw replacement was connecting all the capillaries for the reconstructed jaw so it could heal and grow. All of these procedures are simply amazing.

To top it off, the hotel staff and their other customers loved us clowns. We were able to share our Caring Clowns International mission and our work with the Komedyplast doctors with many of them.

Suffice to say, we all had another exceptional trip with Komedyplast. We are always honored to be part of these unbelievable missions helping children in need.

Thank you for embracing us!

For all us clowns,