I finally finished the first part of my painting this past
week! (This is 1/3, there are 2 more figures on the way.) The students loved it. I’m getting to know them pretty well by sitting in
on their physics and chemistry classes all day long. It’s so cool to see how
dedicated they are to becoming doctors even in secondary school (high school).
The school system here is different than in America and it only takes 5 years
to become a doctor after secondary school. Some of these students will be
doctors before I am.
Life-sized skeleton named Francis
Last week was busier than usual, and this week will be even
busier than the last. The rush to complete all the big projects has started.
Last week I organized another dental outreach- it went pretty well. I think by
now I’m pro at giving pep talks to scared children.
Preparing lidocane and adrenaline injections
This procedure would have normally cost them 90000 shillings ($30) which is more than a normal family can afford. Instead I was able to help provide this procedure for free.
The next day I helped with an eye outreach. I acted as
pharmacist for all of the eye medications. We helped 186 people with vision and
medical eye problems. #crushedit.
I used Athletic Tape to label the different piles of glasses. And... apparently Athletic Tape can double as stickers.
As cool as the dental and eye outreaches were, nothing was
quite as cool as the cataracts outreach on Friday and Saturday. We interviewed
and selected 13 people to have a life changing cataracts surgery on Friday.
Getting to know the patients was incredible- but even better was following them
into the surgery room and standing literally next to the doctor as he performed
surgery. (even better was that he let me take pictures!!!) One of the old men,
Jon, who I followed through surgery started laughing and talking excitedly (DURING the surgery… Dr. Bakaki had to tell him to stop moving…) because for the first
time in years he could see light.
Scrubbed in for surgery :)
Dr. Bakaki (This guy is my hero. Seriously. He's a surgeon weekdays and a banana farmer on weekends. He's one of the coolest kindest men I've ever met.)
We went early Saturday morning to see the
bandages removed and people everywhere were crying. I’ve hardly seen any crying
here in Africa- but giving sight to these people was worth crying over. The
youngest patient was Patrick, age 18, if he’s able to regain his sight he wants
to become an eye surgeon someday. He has 2 years left in secondary school - he
often gets up as early as 2am to study. Hopefully giving him his sight will
allow him to live his dreams. After surgery he was pointing at objects and
teaching me their Lugandan names. He can now see around 5 meters ahead. He’s
been blind since birth. There was nothing like it :)
Me and Patrick
Can you imagine how excited the blind man must have been
when Jesus gave him his sight? Can you imagine how he must have wept to see his
friends and family for the first time? I got to see what it was like for
Patrick to see a car for the first time and identify it as a car. He finally
got to see me- just a crazy mzungu girl, and together we were happy.
Surely this is the most beautiful place. And now those 13 friends can see the beauty too.
No comments:
Post a Comment