Today we did two good things.  Thing 1.  We met with the Mayor in my dental cabinet and made a dvd about how to take care of our teeth.  The mayor wants this dvd to play in all the schools.  It will be edited and circulated to the schools to be played on a regular basis.  The lady in the picture is Marta, the minister of health.  She's a smart lady and has been very helpful to us.  The girls were part of the dvd.  The girl on the far left is the Mayors daughter.

Thing 2.  Earlier we taught this group of doctors.  Every school has a doctor.  These are the doctors from the kindergartens.  We taught them good oral hygiene practices for young children. They will then continue to teach the kindergarten classes these principles.

Teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves.

This is Clyde teaching the doctors.

This is a group of boys from my class this afternoon.  I stopped two boys to take their picture and 6 more came zooming in.

This is a class at a private English school.  They start learning English from kindergarten.  Their teacher was an older man with a limp and a cane named Bud.  Real nice guy and he spoke English well.  He was my interpreter when the kids had a hard time understanding.

 Dinner tonight was sausage and pickle soup and chinese bread.  It was really pretty good.  We've been well fed.

The church is right next door to our rooms.  We think it's the prettiest building in Choibalsan.

 See what I mean.  There's nothing between me and China.

We see horses and cows everywhere.  This horseman has on Mongolian cowboy clothing.

We walk along this path from the park to the river quite often.  Today they installed the statuary.  We're part of Choibalsan history.  It was a good day.

Observers in my dental cabinet.  I must be getting better because I didn't make anyone cry today.  I've been working almost exclusively on first graders at the Khan-Uul school. Sometimes they start crying before I get the mirror out but for the most part they are very good. They must trust me because this week I've worked alone with the assistant without supervision. We taught this afternoon at the last of the schools in Choilbalsn so now we'll begin at the kindergartens.  We will teach first the children, then the teachers, then the parents.  This is a good idea to get them all thinking about oral hygiene early.

Friday we've been asked to join the mayor in making a video about good dental health habits that will be shown at all the schools.  He will ask us leading questions and we will answer with our schpeel about dental health care.  Should be interesting.  We turn in the questions the mayor will ask to our interpreters tomorrow so they can be confident of the translation.

The boys here just love basketball.  I caught these boys outside the school we taught at today.  The court is pretty darn rough but they were having a ball.  They wanted me to shoot one so I did and was short of the rim by about 3 feet.  They laughed and waved goodbye.

 Finally found the hats I've been looking for.  Got one for Bryan and one for me!

                                              I always wondered where Aaron got his hair.

 We presented our gifts of dental supplies to the dentists of Choibalsan.  There was about $4,000 worth of supplies and they were so pleased.  We told them we would try to arrange for more to be shipped now that we know what they really need.  They are so gracious.  They don't have an x-ray machine at all for dental x-rays and this is something they want the most.  We have access to one.  We just have to work out the details of getting it here.  I could send them a small box of simple tools that would make their lives so much easier.  They use the same things over and over again simply because they don't have the money.  They are at the mercy of the government budget.  They told us today that we are on national TV talking about improving the dental health of the children of Choibalsan, so we are celebrities.

These are the people responsible for the dental care in the Eastern part of Mongolia called Dornod.   The four women to my right are the dentists.  They are very capable but just don't have the time or the means to treat enough people. They are on a tight schedule, 20 minutes per patient.  They use very little anesthetic and often place temporary fillings and have the patient back one or two times before one tooth is finished.
 Imagine only 4 dentist for 60,000 to 70,000 people.  Tim our interpreter thinks the dentist in the shorts is very pretty.  Unfortunately, she's married and has two children.



These are the high school children I taught today.
They were a lot of fun.  I showed them a picture that I recently took of Annie and Madalynn and they said your grandchildren are so beautiful.  They are so surprised that I have 16 grandchildren.  They gasp.  But it always seems to give us a connection.  They really are good kids.

 The weather turned cold today so here I am wrapped up in my camel quilt working on my blog.  I hope this is not the start of winter.  the weather has been so beautiful up until now.  Maybe it's just a warning.

This is my room.  the bed looks a lot more comfortable than it really is.  There are hot water radiators that actually just turned on minutes ago so its getting toasty but I'm not leaving my camel quilt just yet.

This has been my most favorite teaching day yet.  This is a picture of a high school class I taught this afternoon at the English high school.  This is like an English immersion class.  They start here when they are young and all of them were able to answer my questions in English.  Some things needed translation from the teacher, the guy next to me in black.  Notice the young girl on the back row next to the blue sweat shirt.  She is the girl who was just baptized Saturday.  The boy in the gray behind the teacher asked me if the Utah Jazz was my favorite basketball team.  I said it was.  He said his was the Chicago Bulls......Michael Jordan.

This is one of my patients from this morning at the dental cabinet.  No anesthesia.  Never moved a muscle.  Maybe that's why he's not smiling.

This is my shower.  Can any of you explain to me how it works.  It seems to work differently every morning.  There are so many buttons and knobs that I don't know which to push or pull.  There is no door so water goes all over the floor so I have to use that towel to mop it up.  But its a shower.....

 and I'm thankful for it

This is Mongolian money called the Tughrik.  There are no coins.  The denominations are 10,000, worth about $5, 1000, worth about 50 cents, 500 =25 cents, 100 =5 cents, 20=1 cent and ten, not worth much at all.  My wallet has a lot of bills in it but not much money.

This is the girl who interpreted for us at church last Sunday.  She invited us to her baptism and was so excited.  She and her grandmother were baptized and Clyde and I acted as the witnesses.  She is 12.  Where do her eyes go when she smiles?

Two little Mormon girls

We took a stroll around town after church and took pictures of the surroundings.  There is no real downtown business district.  Shops are all around town usually housed in the apartment buildings.  There is no grass and many buildings have no pavement.  Today was rainy and colder so there was lots of standing water.  There is a lot of tall grass by the river and in the park kept udder control by grazing cattle.  Did I really say udder?

 

This is a soccer field and you'll notice a basketball court on the far side.  They love basketball here and they are quite good.  Everyone wants to be like Michael Jordan.  Lots of Chicago Bulls shirts around.

Soccer kids.  Nearly everyone says "hi" when we pass by.  I think we've taught a lot of them in school or worked on them in the clinic.  Even at church people are showing us their teeth.  Not a lot different from home really

We worked hard today.  The Mayor wanted us to examine and treat his staff's children sometime while we're here and we've been so busy we decided today was our only day.  We examined about 60 children, some of whom needed no treatment and treated the rest.  we didn't complete treatment on all that was needed but we put a good sized dent in the group.  we then went to a baptism at the church which is right next door.  a 12 year old girl and her grandmother were baptized and the Mongolian elders were so humble and excited.  The young girl was our interpreter in sacrament meeting and she asked us to come.  We were asked to be witnesses and then invited for treats afterward.  Had a great time.

These were some of my patients today.  Dang cute.  The one on the left is the daughter of the minister of health.

I've seen a few women around with flashing smiles.  Tooth jewelry may be coming soon to a dentist near you.

This is a pretty typical meal.  It's beef stew, potato salad, carrots, hot water, and something else.  There is always a kind of something else, sometimes good and sometimes not.  We're eating well and so far tolerating it well.  Our hosts worry about us and make sure we have everything we need.

                                            Kids and cell phones are the same everywhere

                                                                                                                                                                                                             

                                     High School Students

                                                           

                                                  6 year old patient I worked on today

High School I taught in today.  Clyde taught in the elementary school.

Little Mongolian

This is my interpreter when I work in the cabinet at the hight school.  He is an English teacher and said he used to hang around with the missionaries in Ulaanbaatar when he was going to university.  He is very good and is a bit of a character.  Sometimes he even assists me chairside.  He said he finds this dental work very interesting.  He broke his front tooth and wanted me to repair it.  It turned out great and now he goes around showing everyone.  He said his wife likes it very much.  She teaches Russian at the same school.  Shortly after I repaired his tooth the school doctor appeared with a broken front tooth which I repaired so I have at least two friends here.  The kids are great and the people have made us feel so welcome.  It's nice to be here.

This is the view out my bedroom window.  The river is about 200 yards beyond the trees with nothing in between.  Beyond the river there is nothing but prairie for hundreds of miles, so I really am living on the edge of the frontier.

This morning I worked at the high school cabinet.  I will do this every morning. The dentist I work with is very kind and helpful and I think would make a wonderful pediatric dentist.  We see mostly little children.  Today they were all 6, some of which were screamers.  This is a picture of the dental chair with a six year old and my assistant.

This afternoon I taught at the high school and Dr. Larsen taught at the elementary school.  We did an accounting today and so far we have taught about 300 students.  We expect to teach about 1500.  When we run out of toothbrushes we'll be less popular.

Following our presentation we were presented with some art work done by the students at the school.

This Guy from New York, Kevin, is a peace core volunteer who works at the school.  Believe it or not he teaches basketball.  Great guy.  He'll be in Coibalsan for two years.  He's tall.

                     

                                                                     Town square.

            General Choibalsan whom the town is named after.  He led the army who defeated the invading Japanese in 1939.  The Mongolians were aided by Russia and still enjoy good relations.

                                                      Flowers around city square.

Today I worked in the dental cabinet (clinic) in the Khan-Uul high school.  The high school includes ages 7 thru17.  When I arrived the principal of the school met me and we walked thru a pathway of children who applauded as we went.  The principal is the woman in the black dress.

As we went into the school we were met by children in native costume.

Children were also positioned on the stairs with their violins ready to play.  I thought, wow, I never received this kind of reception when I went to work in Bountiful.  Then I found out there were a group of cyclists from the school who had ridden from Ulaanbaatar for a special cause who were being welcomed by the entire school.  I just happened to show up before them.  I was so disappointed.  

The dental cabinet at the school had not been in use since June so they were in the process of sterilizing the instruments, so I walked with the English teacher over to the elementary school to examine some children who needed to have dental work that day.  I selected 2 and we walked back to the high school and began working.  These are such well behaved, beautiful children but they are still a little afraid of the dentist, especially an old white guy from America.  We got along famously.  I had fun.  Tomorrow the Mayor will be accompanying me to the cabinet so I'm sure there will be a little more pomp.  Must be an election year.  He really is a good man and has a good vision for the children's health in Choibalsan.

In the afternoon I taught this class of elementary children dental health and the art of brushing and flossing while Clyde taught at another high school.  They were so cute and took active part in the discussion.  My primary class would be proud of me.  Also today we met in the Mayor's office with the mayor, the minister of health, and the director of the hospitals for a news conference for the tv stations, where we presented them with the donated supplies we had brought.  Believe me they need them.  I used the last ampule of anesthetic today at the Khan-Uul cabinet not knowing how limited their supply is.  The doctor at the school breathed an obvious sigh of relief when I told her I would bring some tomorrow.