Medical Mission -Zimbabwe: A preschool full of mountain goats!

Mission trip to Zimbabwe

I have been invited to be a member of a medical team sponsored by Operation of Hope. This is a family run foundation started by a plastic surgeon from Longview, WA. I depart from Portland, OR Oct 6, 2010. The first leg of my journey takes me to NY. My friends Philip and Periuza Wegner will meet me and send me onto Johannesburg, South Africa. A 15 + hour flight UGH...compression hose here I come. I have a short layover then a final flight to Harare.
Once in Harare we will be setting up at Harare Central a large government hospital. We hope to complete 70 cleft lip and palate surgeries over a 2-week span. Children will travel from all over Zimbabwe to have these surgeries performed for free by an American medical team. Apparently there are no plastic surgeons trained to perform these surgeries in Zimbabwe
My last week in Zimbabwe will be spent 60 miles away in Makumbi a Jesuit run orphanage and school. I get to do my favorite thing hug babies and children! My travels home bound take me to Ethiopia, Amsterdam, and then finally back in the Pacific N.W.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

A preschool full of mountain goats!

Today I went over to the preschool for the orphanage kids. $0 between the ages of 3 & 6. They had there lunches in tin cans and some even had little back packs. Stefi a volunteer from Germany played her guitar and sang. The kids said their prayers then we headed to the "mountain" kinda like Mt Tabor only granite. We walked for a half hour to the base of this granite rock. I had at least 2 kids hanging on when i was walking. When I sat down there were 6. They were like mountain goats climbing this rock. They can not get enough attention and affection.