FEB-A-1
LAUNCH THE “MISSION TO MINDANAO”
- Index to 2002 Feb –A-series
- My launch of a medical mission at the same counter in Ronald Reagan DCA
airport as the last, under different circumstances, on September 11, departing
after arranging for some students for India, and pleading the case of another
Malawi traveler, and posting the last minute items of urgent business to be
conducted in my absence.
- Arrival in monsoon Manila, bag arrives---without handle or tags—transfer
it forward to GES for tomorrow’s flight, ride to the Shalom Center, where
I hope to email in a nearby cybercafe and takeoff for a rainy day tour of
the National Museum and a welcome roundup dinner of our team for Mindanao.
- My very much foreshortened message from Manila and the Korean cybercafe,
where I had to back-translate from Korean to type a message over an hour,
and attach files from the transit written when I had computer battery power:
as always, the long message went “Poof” when I tried to send so, this is the
shortened message I tried to send out after the futility of the earlier complete
effort which failed.
- Hit the South Cotabato ground running: arrival in Tboli land of Mindanao,
short-handed but ready to start anyway.
- Our Sunday day of rest among the Tboli: a cultural immersion in music dance
and hospitality.
- Let the presses roll! Ten cases lined up before breakfast, with a start
as fresh as the crowing roosters.
- Another marathon lineup: no running the roads, but a marathon list of thyroids
to one-up yesterday’s total: goiters “pop out” fast and furiously, as still
more patients arrive hoping for surgery for relief of cleft lips, burn contractures,
parotid tumors, and many long-neglected conditions, filling our work load.
- A new day in “thyroidectomy rodeos” with a group of gyn and general surgery
cases added in for our further surgery schedules as all new patients are being
turned away; the hostaged team of Allen and Alison arrive from Manila red
tape, as I finish the 30th goiter thyroidectomy.
- Another “OR” rodeo, making for a lot of very happy people who have no access
to surgical care until next year, since last year’s visit, and without charge
from a rather unusual, yet compatible, team of volunteers; then, the day concludes
with a “lechon” feast and program with the staff and patients after the roast
pig--ending my all-day study of the t’nalak weaving of abaca art, with my
wholesale purchase of all the authentic output of the Lake Cebu Tboli abaca
weavers.
- Final operating day in the Tboli land of Edwards with all the surgical cases
we can pack into the last minute along with a “walk-in” large goiter thyroidectomy
as a “chaser”, before we pack up to fly out in a light twin the following
day..
- Departure day from Edwards, Tboli land opening phase two of our Mindanao
experience in the more developed Malaybalay..
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