Day 3 - Screening Day #2

Another very exciting day! Started early again but today when we arrived at the hospital there was really no one there. We had our team meeting where they had Celia & Garrett show everyone the t-shirt gowns that Alanton 5th graders made. The team members loved them, and the kids will hopefully too!! After waiting about 2 hours two buses showed up with about 143 patients and their families! It got crazy quickly! There were some very adventerous little ones and others who were very shy. Celia helped again on the presentations by handing out toothbrushes and tooth paste. Talk about a swarm of people!! We were handing out all sorts of goodies and whoever had the goodies was extremely popular!! Some of the moms would drag their kids over to us and ask us for toys, and quickly our stash started to disapperar! Garrett once again found his soccer crew of boys who got Rush t-shirts again. Celia didn't find one favorite but lots of them! She mostly hung with the teenagers, Kelly and Tori, holding babies and playing with the kids. It was another very hot day and the inside conditions were pretty rough for some because it was really crowded and hot! We all painted alot of finger nails today, including Garrett! On break today, the kids actually ate the food!! We have been looking for a patient to come to Va. Beach for the Shamrock Final Mile, but most of the elementary age kids have already had their lips repaired and are back for touch up or a palate surgery. Most of the little babies are the ones that need the lip and palate surgery. We saw many very young mothers, as young as 13, and one mom who was 68! She had her 16 yr. old son there who is her 12th child! Some people travelled up to 72 hours to get to the screening. I held a lot of babies today and blew soooo many bubbles, it really is amazing how it helps calm them down! We wrapped up about 4:30 and got back to the hotel around 5pm. Garrett found a soccer jersey he wanted at a store on our block - only $9!! We will have a dinner with the team again tonight and tomorrow we got back to find out who was selected for surgery. The youth team, us and HS students, will go to a school tomorrow and then there is a big party at a plantation of one of the big supporters of Ops Smile. Once again let me tell you how great our team is! Everyone is so amazing and fun to work with! One of our favorites is Lucas, who is from NY/Paris, and is half Nicaraguan. He keeps us laughing all day long! There are two plastic surgeons who are really nice from Vancouver, Canada. Pam is the student sponser and she is wonderful too! They are too many to name but they all have made this experience incredible. We also found out today that we will go to the American school in Managua on Tuesday so we will only have one day of surgery on Monday. We are going to dinner soon so got to go for now.

Check back tomorrow!!

-Crissy, Garrett & Celia

PS. Garrett is begging to bring one of his soccer buddies, Felix, home with us! He doesn't have a cleft lip or palate but appears to have spinal problem. Celia of course still wants Grismelli from yesterday. I can't get Garrett to stop begging me!