A Trip To The Mountains And A Taste Of Home

July 25^th-July 26^th: Saturday and Sunday

Saturday Jim took a group to a district in the foothills of Mt. Kadam to do government sponsored immunization. The government will provide all the medicine and supplies for people to go immunize. Te group consisted of Jim, Johan, Peter, Hannah, Jennifer, Marisa, Emily, James, Logiel Mark, William, and J.B. (John Basco). We left a little before 9:00 after we went to the clinic and loaded up the supplies and tested Mark (the white one), Rebecca, and Hannah for malaria. Took it really easy on the hike up there and arrived around 11:00. we set up and got organized. We were treating kids and women of child bearing age. The kids all came through and got a card with their immunizations on it and the ladies had to also get a little card. At first I was worried that I would be useless but Jim had me do MUAC, which stands for Mid Upper Arm Circumference. This is to test for malnutrition. It works on kids between the ages of 6 weeks and 5 years. Apparently when they are malnourished they loose muscle mass on their upper arms first.

We treated around 150 kids and almost 80 women in about two hours. Only about 4 kids were malnourished which was good. After we finished with the kids we gave tetanus shots to the women. I helped Logiel Mark by reading of their names and giving them their cards after their shots because they need 5 shots total over their life times. Some of these girls were really young 15, 16, 17. a couple girls were already pregnant. It was really weird.

That evening we had a community meal and afterward Craig broke out the cigars. Cubans again and this time I got to smoke the whole thing fresh and it tasted delicious. Johan also had a cigar and he was really funny. He kept trying to blow the smoke out his nose. He also couldn’t keep it lit. at one point he asked if you could smoke through your nose and blow out your mouth. He gave it a shot but unfortunately it didn’t work. Also a package arrived from my mother containing a bag of skittles which I am most thankful for. Mmmh! Tastes like liberty. Thanks again mom.