6 Months In Burundi: On the Other Side 2/3/13

For years, my family and I have helped with Project Cure. Project Cure gets donated medical supplies, sorts them, and then ships them all over the world. A couple weeks ago, a group from South Carolina came out to run the clinic that was near the Children's home. Instead of sending medical supplies, I found myself on the other side of the world using the donated medical supplies.

In three days, they saw 470 people. The first morning, it was difficult to get through on the road. The first day, the clinic only saw about 120 people. I helped out the afternoon of the second day. I was determined to see if I could improve efficiency to see if we could get more people through, but I couldn't. The people from South Carolina knew what they were doing. I think there were about three nurses, two doctors, at least four interpreters, and a number of other people helping out.

To everyone that came in, we gave deworming medicine that allows people to be free of worms for at least six months. We also gave them vitamin A because there's a deficiency of vitamin A here. Part of the afternoon, I put deworming medicine and vitamins in little plastic bags. The deworming medicine smelled awful.

I tried to fix a couple scales, but wasn't successful. To find the weight of a baby, we would take the weight of both the mother and baby, then subtracting the weight of the baby.

First, people waited in the waiting room. We had the Jesus Film showing. Second, people met with a nurse and an interpreter to determine their symptoms. Many people, especially women, had back pain and neck pain. About all we could do for them was give them Tylenol, so they went to the pharmacy section. We gave a lot of Tylenol away. For more serious symptoms, the people saw the doctors. After the doctors, they went to the pharmacy. After the pharmacy, they went to check out. Some people we gave sunglasses, a piece of candy, a toothbrush and toothpaste. There were some people that prayed with people, and evangelized to them as well before they left the clinic.

The first day there wasn't much ring worm, but the second day we saw a lot of ring worm. Scabies and other skin diseases were common. There was even one case of Leprosy. There was one boy with seizures, and a couple of girls that were orphans. There is hope that the girls will go to the Children's Home. One thirteen year old was found to be pregnant.

One boy, had a worm in his eye, below his eye, and his lower eye lid. One of the nurses, took it out with forceps. It was an inch long. My Mom worked for the health department. The entomologist would come across different bugs and illnesses, and preserve the bugs in jars. Growing up, it was fun for me to come in the office and see the latest finds. So, I asked the nurse, "What kind of worm was it? What kind of worm can be in people's eyes?" She looked at me and said, "IT WAS A WORM!" :)

In the afternoon, I was going around and checking rooms. Part of me wanted to see what rooms the clinic had, part of me wanted to make sure all the lights were off. I opened a closet, or what will be a single bathroom. There was a girl inside, about the age of 13. She was in the dark, and I had no idea what she was doing there. I left her there, and quickly grabbed an interpreter to come talk to her. She told the interpreter that she asked a man for sunglasses, and the man was mean and told her to go to the closet for punishment. Honestly, I thought she was hiding and waiting for the clinic to close. Nope...I cornered the interpreter, and he had told her to wait, and then he forgot about her. He was really sorry and felt bad about it. Sometimes God works in mysterious ways though. The good part of the story is the girl was diagnosed again, and we were able to give her some medicine for her skin problem. She did get some sunglasses.

Looking out the pharmacy window: