First Day Working in the Clinic

My very first patient of the day.  William the clinic manager told me to be ready about 8:45 AM as patients start to show up then.  There is no schedule, people just line up outside the building.  I showed up and quickly learned that this culture is not a time based culture. I waited an hour and thought maybe there isn't going to be that much to do here.  Then all of a sudden people started strolling in.  People walk for miles to get here and that takes time.  From around 10 am to 5 pm we saw one patient after another.  At around 5 pm we had to turn people away and have them come back tomorrow as we began to lose power.  The power is a combination of solar, battery banks, and limited generator.

Anthony gave this little guy a toothbrush and a rubber band bracelet that he made.  This kid was so happy.

I pulled her wisdom tooth and she was so happy.  She kept thanking me in her language (or at least that is what my translators said she was saying.)  The x-ray below is the wisdom tooth I extracted on her.  In the states most of the time people are put to sleep for that.

I was surprised at her happiness when I extracted this wisdom tooth on her.  The Maasai have extremely dense hard bone I learned but I was able to get it our curved root and all.

This lady said she fell about a month ago and had extreme pain on the lower left.  She could barely open.  I numbed her up so I could get her to open and discovered she had broken her mandible.  From the inside her lower jaw is broken through the tissue and exposed.  The nearest Oral Surgeon is in Nairobi.  We are working on some ideas to get her treatment but we are pretty limited on options out here in the bush.

These monkeys surround the clinic.  You really have to watch your back.  They are very mischievous.  The boys love them.

A different kind of monkey that we discovered.  The Colobus Monkey.  They have no thumbs.

Our clinic is surrounded by an electric fence to keep the predators out.  We have been instructed not to go outside the fence without a guard.  The monkeys and baboons totally disregard the fence.  They just climb trees and jump over the fence.

These girls walked from their school to the clinic.  The boys took the opportunity to teach them American football while they waited.

After working in the clinic we found this game of volleyball going on at the adjacent property.  The previous dentist here had emailed me and told me these guys were in desperate need of a new volleyball so we bought one back in California and brought it with us.  They were so excited to have a new ball.

The Maasai did some ceremonial dances and brought the boys up for the renaming ceremony.  They renamed them with a Maasai name.  Anthony's meant "man with the most cows" and Tyler's was "man who killed the biggest lion".