Today we went to a village that is basically just up the hill from the team house. It is quite a hill. The road had pretty much washed out all the way to the village. The 8 K took about 45 minutes each way. The vegetation this direction was very different from what we encountered yesterday. It seemed less tropical and more like you would see in east Texas- even pine trees. The village where we worked today was the same one where the construction team spent their week last year.
We set up the clinic and everyone got busy. I had taken the printer and supplies to do photos, print them, and give them to the locals. I had no idea it was going to be so well received.
When I asked about electricity, I was told there was a solar panel. That was great, I just had no idea exactly what that meant. It did provide electricity by powering a car battery that connected to an outlet via small jumper cables. The printer ran non stop for about 5 hours. It took that long to print out the 150 photos. It started out that I was doing the mom and the kids. When they they realized they were actually going to get the photos to keep, it went to everyone wanting a group photo (at least one) and then a solo. I was trying to keep it to each person having one photo. That didn't go well. They would get in another group and then another. They would hold a different child. Some even went home and changed clothes to come back to have me take a different photo.
The printer was set up in a corner of the room near the window. The young adults and older teens would stand outside the window and watch the printer. They would try to guess whose photo was printing.
I didn't receive many thank yous, but the excitement over receiving the photos was evident.
They didn't smile much at all. Most all of them were solemn. Remember photos from the last century - the old sepia toned ones your grandmother had? Remember hos no one smiled? Today I kept remembering how my grandmother said they would act when a photographer would come through and take photos for people. They would take so many group photos and no one would smile. Today I felt like that photographer must have felt.
Today Joy Anna and I attempted VBS. That many kids with two non spanish speaking gringos did not go too well. Tomorrow we are going to focus on helping out with the little ones whose parents are waiting to be see. Hopefully, that will go better tomorroe.
The dental team did 51 extractions. The medical team treated over 135 patients.
I am excited to see how tomorrow goes.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment