…And the rest of day 2 of the dental clinic

          We do hope that you read this afternoon’s earlier posting.  This post will highlight the dental clinic and our ever expanding presence.  Thanks to Dr. Tino and Dr. Elsa we now have two rooms to use.  With three dentists traveling with us and a new portable dental chair, we initially set up a triage and tooth extraction position in a corner of two hallways a few steps away from our usual dental room.  Today we moved, thanks to Dr. Tino and Dr. Elsa, the triage and tooth extraction position into a very large room – with air conditioning.  The expectation is that next year’s team will consolidate all three positions into this large room – there is more than sufficient space.  This will make for a much better environment and more efficiency.  In the first two days of operation the dental clinic saw and treated about 52 AP children along with several of the hospital staff.  Many of the children required restorative work which was accomplished.  In fact ALL of the required work on ALL but two of the children was completed – this is a first for the dental team of not leaving with needed restoration left undone.  There were two children treated today who will return tomorrow to finish up their dental needs.  Tomorrow we also will be treating some 15 children from La Montanita.

Because of inclement weather Allen and Gail had to quickly improvise ways to engage with the children waiting to be triaged, teeth cleaned, and then restoration (read cavities filled / teeth extracted).  The age of the internet was our savior.  With permission from the hospital staff, Allen and Gail were able to interact more successfully using their iPads and the iTranslate program.  Long conversations with the children and some of the mothers were enjoyed.   

 The dental team only worked twelve and half hours today.  We returned to the ranch for home made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with bananas available. We told our faithful Gloria and Sandra to leave early as we would return late again. However, we did celebrate our dedicated and hard working translator Daniel’s 42nd birthday at lunch.  The team purchased him a gift and a pineapple upside-down cake, his favorite, for dessert.