Dentistry For All

For the past 15 years, my town has had the privilege of hosting a group of mainly Canadian (with the odd American) dental mission, Dentistry For All (DFA), based out of Calgary, Alberta for two weeks, with an in-town clinic in the center of town, and a second satellite clinic that moves to a different village each day.

It started off 15 years ago with a single dentist, Dr. Dennis Bedard, who came to just pull teeth (which, according to all the dentists I have spoken to, is not nearly as hard as the saying would make one think), and it has turned into a five-week tour of Guatemala- the main focus being my town, where the dentists stay for two weeks, and the rest of the sites (in the departments of Sacatepéquez, Guatemala and El Petén) get one-week visits.

This, being my second year translating with the group, I can truly say that this organization is phenomenal. Hands down. No questions asked. I mean, dentistry put aside (no offense guys), they would still be #1 in my book for one sole reason: they are the reason why my ladies have had such a success with their kippahs- for a good number of the dentists are Jewish, and when they found out there was a kick-ass amazing artisan group in town, they asked my indigenous Mayan ladies if they would be up to the challenge of crocheting Judaica products- namely, kippahs?

And of course the answer was ax!, or yes in Mam. And truthfully speaking (or writing, I should say- errr, write), it has made me a bit verklempt, as the ladies are one of just two groups in Guatemala (that I know of) that produce and sell their kippahs online to an international market.

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

Anywho, back to the dentists... all in all, about 20 dentists, oral surgeons, assistants, hygienists, sterilizers and techies came to town for the two weeks- some of them returning for their umpteenth time, while it was a first-time visit for many of them. The procedures they offer range from simple, such as general cleanings, fillings and extractions, to more complicated- we're talking root canals and wisdom teeth extractions.

As I mentioned in last year's post about the dentists, they have imposed a Q5 (~ 0.63 USD) charge per procedure up to Q20 (even if more than four procedures are done), so that the service will be valued, since Q20 per person can be quite a bit of money for many of the families here in town. The money then goes back to he host organization, AMMID, the local NGO I work with, and it is used for additional projects.

The time, effort and work everyone has put in to make this work year after year, both in Canada and in Guatemala, is incredible. Peace Corps /Guatemala started a (silly) new policy that does not allow PCVs to translate for groups, and I quite honestly was pretty bummed that I was not going to be able to work with DFA this year, but thankfully because of timing, we were given an exception. (FYI- after quite a bit of uproar from the volunteer community, as well as a six-way Skype conference call between the Volunteer Advocacy Council and Peace Corps / Guatemala management, we came to the conclusion that this kind of work is actually pretty legit for all parties involved- however an official decision is yet to be announced).

If you would like to learn more about DFA, or if you are in Canada and would like to buy some awesomely beautiful artisan products that my ladies make, visit either link below (they only ship within Canada).

http://www.dentistryforall.org/

http://www.dentistryforall.secure2cart.com/products.html

Packing up after the last day. This photo does no justice to the amount of work, hauling, unpacking, organizing, repacking and more hauling of hockey bags full of dental equipment and medicines. You guys rock.