Day 8

Friday 1st March diary.

Up at 6.30 to get ready for the clinic today , bfast and bus ! We left at 8 am on the bus to again travel to Leonard's church for the second of our 2 day clinics.

As we arrived a young boy in a dirty yellow cardigan was waiting for us with a massively swollen face, poor thing. The local people had already copied the layout of benches outside under the cover of a large tree , for the tree-age ( sorry triage ) and a large queue was forming , ready for us !! 

The clinic was all setup very quickly and everybody was ready. After our morning briefing and words we set to on treating people. Mark was doing post-op and to be honest I don't know how he coped as the part of the church he was working in was already steaming hot and only got hotter !! 

Today was pretty much like yesterday With 4 dentists treating 100 patients and my outstanding memory of the day was a 3 year old girl who had got 4 totally decayed front top baby teeth which needed extracting. She tolerated the injections amazingly well , but on hearing another child screaming she lost her control and started to refuse ongoing care. Stephen the " driver" showed his amazing calming skill and took the girl away and talked to her . Suitably bribed she returned and let me complete all the extractions whilst laid on him in return for her pack of crayons that Mark had brought with him which she was delighted with. She was incredibly pretty  with a dirty dress and immaculately braided  hair , very upsetting to have to treat a girl of this age and I can't help but relate this to my own children as there for the grace of god go I .  Massive credit to Stephen as he showed he is worth his weight in gold!! 

The other distinct memory of the day was Nakirya Sharon aged 17yrs but looked no more than. 13-14 hrs old in her dirty school uniform . She again had the manners of an angel and let me get her decayed molar tooth out with an incredibly difficult extraction . She had also walked 3 hours to see us and faced the same home ... But she did tell me she had to get back as fast as possible as she had to go to school ......... Dedication.  Would my children have gone to school after dental surgery .. Probably not ! Again I hope to post Pictures of her when I get a good wifi connection as it seems Uganda's broadband is not all that reliable ! 

We were now all invited by Leonard the dentist , to his house whose wife ( who had a cesarean section 2 weeks ago )  had cooked the entire team a late lunch at his house with his mothers help!!  Lunch was  very tasty and must have been a massive effort as he has no power or running water at his recently built house and we got to meet his new born son . What a pleasure to experience the real Uganda ..... There is no way that any normal holiday would ever end up with seeing such rural beauty and diversity ... Thankyou Leonard. 

return to the hotel , shower and then food !! 

Tomorrow is a drive to Lacam Lodge retreat for a well deserved mini break , after all,  all work and no play makes johnny a dull boy !!! I can't wait to abseil down the waterfall and maximise the time we have here as Mt Elgon looks simply stunning ...... Laters !!