I remember my first day in Nanchoc. It was December 1st 2008 and I arrived on the big day of the town’s anniversary. I went to my house and there wasn’t anyone there (it was my fault, I couldn’t figure out how to work the area code combination to call ahead to warn that I was coming) so I dropped my stuff off at the health post. They too were occupied with some sort of meeting so I took to the streets with a very friendly neighbor. He was 5 year old Eddie. A kid who is all ears that didn’t seem to mind my “yes” and “no” answers and was constantly grinning ear to ear with his new gringa companion…which is how I was able to notice so quickly how bad his teeth were. If it weren’t for the big patch of gray that were his teeth, Eddie would have had one cute crooked smile.
So with neighbor Eddie as my big push I started thinking up some dental health lessons. About 6 months later (and some much needed improvement in speaking Spanish to a recognizable degree) we had developed “Monchito el Golosinero,” a slide show that explains to kids why brushing your teeth 3 times a day is very (VERY) important. It’s super cool. Well at least that’s what the kids say (what can I say, my cardboard Sony TV set is cutting edge technology here). And for the most part the kids seemed to have gotten the message. Riverside High School helped in the project with their donation of 205 toothbrushes—each kid got a toothbrush to use at school after their snack time.
The project was going great, kids were brushing their teeth; good dental health was had by all…or was it? I noticed that there were still kids (and adults for that matter) arriving at the health post complaining of tooth pain. When you have a big enough cavity no amount of brushing is gonna make it feel better. So I started a dentist visite Nanchoc. That’s the main reason people let their teeth get so bad; Nanchoc is just too far away from dental help. To pull one tooth a person needs to go to Oyotun (either in the bus or to pay a motorcycle to take them), then wait around at the health post for the dentist to show up, hope that he feels like working that day, pay the guy to pull the tooth out, then go to the pharmacy to pay for your antibiotics and pain meds. People view it as way easier to just take an Advil a few times a day and work through tooth pain…we’ll ignore possible stomach lining issues and just go with how bad that is for the tooth. And with this another plan was formed: we got to get a dentist to Nanchoc.
I tried to get some help through the Peruvian branch of the Red Cross, but the coordinator would never return my emails or phone calls…not that I blame him, I mean if you heard a voice message in broken English would you respond to it? (yeah, my Spanish still stinks in phone messages, I guess it’s the nerves of having a limited amount of time to talk.) Just as I was about to give up on finding a dentist to come and pull a few teeth, Michael (a Peruvian boyfriend of a fellow volunteer) came to a regional meeting asking about the possibilities of bringing some of his dentist friends to our sites to do dental work. Sometimes things just work out don’t they?
After a month of planning the big day arrived. The 23rd of October 2010 was the first EVER dental health fair in Nanchoc. 2 dentists and 1 dental assistant worked from 10am to 4pm cleaning and pulling teeth. I counted; we had 57 patients and pulled 38 teeth. There was the normal Peruvian issue with attendance: the 5 bravest people show up in the morning to get teeth pulled, once they confirm with everyone else in town that the dentists are good, everyone else came pouring in after lunch. I still had a few tooth brushes left over from my Riverside supply, so I gave each patcient a toothbrush. And the kids who had teeth pulled all got a little gift I bought (dollar store quality cheap toys) to avoid as many tears as possible.
Now back to Eddie. His mom had told him that he could go, if and only if, the dentist doesn’t pull any of his teeth. Yes, you read that right…if they DON’T pull his rotten teeth out. Her rational: they’ll just get infected and then she’ll have a sick kid to deal with. After an exchange of confused looks between Tania (a dentist) and myself I went to Eddies house with his and had a 10 minute conversation with his mom explaining why we needed to pull 3 of his teeth (well really all of them, but 3 were so infected they had puss coming out of them…yummy. She finally let me take him back to the dentists. Eddie was not happy to say the least. This kid has a fear of needles that has never in the history of the Earth been equaled—and this is coming from a girl who did the” kick and scream and yell” bit until I was 11 for all my shots at the doctor’s office. After a good 15 minutes of talking in my most soothing voice, and a few white lies on the part of Michael the dentist and Jenny the gringa , Eddie had been all anesthesia-ed up and was ready to pull a few teeth. He made the usual faces that would be associated with the pulling of teeth, and more than a few tears and “I HATE YOU”s were exchanged, but in the end, Eddie had 3 less horrid teeth in his mouth (thank God they were baby teeth). He left, rubbing a pair of red eyes, and told me that we were never playing soccer again—my heart broke. Our afternoon 5 minutes of soccer had been a tradition since my very first day in Nanchoc…and all over a few pulled teeth that was gone?!?
I tried to pass the last hour of the dental health fair acting like I knew he was joking…or that it was just the anesthesia talking…but I wasn’t sure. I was worried that I had passed some line, maybe pushed him too hard to get his teeth pulled. I mean, I knew medically speaking he was better off without those teeth, but did that give me the right to persuade him into doing it? I was having a personal reassessment moment that lasted all day. I took the dentists back to Oyotun and got them on a bus to Chiclayo, went back to Eddies house to see how he was doing—he didn’t want to see me. My heart sunk again…maybe he was serious? Was there no more soccer to be had in my last month at site? The thought of not playing with Eddie in the afternoons actually kept me up most of the night.
I woke up the next day to make bread with Don Elmer and Doña Rosa; I pass Eddies house to get to theirs so, as normal, I glanced in the door that was open. There was Eddie, sitting on a stool holding a soccer ball grinning that crooked gray smile. “YENNIFER!” he yelled as he jumped up and ran my way. I’ve never been so happy to play soccer that early in the morning (it was 6am). He said he felt much better with those teeth out; it was the first time in a while that his mouth didn’t hurt at night, so he was able to sleep. He said he dreamt about the movie “Alice in Wonderland” that we had watched together the week before. He caught the rabbit with the watch and ate him for dinner…okay, so I never said it was a great dream. The important part was that he wasn’t mad at me! Guess a little push in the right direction is okay.
There’s no use crying over spilled milk or a pulled tooth.
(that's a happy Eddie on the left)
