the people

This next part of the post is just a small bit of the culture. Photos can not do it all justice. The average wage were we were at is $3 per day, most of the soldiers we trained made $90 a month + housing (if you want to call it that) there Doctors made upwards of $110 per month.


This is a photo of 4 on a moped with a cooler, the 4th is the baby strapped on the back with a sheet. 3 or 4 is very common but the most I did see was six on a small motorcycle (125 or smaller) much like this photo but no cooler two children there instead. One day I saw 2 people on a moped hauling 2 large mattresses on there heads (smiling because it sure did seem to beat walking.



This was the local gas station.
About every 50 meters someone was selling gas out of a glass jug. They do have gas stations but they were always empty. Everyone fills up there mopeds from these guys. Lots of smog here durning rush hour.


Just had to get in one photo of someone with something on there head. This was very small load compared to what was down there just had to be very careful of picture taking there "voodoo sensitivity" I guess.


I got to be (some think had to, but would disagree) one of the guys who set up the treatment sights. On the first day some children came into the compound and 'hung out' with us, I gave them some balloons and got some photo's with them. In case you don't know me well I'm the white guy.


This was what we arrived to in the mornings for patient treatment. Our entire group was 52 people, to include 2 embassy officials, 4 vets/ vet tech's, 6 translators, 3 photographers/ news crew and 2 heads of staff. The other 35 {doctors, nurses, dental personal, opthimology personal and medics} treated over 500 people everyday. With all that work we still couldn't fit them all in, we had people comining from over 120 kilometers away. (in Africa that's about forever).