425 kids in how many days?

On Monday, we headed out to the village to begin the health assessment. We set-up in the community building and hoped to screen as many children as we could over the next 4 days. The goal was to establish a baseline health assessment of children in the village as a way to determine preventative "teaching" opportunities. We had 2 doctors, a dentist and 2 nurses with us who did the health assessments. The rest of us "lay" folks did other things.

My partner Jeanine and I were the first faces to greet the children as we measured their height, weight, arm circumference and shoe size. Arm circumference tells if they are malnurished. There were some interesting reactions when some of the children entered the building to see these wazungu there to do strange things to them! For some of the really young children we were the first white people they had ever seen. One little girl literally threw her arms over her face and began screaming when she saw us! We tried not to take it personally. We heard that parents tell their kids that if they are bad the wazungu will come and take them away, so it's understandable if they are a bit apprehensive when they see us! To measure their shoe size the kids had to take off their shoes. Let's just say we caught some pretty strong whiffs of some pretty pungent, dirty little feet. Jeanine was such a great example of humility and caring as she would touch those little feet and move them where they needed to go. She taught me a lot.

Anthony actually did some teaching. He taught lessons about the importance of brushing your teeth, wearing shoes and preventing worms. He handed out flipflops to the kids and soap and a washcloth to the mammas. He worked with a pastor from the village who did the translating for him. Sometimes the translator had to translate into two different languages. Showing the villagers these very easy, basic methods to preventing to preventing illness is a good first step in creating sustainable change.

The days were long, but well worth it. One of the coolest parts for me was having the chance to interact with every child and adult (mothers mostly) who visited the clinic. I took the opportunity to shake every woman's hand and thank her for coming in Maasai. I honestly think for some of them it was the first time anyone looked them in the eye and validated them for anything. Being a woman and mother doesn't receive the respect it deserves within the Maasai culture. Seeing their faces light up with smiles when I greeted them was a true blessing.

Pictures: Me with women and kids at the clinic, Anthony teaching his lessons, Joe doing a dental assessment, me measuring the circumference of a childs arm with our translator (Charles), my wonderful partner Jeanine!