Mobile Medical Clinic

6-14-10

This morning our team split up, me and Josh went to help a medical team from Indiana go to a school and set up a mobile clinic. I started out as a pharmacist and have been counting pills galore! The second half the day I was testing patients for HIV. I prefer the hands-on working with patients. We saw around 107 patients, mainly women and children.

Mobile Clinic: Kids waiting outside

During our lunch break our team was invited to a nearby village. The village was celebrating a fertility ceremony. There were around 100 women present from the ages of 14 on up. They were all dressed in traditional clothing with an animal hide as a covering. The women were adorned with beautiful necklaces and bracelets. The women went into a hut to get their faces painted with a rustic orange paint, once they were painted they formed into a large circle. They started singing and dancing, waiting for their turn to be blessed by the men in the community. Once each woman was blessed she went straight to her home, if she stopped to greet anyone she would lose her blessing. At midnight the fertility blessing would begin (lots of baby making tonight...). One of the guys told me he better not see me in the middle of the ceremony, ha! I told him he didn't need to worry about me one bit. :-)

Mobile Clinic: We had a system set up-patients
would stop by each station.

It was a neat experience to be present since the fertility blessing ceremony only occurs every 5-10 years depending....on what? I'm not sure. I just can't imagine being 14 and asking God for babies, wow!