Searching for a dentist

Fr. Marc (founder of Pwoje Espwa orphanage) came to me with a problem. Several of the children in the village are suffering from horrible toothaches and we have no way of easing their pain besides giving them some ibuprofen. He asked me to go into town to find someone who can help. The next morning, I hopped on the dirt bike with my right-hand man, Fritzner (the boy who’ll be running the marathon with me) and headed into town to search out any and every dentist I could find. We visited six dentists in under two hours, not including the three dentists we met at the General Hospital where they only pull teeth and nothing else. They all gave me their prices and worked to convince me why I should choose them to be our “go to dentist” for our 640 children. Their prices ran the gamut, as did the services the dentists able to provide. At the end of the day, I found the perfect dentist. She even agreed to come to the orphanage for consultations, tooth pullings and training sessions on good mouth hygiene.

They were all very nice and took time out of their day to talk to me with no advanced notice. Two dentists, left their patients in the middle of a procedure to sit down and speak with me. It’s amazing how the color of my skin seems to command immediate attention in this country.

A Shooting Star

It’s 3am. I woke up from the sound of my fan going on and off which means that our batteries are wearing out and soon there will be no electricity at all. When this happens, it’s best to turn everything off and save what little battery we have left for when we really need it. I’ll post this message as soon as the internet is back up

Once awake, there’s no way I’m getting back to sleep. I turned off my fan, put on some sandals and left my room for the cool night breeze. I climbed the little ladder outside my door and ended up on my roof, looking up at the brightest stars I have ever seen. The skies are so clear down here. You can see every star. In fact, there are so many stars that stretch so far, that it’s difficult to look up at them while standing. The vastness of the night sky is dizzying. I sat down on the cement roof and looked out to the East where earlier tonight, you could‘ve seen the lightning from the thunderstorm just beyond the mountains. And that’s when I saw it. It was a shooting star, brilliant and unmistakable. I’d never seen a shooting star before and I’m sure that if I had, it couldn’t have been brighter than the one I saw tonight. I sat there mesmerized, anticipating a storm of falling stars. As I write this, I realize that I failed to do the single most important thing when you witness a star shoot across the sky—make a wish. I’m sure it’s not too late to make it up.