AUTHOR: Nancy TITLE: Dental Day! DATE: 2/22/2010 04:53:00 AM ----- BODY:
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What a day!

This was the second day of dental work, and when we arrived at San Antonio Aguas Calientes there were signs announcing a "Health Fair". University students in green t-shirts with the SANA logo were gathered in the plaza and we were ushered upstairs where our team began setting the process in motion for dental examinations and giving fluoride varnish to children.

Why is StoveTeam doing dental work? When Gustavo Peña started his factory in El Salvador, it was to earn enough to help his son complete dental school. Gustavito has now nearly finished orthodonture studies and continues with a mobile dental unit provided by Dental Care for Children and the Irvine Spectrum Rotary Club to offer services to those in need. Yesterday Gustavito was here working not only with our team but with a local Guatemalan dentist who is completing her studies. It was wonderful to see dentists and volunteers from three countries working together, and we hope to have this continue as at StoveTeam we work with many types of health and environmental initiatives throughout the developing world.

I'd write more, but this morning we're off to work on business development issues with Marco Tulio and then talk to some of the families who have received stoves to see what they think. I'm hoping for a very productive afternoon as the comments I heard from patients yesterday was that the stoves are in high demand and everyone is just waiting for fatory production to get up to speed.

Just an aside...one of the Mayan community leaders told me that a woman told him that she was so excited to have used only TWO STICKS to cook her entire pot of beans on the Ecocina. I asked him how much it normally took to cook that same pot of beans, and he said, "Oh, at least TEN sticks!" That made my day.

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