This year for my dental mission travels, I decided to join a group called "Dentistry for All", founded some 20 years ago by a colleague at the U. of A. Dental School, an Edmonton pediatric dentist Dr. Dennis Bedard. He just stepped down from his position as Professor and Chair of the Pedodontics Department at the school. For quite a few years, he's been urging me to join him for a mission. This is a smaller group, compared to "Kindness in Action". To join him, we have to bring our own dental assistant. I almost went one year, except I could not find an assistant in short notice; went to China with the Rose medical group instead. One of my able assistants at the office, Emily, went with me.
It was quite an experience for us, working at conditions much harsher than even Guatemala or Guizhou, China. Guizhou is poor, but at least it's not so darn hot !!, and I could understand the language. Last year before I went to Guatemala, I was given a 4-page print out on words and short phrases in Spanish........ After a week or two, I decided that what they say about old dogs and new tricks was true!....and that I should conserve my brain cells for other tasks more essential for survival, or for fun.
Nicaragua is located between 11 to 14 degrees above the equator; in the real tropics. Currently it is their "summer" (behaves like the southern hemisphere), very hot, dry, and dusty; daily outside temp. when I was there (Jan. 10 - 27) was around 35+/- C. Their "winter", the wet season, starts in May for the 1/2 year that follows. We had 4 dentists in the group, plus an Edmonton MD, a forensic pathologist (The odd man out, fun to work with, but you definitely don't want to "see" him at his work place as a patient!). We worked hard, saw a lot of tough cases......under pretty primitive conditions. Learned a lot, about the people, the culture, and the politics of the country (would not go into that, quite complicated). My interest in these missions is purely humanitarian, not evangelical. Although affiliated with a Catholic organization in Managua, this group is non-denominational and non-evangelical, which suits me just fine. All we share/spread is our love and willingness to help; all we inject into our patients' heads is anesthetic......!
"Dentistry for All" is funded strictly by donations and a couple of local fund-raising events (e.g. the U. of A. Dental Student Association's Winter Charity Ball); receives no government funding whatsoever (neither Canadian nor Nicaraguan), and has a "zero overhead" (participants pay full expenses - air, hotels, food etc.). Like "Kindness in Action", our reward comes from the appreciation of our patients, often saying "thank you" in Spanish with a half frozen asymmetric face!
The local "wild-life" is something else - an eye-opener for me, and especially for Emily my young assistant of German descend, who had NEVER been exposed to anything like that ever before in her life. She had a lesson she would never forget, I'm sure!
Here is for my complete photo-journal on the 2014 Nicaragua mission.
Please click here for an edited album.