I trail behind the two adolescent girls through the thick forest foliage. It was a strenuous, uphill walk to which they were accustomed. With my haversack, my lack of drill and the altitude of 2,000 metres above sea level, my breath was laborious though my step steady. The rainforest is anything but quiet. The resounding twitter of the myriad of birds around us made sure we are kept company. It is warm, too humid for anyone’s liking.

I had been driving my motorcycle for three-quarters of an hour through a dirt road which whipped up white dust at every breeze. Its surface was too rough and furrowed to allow me to peel my eyes off its treacherous twists and turnings in order to relish the spectacular scene around me.

Manoeuvring over deep ravines, how could I forget that this was the furthest part of the Amazon rainforest, down in the Peruvian southeast of the Andean mountain range? Magnificence is one of its synonyms.

Today, as I do very often, I am visiting a remote village up a steep mountain to convey God’s blessings, preach the Word and share His consolation. The Quechua people, descendants of the ancient Incas, live here in remote hamlets serenely tending to their crops and trusting in the divine favour. Specifically, I come to administer the final sacrament to an ailing mother of five.

Marisol and Rosario were chatting merrily in Spanish as we toddled through coffee plantations perched over the mountain slopes. It has been two years-and-a-half since I’ve been living here in Puno as parish priest, enough to know that one must carefully skirt around the coffee bushes when they are in full bloom with their pretty white flowers, so as not to disturb them.

The coffee business here in the Amazon rainforest, artificially created since the late 1960s, is family run and technically and financially supported by the regional government. Though climatic conditions help it boom, geographical circumstances limit its commerce with the outside world to just a couple of hundred kilometres. Further beyond that − people fantasise of trade with Europe − is the preferred dream of the campesino.

I meet the puny Petronila after a half hour climb, arriving at a peak commanding an extraordinary view of forested hilltops clad in snow-white puffs of clouds. The small hotchpotch of wooden huts in which the lady and her close family live are typical enough of the area: tin ceilings, no furniture but for a couple of beds, clothes hanging on ropes through the rooms, one corner reserved for a floor kitchen, and much of everything else what seems to be scattered on the floor along the walls. Small animals − chickens, a duck, cats, a rooster, chicks, a goat, a couple of dogs − enter and exit the huts at will.

At just 56 (though looking as if 70), Petronila is consumed by throat cancer. She is small and frail and welcomes me with the sweetest of smiles, though no words can come from her. In her illness she receives no cure whatsoever; only some innocuous pills. Apart from the fact that in this country no social benefits exist, healthcare is only for the city dwellers, exorbitantly expensive and too remote to access. One simply succumbs to one’s ailment and that’s that.

As far as the little that I can do, from the money I gain in my pastoral work, I financially support a few people, mostly babes and children, to get to the closest city to have operations administered. Locally speaking, this costs tremendously... even if computed in euros, the equivalent would be a few hundred. Life expectancy here in the far-flung rainforest is about 53 years (while generally in Peru it is around 74 years).

Death is not a tragedy in these parts. It is accepted as part of life as much as illness is

Death is not a tragedy in these parts. It is accepted as part of life as much as illness is. When I get to Petronila, the whole family crams the little hut and prayers begin. I do not administer the last rites immediately for, before that, there is a reckoning. This is quite unknown back home. What happens is that each member of the family, starting with the closest relations, steps forward and directly addresses the ailing parent, beseeching their forgiveness.

One can imagine how heart-wrenching this can be, even for me, a professional at deathbeds. Nevertheless, this distinctive Peruvian rite is cathartic for those concerned and seems to reconcile one and all with impending death. With this over, I proceed with the anointing of the ill, a benediction and much sprinkling of holy water around all the rooms and grounds.

I am now used to such “sacramentals”, as they are called. They are very common in these deep parts of the Peruvian highlands. Though mingled with Inca and Andean cultic practices, they often seem to convey a much more profound spiritual sentiment than the sacrament rites do, at least to these indigenous people.

I personally find no difficulty in complying to these religious habits which I encounter on a regular basis throughout the large parish I administer to. This is four times larger than the Maltese islands, all part of the Amazon rain forest, and made up only of soaring mountains and deep valleys. Around a hundred villages exist, which I visit regularly, a couple of towns (in one of which I live) and hundreds of scattered farmsteads such as that of Petronila and her family.

My main endeavour here is to accompany with the holy sacraments this Quechua branch of the Inca people and seek ways and means to give witness to the faith through charitable works. Much of the money I benefit from my pastoral labours go to assisting aged people with no financial resources, orphans who subsist on a minimal upkeep, parents with disabled children and, as I mentioned, ill persons who need some extraordinary funding.

All of this is to me a great pleasure. To serve God’s people in so remote a place, a community so simple and almost childlike as to humble me unendingly, is a rare privilege and an honour. You might like to join me in this mission by your prayers and, if you will, by forwarding any extent of donation which will help tremendously. Though I am aware that many collection campaigns pursue your generosity, one thing I can assure you is that a contribution here is a straight shooter. The HSBC account in my name is 023-160-989-051.

As a proud Dominican of the province of Malta, temporarily assigned to the convent of Arequipa of the province of Peru, in the name of dear people like Petronila, I extend my warm regards to all friends and donors, and promise my prayers. Thank you.