Sunday, 6 April 2014

KIA-part 3

Well, it is an important day today. HAPPY 27th BIRTHDAY...LINDSAY!! We are missing you, you would be a big help here and you would love this trip! Have a great day Linds, we are thinking of you!! We'll PARTY when we get home!

Now back to the Philipphines...this is our KIA (Kindness in Action) team picture. KIA began almost 15 years ago in St. Paul Alberta, by a dentist that had been down to Honduras with his church and saw a need there for dental care.

The next year he put together a few dentists and assistants that would travel with him to Honduras to treat these people. That was the beginning of KIA and it has now grown significantly with 12 teams going out annually to various parts of the world.This is Natasha, a hygienist, giving oral hygiene instruction.

As we arrived at our destination today we had a large crowd waiting for us, luckily the local people have organized and triaged what needed to be done.


We have set up 3 dental 'chairs' for fillings and 3 "chairs" or tables for surgery. We had a couple of local dentists join us.

The dentistry is so expensive here that many cannot afford it.

We have 4 hygeine tables with a hanging water pole to supply water to the Cavitron...thank goodness for the Cavitron, the calculus is rampant here. Even Doug was chipping off pieces in surgery. (Linds...you would love it!)
Surgery is so important here to help extract teeth that are severely infected. Even the little ones need extractions of their adult teeth...so sad! They are so frightened, they don't know what to expect, many have never even been to a dentist before.

It is soooo hot here...32 degrees today and trying to work in the heat would be impossible without our fans!! This is my view of our fans, as we sterilize.



A news crew came today and did a story on us and interviewed Dr. Bill. It will be on TV here tomorrow, however we are flying out early in the morning to our next destination.


This is sweet Nieves Basung... she is 97. Her husband died recently, he was 102! What a lovely lady!

It is her daughter Virginia, sitting next to Nieves, that lives in Edmonton and is a patient of Dr. Bill Sharun's.
Last year at her appointment she requested that KIA come here to her hometown and do dentistry. So...here we are! Her father was Carlos Basug, and he founded Diffun, Quirino, the first area we worked in for 3 days.

Diffun comes from the term dafungan, which means where people come from different towns to create a community.

This is Larencio P Zuniega the mayor of Cordon, Isabela where we have worked for the last two days.
After we finished today, he gave a little speech, presented a plaque to Dr Bill and was so happy that we came to his town to help the people.

They have hosted us so generously...we have had tons of delicious food and snacks all the time!
The transportation has been fun from riding in the back of pick up trucks, to Jeepneys, to Tricycle motorcycles

And even an ambulance!! We put 12 of our team of 24 in each trip back and forth.





 

We have done a lot of work this last week in these two nearby towns...we have done 489 fillings, 282 scaling patients and 1,380 extractions, on a total of 936 patients!
It is so great to feel ad see the gratitude of these people and to see our team working together, it truly is Kindness in Action!!

 

 

Today after work we went to a "Resort" and had lunch, it was beautiful, and they had prepared a delicious buffet for us.

And then we went swimming, it was so refreshing and so much fun!

We walked back from the resort which was lovely to our hotel and then saw the local homes and the contrast between the two...so sad!!

 

And the people we meet are so kind, they are wonderful people!

The kids entertain themselves in the good old fashioned way...playing outside!


They are happy and content with life.

This is a common vehecile used here, Doug wants to drive one!

We are finished in this area and we leave tomorrow to go to the Island of Capul for another few days of dentistry there.

It will be very remote...we will send an update of the area when we can. We are safe and loving this experience, even though we do have homesick moments! Love you all!!

 

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