TGIF!

When I stepped on board tonight at 5:15 pm I was so glad it was Friday. What a week. We spent Monday- Wednesday working hard setting up and Thursday and Friday working hard seeing our first round of patients. When we arrived on Wednesday morning there were approx. 350 people waiting for us. There was no line no order just a mass of people who had been waiting for only God knows how long. I tried to explain to them that we were only going to be able to see 50 people, and they were not happy about that. I spent the next 2 1/2 hours sorting through patients, lining people up, telling people to come back another day, and telling people no I am sorry we can not see you today please come back. I remember tell this one lady after she had just told me.... but I need my tooth out. Madam, we can not see all the people of Benin today. She laughed and agreed. I spent the rest of the day refusing patients, and assuring them that we will be in operation until December. CRAZY!

Today when we arrived there were our 50 patients that we had given appointments to on Thursday for today plus an additional 80 people plus the 530+ eye patients. (The eye team works at our facility on Fridays) We arrived and thought here we go again. Another crazy day and to top it all off 2 of our dental units stopped working. haah! What can you do. At the end of the day the patients were treated and we were tired and happy to go home.

I with out a doubt have seen Gods hand at work this entire week. I can't believe the strength and wisdom He has given me in just one week. I told the team at the end of today GOOD JOB and next week is a new week! ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND.

Things will get better. It will take a month I am guessing for people to start to understand our system of operation. The team did Fantastic and were real troupers.I know it will be a smooth routine within a couple of weeks. Until then I will continue to be a crazy mad women running around like a chicken with its head cut off. :)

Enjoy your weekend I know I will. At the pool I think.

This picture does not do the mass crowd justice. However this was all I was bale to snap. This would be a picture of the 80 people we did not get to see today.

From nothing to SOMETHING!

Monday the dental team started what felt like the never ending task of setting up the clinic. We were all excited because things were finally starting to move. We loaded up 4 trucks and 2 Landrovers and made our way to the clinic. When we arrived we had approx. 75 patients waiting there for us. After an hr or so of talking with people through a translator of course.... (I need to learn French) I finally got everyone settled down and told them to return on Thursday.

We spent all day Monday, Tuesday, and today getting things in order. We went from having NO power or water, no working generators, nothing set up or unpacked, no day volunteers to having water, power,working generators, 11 day volunteers, and all the instruments autoclaves and supplies accounted for and working.

We are ready to go. Tomorrow will be our first day of seeing patients. We are all so excited that we might not be able to sleep tonight.... Well I take that back, I don't think any of us will have trouble sleeping tonight. I have worked from 7am till 11:30 pm for the past three days. It has been another week of long hot hard days but tomorrow patients will be in our chairs and our clinic will be functioning. WOO HOO!.!

From this on Monday:

To this a Functioning Dental Clinic today:

The Night Before........

It's the night before it all starts. The beds are ready and the crew is rested. Tomorrow our first round of patients will be admitted. Tuesday will be the first day for surgeries.

The dental team is heading to the clinic tomorrow to start getting it set up. We are hoping to start seeing patients by Thursday.

Keep these patient in your prayers, tomorrow is a big day for them and for all of us as well.

Brief briefing on screening. Day 1

WOW! I am tired but so full and content. Today was an amazing day, and we screened a lot of people almost 2,000 to be more precise. I worked in just about every station possible. I started my day off at 6am in security, then moved into my dental role and screened and weeded out dental patients and instructed them to come to our clinic that this was not the screening for them, transported patients from pre-screening to health histories, served water, played with kids, and helped pack things up. It was hot and long but these people saw Jesus through us today and we saw Jesus through these people and that is all that matters.

We do it all again tomorrow. Same time same place. Pray that we can have the strength and compassion to see these people for who they really are and not just another surgery number. As I looked around the lines today I could not help but think of all the peoples lives that are going to be changed in the next 10months through these surgeries. And this is where it all starts, a hot, long, humid , but glorious day in Benin.

Avotrou

Enjoy your first look at Avotrou Medical Center in the area of Akpakpa. This is the location of our dental clinic for the Benin field service. Today Dag and I were able to actually get out there and take a look around. What we found was a facility that is going to be WONDERFUL! It is clean, spacious, new, secure, dependable electricity and water, and in a good location.- It even has a little bit of landscaping. :)

We were both so excited after we left the clinic tonight. We were getting a bit discouraged this week considering we planned to be in the clinic by now and all ready to go. However our plan did not allow for customs, keys, and car registration issues. So as things starting to look in the upward direction we have regained our vision.

The MANY keys to the clinic- each door has a key.

The entrance from the street well actually the dirt road.

The eye team is working with us on Fridays, here is there clinic the dispensaire.

Here is our building the maternite. It has lots and lots of rooms. BIG!
Outside waiting area.

Hygiene room. Please take notice of the lights and fans. They are in all the rooms. :)

Bathrooms and showers???? for out patients.. no pepe outside. And we have flowers.......................

Hitting the paved sidewalks :)

Saturday I spent my first day out and about. We left around 12pm and wondered back to the ship around 5:30pm. My brief first impression of Cotonou parts of the city are nicer, cleaner, and more developed than Liberia. Other parts are just as poor. I have found that knowing French is important and I need to learn at least the basics so I can meet these people where they are at. For now I will go everywhere with my French Phrase book..... hoping and praying that my French speaking roommate can be of assistants in teaching me a thing or two about this language.

The pictures are compliments of my roommate Carmen and other crew members who were out and about this weekend. I did not take my camera so I am glad they did. :)

The ship docked in Cotonou

The fishing dock located just to the left of ours.

A goat just hanging out on the sidewalk. Totally Normal.
In Liberia this would say no pepe here....... in Benin it says Interdit d'uriner ici.

The streets
Look at all the lovely produce they have here. :)
City Street

Business Transaction.

Thursday Dag( the crew dentist) and I headed out on a little business adventure. We were needing to go discuss a few things with a local man who will be fabricating all of our dentures and replacements for our patients. We had been told that this man was very good and his prices were cheap. Cheap is good, cheap mean more patients will be able to receive replacements, but cheap can also mean poor quality. So for the first time we hit the streets on Cotonou in search of the denture man. Once we found the business we had a conversation through a translator of course... (the man spoke zero English) and we both agreed that Seidou would be our new denture man. :)

Things are moving rather slowly, we have not received clearance or registration yet for our vehicles so we have not been able to get out to see out clinic site yet. Which is sad and a little discouraging, we all kind of thought we would have had at least started setting the clinic up by now. Oh well what can you do, NOTHING! We are all praying the cars are cleared Monday and that things can really get rolling this week. Please keep our big screening days in your prayers. They are this coming Thursday and Friday. Pray God will lead those He has plans for to us and lead those He has other plans for away from us. We are expecting up to 4,000 people to show up.