Lima Mission - dentist for a day

15/7/13

Ever since I went to East Timor on a school trip in 2005, I have desperately wanted to go back there again to do mission work, but mostly due to my own laziness, and prioritising of other trips I haven't made it back there.

When I found out we were doing mission in a village school in Lima, the longing to go back to Timor grew. I love exciting holidays as much as the next person... my cruise last December was amazing and I'd love to do that again too, but I've

This day we headed out early to drive to a shanty town in the outskirts of Lima. The whole time we were driving and before we left the volunteers kept warning us there would be bad traffic, so I was prepared for the worst. Turns out that the absolute worst peak hour traffic in Lima is nothing compared to Parramatta road in the morning, and would probably only compare to a busy 3pm school pickup, only with crazier drivers and more busses.

As we drove further and further out of town you could see the standard of living decrease... The streets were no longer immaculately clean, the houses were less neat, and there was generally more dirt and rubbish everywhere, with all the household rubbish thrown onto the median strip in the middle of the road.

As we arrived at the school I was surprised by the conditions. Compared to some poor schools I've seen in East Timor, but also in documentaries, this school was quite established, and they had a school uniform.

As we walked in there was a boy named Felix there to greet us. In his best English he said "I'd like to say welcome, welcome to our school... Welcome... Welcome to Peru." We caught on to the fact that he didn't know much more English than that so we all cheered and followed him into the school.

After we put our things down we went into the classroom of the school council reps and heard about how they were elected and what they did. Their system runs rings around Sydney schools. They elect their leaders after campaigning and they represent the school at a council level and have regular meetings with the council members discussing what ways they could improve the school and living conditions for all the students. In this way they have achieved a number of initiatives including providing milk and bread for any children who need breakfast, and setting up a garden courtyard where they are all responsible for a small patch.

I was so impressed with everything they have set up and the ways they are working to improve their situations, and it makes me so annoyed to see the current generation of primary school kids in Australia acting so entitled with their iPads and their Xbox's and for the most part with a total disinterest in their education.

Once we had finished there we split into two groups and went to give catechesis to the kids. Since we didn't speak Spanish, and we wanted to make it more interesting we turned it into a play and acted out the parable of the five talents, with the "lord" handing out stones to us which we then went "to market" with and traded for more, thus fulfilling the story of the parable with the main message being to invest your talents and not hide them hoping you will be rewarded.

We also sung a few Australian songs for them and they sung a song for us which involved putting up or out a different limb or body part and singing "choo choo ahh choo choo ahh choo choo ah ah ah." I think the kids had more fun watching us try and dance than anything else we did.

We then sat with them as they coloured and attempted to talk to them, only because they were in year one and didn't speak any English we struggled. Fortunately one of the guys with us, Carlos is originally from Chile so speaks Latin American Spanish and could act as our interpreter. All the kids were gorgeous but there was one kid in particular called Luis who had the most gorgeous smile and I a little bit tried to follow him around before realising he was completely disinterested in me and wanted to hang around the Spanish speaking pilgrim.

After the catechesis we took our first class into our "dental room" and started the dental hygiene program. We split our half of the group into a few smaller groups and had a few on teeth brushing, a few on fluoride application and a few on hand washing. I was one of the ones on teeth brushing.

Lined up with their toothbrushes ready to be brushed

Fluoride station

Washing hands time

Each time I would open a new toothbrush and move onto a new child I would feel so bad because the toothbrush was bigger than their whole mouth, and their teeth were small and n a lot of cases had giant holes in them. Not one of them cried or got upset or refused to have their teeth brushed though, and every single one of them was so excited to be leaving with their very own toothbrush and toothpaste that I was so glad we had been there. These kids were all about six years old, and the rotting and holes in their baby teeth was worse than I'd seen anywhere, worse even than the images of mouths on the back of cigarette packages in Australia. After we had taught them how to brush we would send them to get fluoride put on their teeth and then to wash their hands before giving them all a koala and pencil as a parting gift. We then geared up to do the whole thing again in another year one classroom.

When we entered the second classroom we could tell instantly it was going to be different. There were only about 12 kids in the class, and of those 12, two of them were rolling around the floor and jumping over the desks. The poor teacher was standing in the corner, and from what I could tell had given up on trying to get them to settle down, and we posed as a welcome distraction. We did the play and the songs again, but the kids were not interested and kept talking to each other, or watching the two boys who were chasing each other around the room over and under the table. I'm not sure how nobody was injured in the time we were in the room, but I'd be pretty willing to bet we had landed in the A.D.D room!

Another thing I noticed as soon as we walked in the room though was that there was a kid that looked very much like Luis from the first classroom, so in the basic Spanish I knew, combined with the word for brother that Sarah knew and discovered that this boy, Miguel, was the twin brother of Luis from the other room. Since I had no luck with his brother I tried making friends with Miguel, and he was much more receptive, but that may have also been because I let him go wild with my camera and take pictures of everything. At one point it was at risk of being broken when the other kid who had previously been chasing him around the room tried to wrestle the camera off him. By the end of the day I had hundreds of photos of his classmates, my fellow pilgrims and the school. He was actually very good at taking pictures, and could frame a picture better than a lot of people I know! I've put a few below so you can see the master photography skills at work.

Miguel's Best friend with his school given breakfast milk

The teacher with the patience of an angel!

The back of the school where they are growing things

After the A.D.D class we had some lunch and then did the same again for one more class in the afternoon, before a thank you from the school director and some teachers, and then headed back to the retreat centre for mass and dinner.

I was reminded this day in the school of how much I love working with kids. I have always felt drawn towards teaching and working with kids, even though my passion is media, so I love it when I get opportunities to tutor or help in schools. I also felt even stronger the call to go back to East Timor, because as much as the day in Lima was rewarding and it was a great opportunity to give of myself and my time, it reminded me that there are so many needs in the world, and where the need is stronger. As someone pointed out after our debrief that night, there are stronger needs in parts of Australia and even Sydney too, I just need to work out where my help is most needed, whether it is here or abroad.

Miguel and Me