KIA-part 4

Another important day...HAPPY 33rd BIRTHDAY ...CAM!!! We are thinking of you and wish you a wonderful day with your family and new baby Colby Cameron!! We are 14 hours ahead of you here, so we've had a good start on thinking of you today!! We miss you and wish you were here! So much need for dentistry...you would love it and the people. Have a great day! We'll celebrate with all of you when we get home!

Today in the Philippines is a non working day for us. We are leaving our hotel this morning at 7:30 am. We have had nice accommodations here, comfortable rooms and clean beds...and generally good food.

The place we stayed in is very popular for weddings. Because this is their summer season, there have been two weddings during our stay here. They have lovely grounds with beautiful flowers and plants.

 

 

 

 

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Beautiful, lush trees, with vines growing all over them.

We moved as a group by bus to the airport and we flew back to Manila. We are staying overnight and leaving the hotel at 2:00 am in the morning for our flight and then a ferry over to the Island of Capul.

 

 

While we were at the airport, we met a missionary returning home from his mission. He had spent most of his time in the area we had just done our dentistry in. Nice young man, he's returning home to Los Angeles.

 

 

 

 

 

After we had checked in to our hotel, Doug and I got a cab and went to see the Temple and the MTC looking for Clark and Doris Wood. They are serving a mission here and their daughter Shauna is married to our bishop, Dustin Burbank. She had a little package she wanted us to drop off to them.

 

 

 

When we arrived and found the MTC across from the Temple both Clark and Doris were out of the office, so we dropped off the package and had a nice visit with Sister Divine. She cooks for the missionaries that are in the sick compound area of the MTC. She shared some of her freshly baked banana bread with us. She served a mission to the southern Philippines in 1990, she is pointing to her area. There are now 21 missions in the Philippines!!

 

 

After our visit, we stopped by the "knock off" shops at he Green Hills Mall, we did some browsing, but no shopping. It was fun! We are going to bed after a great day, but not looking forward to our 1:30 wake up call. We are going "off the grid" tomorrow to the Island of Capul, so we may not be in contact for a few days, but stay posted...love you all!! Hope you have a great day...Cam!!

 

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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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KIA, part two

Another busy day at work today! so many patients to see in such a short time.

 

 

We have a great setup.

But still using what is available to do dentistry and hygiene on.

Doug was doing extractions today

 

 

We have Dr Ben who insists on working barefoot...he was doing fillings!

He naps with his shoes on! What a goof! But he's a great dentist!

 

 

This is our sterilization team...

And we have a good time keeping everything "clean"!

 

 

This is a father/son team, Dad is a former RCMP and Matt, his son is an EMT and a firefighter...it's fun to work with these guys! Tough guys doing sterilization all day! They're great!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While Doug was taking a break in his "Dental Chair", which is a car seat nailed onto a wood frame...it was his turn for some 'R and R' and a quick massage!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The children are always so adorable!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we actually had a nice sign welcoming us to our new area! It was a great day!

 

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Kindness in Action-Dental Trip (Part One)

What an adventure...Doug and I are in the Philippines foe several weeks on a Dental Mission with a group called "Kindness in Action". It is always nice to go with this group, we have gone with several, but this is a fun, well organized group to go with.

We were invited to go with them over a year ago, but it was a little tough to leave home with new baby Colby still premature in the hospital, but I'm sure he's home now. We do miss everyone, but we are very busy here with all the patients trying to get in.

Our first area that we worked in was called Diffun, Quirino April 1-3

 

We have worked in various places on previous trips, but this was the first one where we worked in a gymnasium...such a big, open area! It was so wonderful to have room to do everything. We have 4 dentists, 4 hygienists, 6 dental assistants, and 8 others helping with sterilization and patient care.

Doug did extractions for the first two days...

And then fillings...today Doug, with his two assistants, Alana and Brenda, added a front tooth to this young woman's partial denture, as well as doing 4 fillings! She was soooo happy!

These are our hygienists, Diana, Natasha, Jennifer and Kim.

 

And my job this trip is to help in sterilizing all the instruments that we use after we see each patient, it is a busy full time job here! I love it.

We have met some wonderful people, this is Jason and his mother. They work and sleep each day in this little kiosk,

 

and they sell BBQ meat...

pigs ears, chicken intestine, pork strips, baby chicks, and blood sausage! Yummmy!

The children here are beautiful!! I love his hair!!

I loved this little boy's Spider-Man shirt, he was so proud of it!

 

They loved the balloons!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The true heart of 'Kindness in Action' is shown here...Mackinzie, not a dentist or hygienist or dental assistant came all the way from Canada to just hold a patients hand and give support!

We love this team and the work we are doing!

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