Day 1: Kitansa (Monday)

We got up bright and early to eat breakfast, pack the car, and head out to our first village.  All of our outreach has been organized through schools, we were heading to the local primary school to set up.  When we arrived we were greeted by a school full of children ready to meet us!  They helped us unload our car, clear their classroom out and move our stuff in.  After about an hour of hard work – we were finally set up and ready to go!

Katie and her favorite, learning to floss.

Dan getting his first patient comfortable with some OHI.

Marc teaching a group of kids how to brush.



We left the house this morning thinking that our goal of seeing 75 patients was outlandish and insane, atleast Dan, Katie and Marc did – for whatever reason, Dr. Farmer was confident in us.  We were able to see 70 patients, send one patient to the hospital for a large growth in the back of her throat, and provide oral hygiene education for almost everyone that we encountered.  In addition to this – the patients we were forced to turn away got toothbrushes, health education, antibiotics for infection or medication for pain and were told to come to Wednesday’s outreach early to be seen if possible.  Overall – we felt really great about everything we were able to do today, and saw some people with very severe conditions.

Marc and Dr. Farmer suturing after an extraction.

"Walumi??" means something like..."where do you have pain?"

Katie was in pediatric heaven with all of the children from the school; the kids loved her oral hygiene puppet and got a kick out of her trying to use Lugandan to instruct them.  She even taught them some English words with her little talks.  Dan was a rockstar helping Dr. Farmer with “the African molar” and was eager to help with anything thrown his way – and everyone else’s way when they needed a break – and got very comfortable with assisting in extractions and anesthesia.  Marc got incredibly comfortable in his diagnostic skills and was able to get through a ton of patients and despite the language barrier was able to make everyone – even a kid with one of the worst infections we have ever seen – comfortable in our presence.



Uncle John doing some sterilization for us



We had so much help from local English speakers – the village heads – and the friars, especially Robert and Ronnie who are the up-coming friars we mentioned yesterday.  Even the man we hired to drive us for the week (Sandy) jumped in and became an amazing dental assistant and a key translator!  We solidified the little Lugandan we know and learned a few more words <please ignore the ridiculous spelling of these words if you are a Luganda speaker>– yasama noi (open more), wanda (spit), luma (bite), and of course bunira (close), and also learned some really helpful body language. 



Sandy (our driver) and Robert ( a friar) doing some translation.

We are looking forward to tomorrow, and are expecting more patients to show up at tomorrow’s village.  Hopefully we will be able to get our process down a little tighter and be able to add a few more patients and rounds of oral hygiene instruction into the mix!