And we're off, bright and early, we board the bus to the Mai Chau valley which is about a 4.5hr drive out of Hanoi. Wouldn't you know it, within 30 minutes, we got a flat tire! Luckily, we had another bus to transfer to, and within a few minutes, we were back on track. About halfway to Mai Chau, we stopped for some a "happy room" break, as our guide calls it, and some delicious iced coffee and biscuits. I cannot tell you how amazing Vietnamese coffee is! So yummy, especially since they use condensed milk in it - just a perfect amount of sweetness in very strong dark coffee! We climbed up high into the mountains, and the roads became more and more bumpy the higher we went. About a 1/2 hr outside of Mai Chau, we stopped along a roadside stand where we picked up some fruit called Longan. Its has a thin rhine, and the fruit itself is a bit jelly like with a pit, but very sweet and refreshing in the heat. Seung and Jason bought sticky rice sticks to try, which - surprisingly, taste like rice, just sticky. It was wrapped in bamboo which is how they cook it over a fire, and make it sticky. All very interesting.
We arrived in Mai Chau Valley after a long descend from the mountains into this beautiful valley which is where we started our trek after a delicious lunch at Mai Chau Lodge. If there was any doubt of not getting enough food to eat on this trip - that thought was squandered real fast, and we feasted like kings all week! The trek to Mai Hich was just beautiful with blue skies and lush green forest all around us! The heat was intense during the afternoon, but we had plenty of water, and areas of shade. We trekked through small villages where kids would run out after us, practicing their English greeting "hello" and waving. Of course, they'd all giggle when we'd say hello back, and were so excited to see Westerners. We arrived to our homestay late afternoon and had a chance to rest before dinner. We all bunked in a traditional stilt houses from some local families that stayed elsewhere and graciously gave up their homes for us. After dinner we set up the clinic, and crashed early.
The clinic experience at Mai Hich was overwhelming! We arrived around 7:30 and already at least a couple hundred people were waiting outside. It was chaos getting last minute things arranged and set up, but somehow we opened and it seemed to work - though not as organized as we had hoped. We had many stations set up and tried to have some sort of flow. The kids were taken separately in groups. We would check them in, measure their height and weight, then off to teach them about hand washing and tooth-brushing. Then they were lined up for the flouride varnish station to have their teeth covered in varnish to prevent decay. It was incredible how many of them already had so much decay! All that sugar cane, and not much enforcement on dental hygiene. I spent the first part of the day taking vitals and working with Dr. Hung. He is a Vietnamese doctor that also specializes in traditional medicine. He was fascinating to work with and was great about explaining things that he looked for in his assessments. Just by a radial pulse on the left hand, he said he could tell the health of the heart, liver and gut. He was also explaining how he can tell what sex a pregnant women is going to have just by radial pulse, and that he is 99% accurate. Really cool stuff to learn.
The afternoon, I worked the triage station, in which after people registered, it was our job to find out what symptoms they were experiencing and try to narrow it down to the etiology of their problems. Of course, we were limited on how much detail we could get in to. I worked with one of the interpreters, Tung, to speak with the people, but even then, I found it hard to get a complete Health and Physical. After we got what we thought was a complete H&P, we sent them off to one of the 4 doctors - 3 Vietnamese doctors: Hung, Vingh and Vingh, and one American doctor - Dr. Pete Seyl.
The afternoon heat and humidity was at times hard to take, along with the crowd always crowding in around our table no matter how many times you told them to back off. I felt overwhelmed at times, but loved it at the same time, sitting one on one with these people who are so thankful to be able to speak to you and have a chance to sit with a doctor. There were so many people with chronic problems, it was sad that we couldn't do more. The doctors would see them, and try to suggest a few alternatives in lifestyle or adding stretches, but our prescriptions of pain relievers and anti-inflammatories would only last them so long. Many of these women carry up to 50 kilos on their back during the day working in the fields. Its no wonder why they have neck and shoulder pain that radiate down both arms. But even then, they are so humble about their work, and so gracious towards all of our group. In Mai Hich, we ended up helping just under 800 people! It was an incredible success!
Source: shannoncaron.blogspot.com
