Monday, March 21, 2011

Obrigado!

Obrigado!  Thank you!  ありがとうございます。 Tak!

Thank you to all of the mission team members from Brazil, United States, Japan, and Denmark for their "Service Above Self".  Together, we have served over 2000 people with eye care and dental care. 

A special thank you to Patricia and Alex Andrade for leading and over-seeing the mission in Brazil, US Team coordinator Connie Spark, Eye Team leader Dr. Amy Spotts, and Dental Team leader Dr. Robert Lawson-Smith from Denmark and Dr. Melissa Crognale - US Dental Team coordinator.

A Surprising Discovery - a Rotary Monument

We were pleasantly surprised to find a Rotary Monument at our hotel in Foz do Igaucu.  Apparently, the hotel was the site of a Rotary International gathering and many RI presidents planted Friendship Trees around the monument.




The Cultural Portion of the Mission

When we travel to another country to provide medical care, we also want to learn about the people, the culture, and the homeland of the people we are caring for.  We often take a few days to experience our host country after the medical portion of the mission.

After we finished in Jequintinhonha (affectionately named "J-Town" by the mission team members), we traveled to Foz do Iguacu for a few days to experience Iguazu Falls.  On Friday we toured the Brazilian side of the Falls....



and a Bird Park....



...and on Saturday we experienced the Falls from Argentina...


On Saturday evening, we enjoyed dinner and a show featuring dances and music samplings from various Latin America countries.

Before heading home on Sunday, we had a tour of the Itaipu Dam, the largest operating hydroelectric facility in the world and one of the 7 modern wonders of the world.

Mission Totals

In the 6 days of the mission, the Eye Team saw over 1500 patients, prescribing over 500 pairs of prescription glasses and dispensing hundreds of reading glasses and sunglasses.  We referred many older patients for cataract surgery or advanced glaucoma evaluations and treated patients for conjunctivitis, allergies, and dry eyes.



The Dental Team saw over 600 patients for which they performed extractions and fillings.


Thursday, March 17, 2011

Day 6 of the Mission - Through the woods and Over the River...

The last day of the mission took us to a small river village named Sao Paulo.

We traveled west along the Jequintinhonha River about 45 minutes and then we had to leave the bus and take the team, equipment, and supplies across the river by ferry. The ferry was essentially a flat barge which could carry one vehicle and a few horses (or an entire Rotary mission team). As we crossed the river, the team discussed the possibility of the daily torrential downpours on our return trip in the late afternoon.



The river is about the width of the Susquenhanna. Once we arrived on the far bank, we had to trek, on foot,  uphill into and through the village for about a mile until we arrived at the school. With the sun shining and humidity still high, needless to say we were rather drenched and spent by the time we got to the school. Fortunately, our Brazilian army escorts took care of lugging all of our crates.



We had a very productive day seeing close to 300 patients in the eye clinic. The dental clinic was busy also. There were quite a few of the school children that were malingering (faking poor vision) to try to get glasses. We had to rely on our "magic glasses" - a pair of glasses with no prescription. For the most part, the docs know how a person should see by measuring the reflection in the eyes (retinoscopy). So when we see a minimal prescription and the child can't see the big E, then we put on the magic glasses. When they read all the way down to the bottom of the chart, we confirm our suspicions. We then ask the interpreter to tell them that they see well and don't need glasses and that we need to save our glasses for the people that really can't see.


  We were blessed to make the return trip across the river before the rain came (there were dark clouds on the horizon). We attended the Jequintinhonha Rotary Club meeting on Wednesday evening for dinner. It was supposed to start at 8:00 pm, but we were delayed prepping all of the crates for our return home (everything needs inventoried and documented for customs). The meeting started around 9:00 and after a lot of speeches and recognitions, dinner was served around 10:40 pm.



We break camp on Thursday and begin the "cultural" part of the trip as we will travel to the Iguacu Falls on the Argentina/Brazil border for a few days.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The Weather...

It has rained every day that we have been here.  I'm not talking drizzly rain, but serious torrential type rain.  Sometimes it has lasted a short while, like a 20 minute downpour today.  Sometimes it has gone on for hours and hours.  It usually rains later in the afternoon.

The Jequininhonha River is very wide and seems to absorb the water well.  There are signs that the river is flowing significantly higher now than it was when we first arrived, but there is no concerns of flooding in the town.


The temperature has been in the low 90's during the days and upper 70's at night, with very high humidity due to the all or the rain.

If It's Tuesday This Must Be Guaranilandia!

Today we loaded the bus again for another roadtrip.  This time we headed east into farm country - mainly cattle lands with white Brahmas standing up on the hills.  We traveled thirty minutes on the main road and then a few miles on a single lane dirt path into the farm village of Guaranilandia.

We set up in a surprisingly beautiful school.  The classrooms in this school were very well adorned with ABC's, lessons on weather and calendars, etc.




The dental team saw 100 patients today...their busiest day thus far.  The eye team saw around 280+ patients which included  the extra patients bussed in from Jequintinhonha from Saturday that we weren't able to finish. 

We also saw children from an orphanage in Aracuai.  On Sunday during our day off, we stopped  to look at a craft shop at the orphanage which is run by nuns.  The children were so adorable and we had noted at least four of them had significant inward eye turns (esotropia) which can sometimes be corrected or improved with glasses if the child is highly farsighted.  We expressed a desire to try to help these kids and arrangements were made to bring the children 3 hours to see us today.



Tomorrow is our last day of patient care before we head out for a little cultural experience at Iguacu Falls.