Dentistry in the Bush

Last night we met Dr. Fuller Robinson, who has been visiting BMC yearly since I was born (someone told me that he's turning 80 years old this year). He is a dentist in Virginia. He is here with his granddaughter, Dana, who is just 15. When he comes, he spends most of his days going out to the bush villages and extracting teeth. He has taught some folks here how to extract teeth as well. Two of the other volunteers and myself had the opportunity to with him today. We headed out to a village 5 miles from the Togo border, it was somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half drive.

One of the medical assistants with us was from the village we went to, and it turned out that his mother made us lunch that day, which was quite yummy, but we'll get to that. Dr. Fuller had fully briefed us on all the customs that go along with these visits, he had prepared us for dealing with the chief, which is the first stop at the village. You usually go into the chief's hut, and you have have to bow on the ground and go through all this ceremonial stuff before the chief sends you out to do the work you came to do. This was Dr. Fuller's first time to this particular village, so he wasn't sure what to expect. So we get there, and we walk down to meet the chief. They sit us outside this hut, and honestly I thought we were out there waiting to be invited into the hut. Come to find out though, this was actually the chief and his elders out there! I guess this chief was really relaxed compared to some. Mainly he was interested in having us white girls take pictures with him, which we certainly obliged him with.

Then we headed down and set up shop. I won't be able to share enough pictures to really give you the picture. BUT the back of the truck is set up so that we can extract teeth. The front of the truck, we attach inverters to the motor, so that they can do cleanings in the front. Dr. Fuller went to the school to sort over the children into who needed what. I was left behind with Isiac, one of the assistants, to start numbing people and extracting. Yes I'm in medical school, not dental school. Yet within a few minutes I was extracting my first teeth. In fact, by the end of the day we all got pretty good at it. Anyone need a tooth out?

At some point the chief came down to preside over us. But mainly we just had at it. Afterwards they invited us to lunch. Now often it's one of the chief's wives who cooks for us, and Dr. Fuller has many stories about the weird things he has been forced to eat. However, since Thompson, ones of the assistants with us is from this village, and he is an assembly man here, his mother cooked Teazat for us. This is a very traditional food here. It's essentially a cooked maize, that you pick up with you fingers, and dip into a soup. The soup had guinea fowl in it. It was actually really good. We were glad to not be eating a chicken with ALL of it's parts in a soup.

After lunch, the village presented us with a gift for our work. We became the proud owners of sheep and a chicken! Faith, one of the volunteers, and a third year resident in CA, accepted the gifts, which we had to load in the truck to bring home with us. We thankfully were able to give the sheep and the chicken away to one of the other workers, and we are sad to say likely they are no longer living.

The ride to and from the village was a trip. It was a mix of dirt and paved roads. However, with everyone with us, there wasn't room for all of us inside the truck. I volunteered to sit in the back of the truck. We actually sat on a wooden bench we were bringing to the village. The locals do it all the time, but they thought as a white girl, I was crazy. They absolutely insisted I wear a surgical towel on my head to protect my hair, and surgical mask on my face so I didn't breath all the dust, when you added my sunglasses, it was QUITE the ensemble! And with the dust from the road, by the time we got back, I had the Ghana equivalent of a spray on tan. I was COVERED head to toe in red dust.

It was a really fun day! Dr. Fuller bought us all coca-cola and cookies on the way home! (kind of funny for a dentist to buy us soda and cookies)

Tonight we had a station meeting, where we sing hymns, a little devotional, pray together, and then had a birthday celebration for Mona Hewitt (Dr. Hewitt's wife). It has been a pretty exciting day!

PS I have great pictures from today, but they aren't loading, so maybe I'll get them on another night.