Children of the 'Garbage Dwellers'

July 11, 2012

Our hearts were touched by the young children we treated this morning.   They are children of the 'Garbage Dwellers'.  They live at the garbage dump and their parents gather garbage to survive.   The gentleman on the back row in the light blue shirt is their principal.  They attend a school that has two classes; one for the children who can read a little and the other for those who cannot.   It is funded by donations.   The school feeds them breakast and lunch.  They attend this school for one year and if they progress in the basics, they are transferred to another school the following year.  If not, they do not attend the following year.   Jacqueline, our newly graduated dentist from Guatemala that works in the clinic 2 days a week coordinated the clinic visit.  She is teaching them oral hygiene.

Before the group left the clinic, one young man said a prayer and all the children repeated after him.  After he finished, the principal said a prayer thanking us for taking care of these children and blessed us for our endeavors of giving service to those in need. This is just one of the many touching experiences we've felt in giving serving to others.

When screening these children, we were amazed at how clean and how little work needed to be completed.  We decided they didn't have access to all the sugar and pop most of the other children received on a daily basis.  

Doc J. and Cindi - they are best buddies.   Cindi and the Doc have solotaire competitions. 

This young boy was intriqued with looking at his teeth.   They were all curious about everything in the clinic.   Two young girls kept pushing each other around the room on the assistant chair; so distracting when trying to work but were having fun.

Our youngest patient, 2 years old.  His four upper anteriors were so infected and the teeth were down to the gum line.   Dr. Call helped Doc J. out by taking over the patient.  We all thought he would put up a fuss when trying to anesthesized him.   He was amazing, not a sound out of him.   His four teeth were removed without incident.   The mother, however, had tears all through the procedure.   

Everything is a team effort; Cindi (L), Doc.J., Jacqueline, Dr. Call and mother of the young boy.  About 30 minutes after removing his teeth, he was in the waiting area eating chips.  Five will return in October to have their work completed plus another six who could didn't make it this morning to be screened and treated.  Our schedule was booked out that far; you can understand how busy we are everyday.   'Count your many blessings' is what we do at the end of everyday.