Day 3: Mitanzi (Wednesday)

We started off our last day of village outreach by stopping at a church that served as the village school and being greeted by about 40 kids clapping and singing.  We decided to stop for a little bit and give them all hygiene kits and instructions after Ronald (one of the friars) showed us the sticks that they are using to brush.  The kids LOVED it.  This was the first time most of them had seen a toothbrush/toothpaste and the coloring books that were in the hygiene kits and they really appreciated our silly performances. We looked at the children’s mouths and picked the kids with the 10-15 most severe conditions to take with us to the school to set up our “clinic” and helped some kids wiggle out loose primary teeth that were bothering them.  We headed about 15 minutes deeper into the bush to set up for the day.

Everybody brushing!!!

This location was by far the furthest out into the bush, or deep into the woods.  It felt like it took forever to get there on the bumpy unpaved road.  Once we arrived, we quickly set up shop and got started with the kids and registering the next patients.  We were joined for several hours by 4 dentists from the Uganda Dental Association which was really helpful in seeing as many patients as possible since this was also the location that the most people showed up for.  We were told later by the friars that the villagers thanked them profusely and told them that they often feel forgotten and hopeless because it is so far for them to travel for health care and they live in extreme poverty.

Our Team - UNC + Uganda Dental Teams, we cant wait to collaborate more next year!

Katie, Marc, Dr. Wandera (the president of the UDA), Dan and Dr. Farmer - Thanks to Dr. Wandera and all the dentists we worked with and look forward to working with again in the future!

We had to arrange our room a little differently in this village’s school since there was an abundance of bats!  Because of the large crowds and the fact that we wanted to just continue working, we decided not to allow them to prepare lunch for us on this day.  We did get slowed down temporarily by a huge thunderstorm which made us lose all of our light except our head lamps – the bats decided to come out and play during this little period of darkness and one even landed on Marc’s back and hung out for a while before anyone noticed. 

We treated and/or provided medicine, toothbrushes, and oral hygiene instructions to over 150 people in Mitanzi.  We all had our own personal struggles - Katie with a really young sad/uncooperative child, Dan and Marc with a patient who had not spoken in 2 months due to the pain she was feeling in her mouth.  Dr. Farmer was an amazing instructor, was able to work fast, and really helped us keep it together and learn to keep our confidence going.  Overall, we left Mitanzi exhausted but very happy to have at least given everyone we saw a toothbrush and help them learn to make strides to prevent the situations we saw from occurring again. 

Sayng goodbye to Mitanzi with a few favorites  before giving them a ride back the long distance that they walked in the morning to reach the clinic!