Another Day at the Office

Some days we get some young patients that haven't seen a dentist before and the results can be great or devastating. Here are some little ones whose faces tell a lot!

                                                                              Dr. Wilcox stars out with a demonstration.

Early on the kids are all smiles and curious.

The demo patient is a little blurry and a lot worried.

Soon everyone gathers in for a closer look.

                                                                              This look says it all!

She really is not sure about all of this.

Look who is almost a dental assistant.

And here is our first patient of the day. Scared, but willing.

And here she is after her first filling.

                                      Remember her? I think she only had her teeth cleaned, but she lost a lot of her fear.

Here is our second patient. He is still numb, and definately more interested in toys than teeth. However he did tell us that he wants to be a dentist someday.............

He kept wanting more toys so we had to draw a line!

This one was asking for more toys for all of her "brothers and sisters". We had to tell her to have them come into the clinic and earn "regalos" (gifts). I hope they will because these are the kids from the Garbage Kids School and it is a blessing to be able to treat them, fears and all!

And a day in the clinic wouldn't be complete without a view of the restrooms.

The Blue bucket?  This is how we flush when the city water is not working. On the day these pictures were taken we were in the middle of a two week water outage.

And lastly, these are our afternoon patients. As you can tell from their missionary tags, these are full time missionaries who we have the pleasure of helping before they head out out to mission destinations somewhere in Central America. Is is our hope that the little kids above have the chance to realize some of their dreams and ambitions some day also, maybe as missionaries or even dentists.

What else have we done?

We have quite a few experiences since we arrived, and I would like to share a few of them with pictures and a few comments:

This is our little apartment building, Catania. Now I know this doesn't look like we are roughing it, and in fact we have it pretty good. I think that the contrast between how most of us live, and how some of the people of  Guatemala live is humbling. 

Here are some of the volcanoes we can see from the roof. The one above is Pacaya and if you look through the smog you can see that it is erupting. It was smoking a whole lot more than this on our first Sunday in our new Ward and Stake, Amatitlan. Our ward there is within about 7-10 miles from Pacaya

These are some of the houses in our neighborhood. They all share walls, very few single structures.

This is sunset out of our back window. Sunset is always about 6:30 pm .

Above is a prayer on the wall of a school and the children who attend below. They are unique in that they were born in situations of poverty such that they were not born in hospitals and did not get proper paper work. This means that they can't go to the regular schools, and as such most of them can't read or write and this keeps them in the poverty cycle. This school was initially set up for the "garbage kids", but now gets students from much farther away. Some of the kids travel for hours to get here every day.

The girl in front is 15 and in the first grade, and very happy to be there.

This is the school front located near the garbage ravine, complete with the junk yard dogs. The school is clean and cared for by Guatemalan standards and my heart goes out to the man who runs the place. The kids were great and in two weeks it will be our pleasure to help them with their dental problems.

Here is the dental crew as we head to Quetzaltenango, the second largest city in Guatemala, to examine young men and women who need dental care before they can turn in their papers for their missions. We stayed for several days so we could go to the Temple there and take in a few sites.

This is a way station that is designed for the tourists. Since our drive was nearly 4 hours, we stopped for a break.

Here is one of the locals selling her colorful wares

Here is our hotel which had a European feel to it.

The hotel is a block from the central plaza below. At night there was a huge party in the plaza.

Here is an outdoor theater which unfortunately is used more by the local dogs than thesbians.

Look at the cracks in this pillar on the plaza. We didn't spend too much time underneath this structure.

Diana and I took a long walk in and around the area. For the most part the streets are cobbled  and the sidewalks are narrow.  Very cool.

But this is why we came. Young Missionaries.

Here are the adult leaders for the youth and below is the view out the doors of the chapel where we set up for the exams,

A week after our trip these brave souls traveled to our clinic in Guatemala City. It was a long day, but we were able to complete all of their dental work, including multiple sets of wisdom teeth, in one day! Then we had the great honor of signing their mission papers. We got hugs from the hermanas and firm missionary handshakes from the hermanos. A very good day.

       

Here is Diana coming out of the temple after our first Spanish Temple Experience. Es una buen experiencia!