Medical Team

We left on the bus every morning at 6am, ate breakfast and then arrived at our medical site by 7:30 to begin working. The gates opened at 8am and there was always a long line of people waiting. I began most mornings with a ca phe sua and a French baguette, usually accompanied by pho or beef stew.

Some of the many patients, lined up when we arrived in the morning.

Crowd control was an issue. Without any barriers to keep people at bay in the open air market, we relied some rather inexpensive strapping rope to keep areas off limits. With so many people needing care, it did the trick for awhile each day, although we still had gate crashers and line jumpers. Most people saw our rope barrier as a challenge, or invitation, depending on how you look at it, to step over, under, walk through, play with, stretch, you name it.

This little guy was all smiles until he needed to get blood work. Although he was relatively robust and healthy, it took a few tries to get the sample. He wanted nothing to do with giving up his blood sample and his pitiful wails brought tears to my eyes. Once the traumatic event was over, he was all smiles again and got a mother lode of plastic dinosaurs for his trouble.

Happy family. This girl was incredible sweet with her baby sister. Judging by the fact that she had many of her permanent teeth, I was surprised that she could be older than An Chi since she was so slight.

Some of our team posing with Nhu, one of the lovely interpreters.

We drank A LOT of Gatorade. I'm sure I drank more this week than
in all of the last 10 years.

Love this bike! Someone told me that there are 8 million people in Vietnam and there are 7 million motorbikes. I really miss seeing all the bicycles on the streets. Much has changed in the 7 years I was last here.

Brenda and Catherine were in charge of painting fluoride varnish on teeth. And boy did those teeth need it! Judging by their reaction, most of the kids we saw have never had this. There was much spitting and rubbing off of the newly applied varnish. Win some, lose some.