There they go!

The departure day has finally arrived.  In a half-hour, most of the 2016 Tanzania Group will leave MSP.  Two more will be met in Amsterdam and three in Dar a day later.  The rest of the faculty will trickle in over the next couple weeks.

It is an exciting time!  I got to meet some family: Lauren’s mom, Sarah’s mom and Stephanie’s mom.  All were also excited for their offspring on this adventure, if a tad apprehensive.  That’s fair, isn’t it moms?  We managed to send off the extra bags too – full of quilts for the nursing school students, scrubs for the OR (“theater”), linens for the OR, and some surgical tools, sutures, and catheters.  The quilts were donated to Shoulder to Shoulder by congregations.  We were hoping for 50 quits and got more than 70! The three suitcases full of OR linens, scrubs and tools were courtesy of Global Health Missions (http://www.ghm.org/).  One of the bags was full of reusable menstrual kits, donated by Leslee Jaeger, MD and her non-profit (http://www.helpinghaitiwork.org/).  Perhaps I can get one of the women to write about these after they are distributed to the female nursing students and ILH staff.  By all means, check out those two web pages, also listed on the right.

You will notice a new post nearly every day as each of our group rotates through.  Lauren will be next – as assigned by Randy – thanks Lauren!  Expect stories of culture difference and interesting circumstance and daily life at Ilula.