Just a Toothbrush: The Waiting Game

Today was supposed to be our first major dental outreach. The dentist, her assistant and I spent most of yesterday counting tubes of toothpaste for some 300 learners and dividing them into bags for separate classrooms. We made fruits, vegetables, candy and other foods from construction paper, cut dozens of sheets of stickers for rewards, and went over our strategy for tackling seven grades in a single day.

The plan was to drive two hours outside of Khorixas, down a long dirt road and into one of the farm settlements. We’d use hospital transport (which we applied for weeks in advance) and spend six hours going over the oral care basics I’d outlined in previous workshops, class by class. Lorain (the dental assistant, who is fluent in Damara) would take the lower primary grades, while Isabel (the dentist from Zambia) and I would divide upper primary. Afterwards, Isabel would offer checkups for learners who had never been to the dentist.

It was a perfect plan.

So we rose at 5 a.m. I drank a few cups of coffee to get me going, and piled the boxes of supplies near my door.

And then, I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

By 7:30 it seemed like something was wrong. Transport is always complicated--and it's usually running late, but we'd planned to be on the road by 6:30, because we needed to be at school sometime close to 9. I sent Isabel a message. She was waiting at the hospital, but said there was no car in sight.

So I left the supplies and I left my bag and I set out towards the hospital. By the time I arrived it was clear we had a major problem. The transport officer was off for the day and the driver we’d been assigned was only certified to drive around town.

While there was a vehicle somewhere, there was a driver nowhere.

So Isabel, Lorain and I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Luckily, the former transport officer was on duty. Although it was almost 9, she said one of the social workers could take us out to the farm school. The school we were going to was about two hours away, and we needed at the very least two hours to conduct our workshops—one hour-long session for upper primary and one hour-long session for lower primary. School was only scheduled until 1 p.m.—with no afternoon study—so we had to leave immediately if we wanted to make it in time to do anything at all.

But still we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Our driver came. But only to collect someone for a trip to the Location. He returned. But only to leave and collect a fridge from the government building. It was after 11 by the time we were really ready to go. And by that time, it was too late.

So we'll have to reschedule.

We’ll have to re-plan.

And we’ll have to reapply for transport.

The whole situation was beyond frustrating—the waiting and the not knowing, the last-minute cancellation and the work gone to waste. But there was a silver lining.

Sort of.

I was mad, but I could see that Lorain and Isabel were angry, too. That means that despite the headaches and the hassles, they were just as excited to get to the farm schools as I was. They were eager to conduct workshops, start our new, extended outreach, and see their hard work come to fruition. And that's really what this is all about.

It was hard to see them disappointed. But it was also strangely reassuring. It made me realize that while I’d done these workshops alone in the past, I finally had company—colleagues that were trained and prepared. And perhaps most importantly—colleagues that genuinely wanted to participate.

We may not have made it today, but I have no doubt we’ll make it there soon. In fact, we’ve already re-scheduled for two weeks from now. When hopefully we’ll rise at 5 a.m., drink a few cups of coffee to get started, pile boxes of supplies in the back of our bakki and be leading oral care workshops for some 300 learners before 9 a.m.

Transport willing, that is...