The dentists

The past week has been really busy for everyone.  From the dentists’ perspective, we have learned a tremendous amount performing screenings on the Upendo HIV group of 55 and carrying out dental extraction surgery on a variety of patients.  The extractions have been mostly on the CCF Arusha children, but also on Dr. Tekle’s (a local dentist) patients.

I don’t really know what week of the trip it is, but either way the next two weeks are shaping up to be really exciting.

We just came back from the Children’s for Children’s Future (CCF) camp in the region of Maji Ya Chai.  Of note, CCF Arusha is the downtown equivalent of CCF Maji Ya Chai and was one of our first missions two weeks back.

Our method of transport was in a relatively nice car that just barely fit our group of five.  In addition, the car had no business being on the road that accessed the CCF camp.  A Range Rover, or perhaps, a hummer would have been ideal to traverse the rocky 10 km path (NOT road).  Since idealism was long evacuated from our vocabulary, we’ve decided to use the same form of transport to reach CCF Maji Ya Chai tomorrow (July 4).

As an aside, the CCF organization is a valuable and essential tool in aiding people in developing themselves, in theory.  It facilitates the development of “street kids” that would otherwise not have much of a future.  However, in practice, a contradictory tale is evolving.  We are finding ourselves consistently going back and forth during nightly group meetings attempting to elucidate what exactly about the CCF organization is awry.  I leave this topic alone for now until we have a better handle on how to tackle the challenges we face in providing aid to the children of CCF.

Today, Jessica, Olga, and Emily performed medical screenings on CCF Maji Ya Chai children while Yasmin and Ramez performed dental screenings.  The soccer ball, colouring markers, and paper were a big hit with the 13 or so children at the camp.  In the afternoon Yasmin and Ramez (and the rest of the group) performed extraction procedures using instruments and medications donating by Londoners and UWO dental clinic.  The kids were very happy!

As for the dentists, we will continue to apply and enhance our UWO dental education to perform dental extractions on the Upendo HIV patients and CCF children.

Posted by Ramez Salti on July 3, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (8)

Comments

Keep up the great work! The loss of idealism and expectation is the first step into truly immersing yourself into the situation of the people you are trying to help :)

Posted by: Shadi | 2006-07-04 8:59:01 AM

Its nice that you are awakening people about oral health. It will be morehappy if you will organize such camps in out state CA.

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Posted by: Dylan | 2011-01-31 12:35:34 AM

It's good that dentists are taking the initiative to educate people and reach out to children who need urgent dental care. There are a lot more out there who don't have access to dental care facilities, and I hope there would be dentists who will go there to reach out as well.

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Posted by: Dr Dentista SP | 2011-11-07 2:28:48 PM

Frequently in very poor areas where health care services are provided the Dentist is the most sought after profession, also optometrists if they have some inexpensive glasses with them. It is amazing how much we take these types of things for granted in the developed world.

Posted by: Dentist, Sonora CA | 2011-11-17 12:09:57 AM