Soap, Shoes, and Fun

Today we talked about the importance of washing hands with soap before meals and after using the bathroom, as well as washing often when we are sick.  The patients who listen to the presentation get a free bar of soap to take home.

Keeping your feet covered is important for preventing soil-borne bacterial diseases from getting into openings in your skin.  Most Afghans have one pair of shoes.  This man now has two, thanks to the generous donations of people back home.

That's enough serious business for one day- now it's time to hand out some treats to the kids just for the sake of putting smiles on their faces.  Every kid needs a goodie for being brave at the doctor's office, right? 

 Now that we've given them sweets, we'll need to make sure we talk about oral hygiene.  Luckily the folks at VentureSix.com provided two hundred toothbrushes to our cause!!

Thanks VentureSix!  Next week we should have enough toothpaste to hold a clinic workshop about toothbrushing.  Getting to pick your favorite color is nice too!

Thanks everyone back home: I officically name November 19th as "Best Mail Call Ever" Day: everything in the picture (and four other boxes I couldn't fit into view)  came today.  The Haul: 21 boxes, including kids clothes, hats, gloves, five boxes of shoes, and women's items.  Tomorrow's job: inventorying and staging it all in the storage shack I built from spare materials.