Today was a fun, noisy, busy, successful, and revealing day. Dr. Karla, a medical student that is visiting Nica named Matt and I brought all the special needs kids from one of the school to a clinic for dentist appointments, and hemoglobin/hematocrit tests. When we arrived at the school, the special needs children and their accompanying parent were ready to go...anticipating the opportunity in the day. Most of the kids at these schools are low-income families which means a lot more than it does in the USA. Most of them had never been to a doctor or rely on the emergency room for their medical concerns. We loaded the morning group of 33 kids and their caregivers on the bus and we were off.
On the bus we had the caregiver fill out a form for the hemoglobin/hematocrit test and we split the group into two groups one to see the dentist first and the other to do the hemoglobin/hematocirt tests.. The we unloaded one group at a time and crossed the busy street and went into the clinic. There were not nearly enough chairs so Dr.Karla and the med student went to rent some for the day. Then Dr. Karla thought to bring a clown in to entertain while they were all waiting. The medical student bought all the kids juice. It was a Fiesta at the clinic! Only about 10 of all 63 kids cried and most were happy to be there. It was fun, effective and I really got to know the special needs students/caregivers better.
After the morning group was done we returned to the school had some tortilla and tamarind juice then I went back to the school with the second/afternoon group for the second fiesta. Through the exams today that we discovered some definite needs that need to be address. Dr. Karla and I certainly have work cut out for us...
Love,
Ayla Landry
“Life is a big canvas so splash all the paint on it that you can!” ~ unknown
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