Blog, Mission 2017

Clinic #8 – Viyalo, May 2/17

Arriving to clinic to see a line of more than 50 people already waiting outside is just a slightly daunting start to the day. However, with the help of Solomon to get the crowd going, we were put in right mindset to start chugging along.

The clinic started at a realitively lively pace, and a number of us had the chance to do some community jigger visits as well as home visits.

Erica, Brian, Victor and I had the opportunity to head to the Friends School next door to the clinic to provide some deworming of the school kids. Last week school was still out, so this week kids are all back to hitting in the books in their adorable uniforms. We checked out some of the classrooms, and looked at the books the kids were studying even though they were in Swahili and I could not make heads or tails of it.

We had the kids line up in two straight lines, hold out their hands and take the deworming pill. Oh, and we said “tarufa” which means chew. It must have been our pronounciation, because they thought it was hilarious. That, or the fact that we looked so different than they did. A number of kids touched my arm… I don’t know if they were checking if I was a ghost or not.

I think the kids were mainly intrigued with us, because then they just hung around and inched closer and closer to us. I felt like a lone candy bar that every child was eyeing and slowly coming closer to try to take. They were truly adorable though. We had a little sing a long, I made faces at some kids, and the older kids (the 8th graders) tried to be cool and not take their pills. But we had our eyes on them.

Recess must have been happening at that point, because next thing we knew the skipping rope was out and kids were showing us all their sweet moves. They had songs, kids jumped in and out of the rope to join, and they had all these tricks that they did which was amazing. I tried to jump a couple of times, but am unclear if I am just a terrible jump roper or the kids just couldn’t figure out how to allow a tall person to jump without smacking me in the head!

We arrived back to the clinic with the line now circling around the building. Yikes. But, we successfully made it through everyone with the help of lots of sweat and a few tears. All in all, we ended up treating 777 people. That is an all time record for us on this current mission! That is not counting the kids we dewormed, the people we provided jiggers treatment to or the home visits. Talk about kicking butt. 👌🏻