Friday, March 23, 2012

Dental Camp in Kristi Village

Yesterday we held the dental camp in the village of Kristi.  This sits uptop a mountain very close to Pokhara and the view is incredible.  The only problem was the road, it was the dustiest road I have ever been on and by the time we arrived we were covered in a thick coat of dust.  The road was all hairpin bends with sheer drops to the sides and the taxi driver was amazing with his driving skills.  At one point a dump truck dropped a load of rocks in the middle of the road so we had no way by so the taxi driver got out and started moving the rocks by hand.  We decided this was going to take a very long time and got out and walked but soon along came the taxi.  He deserved a big tip!
We first went to the school where NEF had donated some money last fall.  The old school was at the point of falling down and has since done so with some children in it but fortunately none were hurt.  They had three new rooms and my husband, Bob, suggested that they be divided temporarily till more rooms could be built.  They were just bare cement.  I was delighted to see them now brightly painted and one big room carpeted for the little children, low tables in a square with writing white board surfaces for the children to write on and the teacher sits in the middle.  It was very remarkable.  They had gone to Pumdi Bhumdi to get the idea and this is now our model school.  Kristi now hopes to be in that area.  I was very pleased with the management here.  One room they are going to divide during the holiday next week.  I would like to continue work here but have no money to spare now.  They need to build some more rooms one at a time and have the building stone but need money for cement etc.  So if anyone would like to donate to this project it would be greatly appreciated, big or small all add up and help a lot of children. 
We then went to the dental camp, there was myself, Mann and Dev Raj from Annurpurna Rotary.  We were welcomed and there were some speeches and during the morning the dentists saw many old people and mothers and in the afternoon when school was finished the children were seen.  Nearly 400 in all.  They have to come to Pokhara for the treatment other than extractions which were done on the spot.  One elderly lady badly needed an extraction but her blood pressure was too low for it to be safely done.  I watched while one little boy had a tooth pulled and he never made a sound or shed a tear and it was done with no freezing.  We have now done two of these dental camps and already 200 people have finished treatment.  Many thanks to Duncan Noontime Rotary and Sunrise Rotary in Merritt, B.C. Canada for raising the funds to make these possible.  You have helped a lot people to better dental health and in turn better health generally.
Before we left I wanted to visit the little coffee farm we went to last fall.  I tried out the extractor which extracts the bean from the fruit and they showed me the different phases the coffee goes through all by hand, no fancy machines here.  We also tried the coffee made three different ways.  The coffee is like no other. 
Now I am going to publish this and try and put the photos on separately in case I lose this whole thing.

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