Each mini session lasts about 20 minutes in an outdoor location in Baltimore or Annapolis.  You will receive 5-10 proofs to view in an online gallery & a choice of one complimentary digital image for personal use.  Easy peasy, lemon squeezie!  Get an updated photo, make a $100 donation to Doctors Giving Back, and have some fun providing clean water & medical attention for villagers in Ethiopia.  Details below:

To reserve online, click on the following links:

Annapolis – October 22

Baltimore – October 23

Annapolis – November 19

I’m currently processing about 1700+ images for Doctors Giving Back & Touching Africa Ministries (as well as my teammates), but I do have one quick one to share.  This little boy drinking his disease-free water just about sums up one of the main reasons why we flew half-way across the world:  To bring God’s love in the form of clean, filtered water.  Ahhhhh….refreshing!

I guess I just need to breathe.  My list is getting out of control.  But it is good to know that God is totally in control of this whole process.  I thought for sure going a second year I would not get nearly as much funding as I did last year.  Wrong.  I thought I’d be on my own for arranging food for my family.  Wrong.  I thought I’d have to arrange child juggling.  Wrong.  God has been showing my little mind in all of this.  I have little plans, little dream, little needs.  His are bigger, and better, and they are His.  I am just his vessel for as long as he allows me to be, and I am so okay with that!  I am not a forefront person.  I don’t like being in the spotlight.  I like to just support.  And support I will!

As I have been counting down to my departure on Facebook, I just realized I forgot to share with my blog family as well.  The photos on here are way bigger anyway. 

Here are some things I’m looking forward to….

…seeing John & Jana again.  The husband & wife team of doctors who become my alternate family while in Ethiopia & when I return.  I so love their company, their hearts & their vision for Ethiopia.  I am truly blessed to know them.

….the children.  I know they may like me because I’m probably the whitest person they’ve seen….ever!  But I like to think they like me too.  I’ll admit, I enjoy having a gaggle of munchkins following me around saying, “cam-er-A!”

…Solomon’s kids. Ahhhh…never have I felt so loved meeting a group of kids.  They hugged, touched, played & giggled with us the entire time.  I even got in trouble from the American adults for talking too much with them!  They love posing for group shots….whipping out their modeling poses.  It will be wonderful to see some familiar faces here.

…sorting.  I know it sounds weird, but as you sort through the massive amounts of donations made to this trip, you become in awe at all it takes to pull this trip off.  There are literally thousands of pills of medication, hundreds of thousand of dollars in medical supplies, hundreds of pairs of eyeglasses & shoes, and a small army of knit bears from Project Mother Bear.  It’s amazing.

….the feeding program at Solomon’s place.  To think that Solomon starting feeding these HIV/AIDS kids only one meal per month was devastating.  And now, by the grace of God he is able to feed them one meal per day!  And I am anxious to see my chicken!  Yes, I own an Ethiopian chicken.  We all bought one for their “village” so they could start chicken farming & becoming self-sustaining.  I can’t wait to see how it’s grown in the past year.

….glasses station!  This was one “medical” area where I was actually of use.  When I took breaks from snapping photos, I’d help out at the glasses station.  Here I got one-on-one interaction – because you couldn’t call it communication on my part – with many people who could see more clearly with the reading glasses they’d been given.  Yes, we oftentimes had men picking the most hideous pair of rhinestone glasses, but at least they could see!

….clean water!  This is probably the thing I’m most looking forward too.  We know that the majority of the illnesses we see, especially in the more remote villages, are caused by dirty drinking water.  The Ethiopian people don’t waste their firewood on boiling water, so they are drinking water that has run down a hill where animals graze & defecate.  Gross, I know.  It has been on the forefront of Doctor’s Giving Back’s mind to solve this problem.  The amazingly wonderful news is they have found a company in Florida who has a filtration system similar to a kidney dialysis machine that can filter 99% of the water!!!  We had enough funding to purchase 34, which was a little disappointing.  However, since God’s plans are bigger than our own, we got bested again.  The company in Florida asked to be able to give us 148 water filtration units at the same cost as the original 34 we were going to purchase.  Heck yes!!!  I don’t know how we are going to transport them all, but I know it will somehow happen.  I can’t wait to see the ramifications of that much clean water!

And this year, I personally get to be responsible for filling one 50-lb hockey bag of supplies!  I can’t fill it alone, though.  So if you are able to donate any of the following items, please let me know!  Thanks in advance for reading, for donating, and for praying. It is definitely felt!

“Tylenol(Adult tabs and Pediatric/Children’s syrup)
……Advil, Motrin (Adult and Pediatric/Children’s syrup)
Alieve
Pepto Bismol (tablets, not liquid)
Immodium (tablets and liquid)
Zantac 150mg tablets, Zyrtec tablets
Claritin or Clarinex tablets (Adult and Children’s)
Hydrocortisone Cream
Antibiotic ointment (i.e. Polysporin)
Naphcon A Allergy eye drops
Prevacid or Protonix (Omiprazole)

From the above list, the OTC meds that we usually run out of first are the allergy eye drops, and allergy meds, and the stomach meds like Zantac, Prevacid and Protonix.

Some good places to get these over the counter medications at a great price include: the Dollar Store, Walmart, and sometimes even Costco. DGB usually suggests Walmart first as it is hard to beat their prices on medications. We need as many of these medications as possible, so anything you can donate would be fantastic!!!!”

When she turned 5, I was away in Ethiopia so I didn’t have the chance to take her out for her 5-year photos like I do every year.  Things got busy when I returned and it just slipped my mind.  So, tonight I had the opportunity to spend some Mommy-Emma time with her in Downtown Annapolis & just play “model.”  I treated her just like one of my clients, let her choose where she wanted to have her picture taken, asked her opinion on what she thought looked good, and so on.  She loved it!  My girl is getting so big!  I can’t believe she is already five & will be in kindergarten in the fall.

I love you Emma Rose!  Thanks for being Mommy’s first (& best) model!

Here it is….

Village Trip – Asossa, Ethiopia from Mandy Sroka on Vimeo.

And if you happen to know the information on this song, please e-mail me!  I’ve been trying to find it everywhere!  (hint:  it’s Ethiopian)

We drove to this village after lunch.  I really liked this tree.

First we took a walk down to their water supply to check it out, and so Maureen could take samples.

Then I saw a wonderful thing happening!  Sharon had brought back prints of photos from her 2009 trip and they were being passed out to the children shown in them.  They were terribly excited to see themselves in a photograph.  The little boy in the front of this photo is holding his picture!  Maybe I can do that next year!

We quietly gave out some shoes to little ones as they were seen during the clinic.  Here is Delphine trying a pair on this little guy.

Time for some shots with the “faranji’s!”

And shots with the non-faranji’s….

This is how we lined the kids up the first time.  It didn’t last long.  As soon as Sentayu walked away from them, they got out of line.

This little girl was afraid of being seen by the doctor, until Jana let her be the doctor & use the stethoscope.  It worked very well!

Then it came time for shoe, clothes, & bear distribution.  We thought we had a good place, but people bypassed the “gate,” got more than one bear, and just wanted more and more and more.  We ended up having to zip our bags & leave, but not before we gave out a lot of things.

I swear…all we did was put shorts on this boy!  Apparently he liked running around naked!

As we were leaving I got to see the mill where they ground the wheat/grain/???? to make flour for enjira.

And all the bags waiting to be ground….

And to end, I’ll leave you with how we ended most of our working days:  Good friends, a Coke, relaxing under a mango tree.

Anyway…here is March 12th

We started out our morning as we usually did – at the clinic in Asossa.  I ventured outside a little more today to see what it was like for people waiting in line.  These people were directly outside the church doors, which is actually the last place they had to wait.

Before you got to the church, you had to make it past these blue gates at the front of the church property.

Back inside the clinic there was a very important area – our pharmacy.  Now Kari sat at the pharmacy table and kind of just fell into it.  It was actually the perfect fit for her.  She was so well organized that the pharmacy ran like a well oiled machine.  I think we need to giver her an honorary faux pharmacist license because she rocked it!

The next few photos are of goiters – a condition we saw a LOT of in Asossa.  “A goiter is a swelling in the thyroid gland which can lead to a swelling of the neck or larynx.  Worldwide, the most common cause for goiter is iodine deficiency.” (wikipedia)  So you know when you buy salt, and it says “iodized,” that is typically what keeps you & me from getting goiters.  Iodized salt is apparently not a common thing in Ethiopia.

This woman’s goiter had gotten quite a bit more extreme than most cases we saw.  Untreated, these seem to be a bit dangerous to me, especially because of their close proximity to the airway.

And of course a day at the clinic wouldn’t be complete without some bears!

After lunch I was taken to the Asossa Hospital to view & document the work that our construction team was doing.  The hospital does bring in funds, but the construction team also came with supplies, and more importantly, a knowledgeable team of construction men to fix their basic problem of no water.

Here is John, my guide for the afternoon, and also a construction buff.

This is Dibush showing off some of his handiwork.  He was hired by our construction team for the week, and, along with Mohammed, was a very hard worker.  This pipe is one of many leading into the different wards of the hospital.  The piping was so old and corroded that the valves didn’t work to let water flow through it.

This is Mohammed showing the section of piping he helped replace.  I was told that each time they cut a section of pipe, and put on a newer piece to replace it, more corroded pieces would break, threads would be stripped, and so on.  Things are just so old and decayed here.

This is the cistern in the rear of the hospital that is fed by the city water.  Since the water supply from the city is often unreliable, they have to store up a reserve in the cistern for delicate times such as surgery & deliveries.

Inside the hospital the team repaired sinks, putting “p traps” (???) in them so the hospital workers wouldn’t have to empty buckets so often.  This is a repaired sink….

And this is a sink not yet repaired.  See how it’s missing a vital piece of pipe at the bottom??  Looks kind of important.

On my tour, I caught another team member, Dan, sharing the photos on his camera with new friends he’d made.   Everyone wants their photo taken!

They really loved him!

Next we went inside the maternity ward where I found this new little guy & his momma!

The guys were replacing lights and/or fixtures so the doctors & nurses would be able to see their patients at night.

Part 2 coming later….

]]> http://www.mandysrokaphotography.com/2010/04/2010-image-68-ethiopian-adventure-asossa-hospital/feed/ 2 http://www.mandysrokaphotography.com/2010/03/2010-image-67-ethiopian-adventure-village-trip/ http://www.mandysrokaphotography.com/2010/03/2010-image-67-ethiopian-adventure-village-trip/#comments Thu, 01 Apr 2010 02:44:49 +0000 mandysroka http://www.mandysrokaphotography.com/?p=14289 Here is our March 11th…..

We spent the morning starting out at the clinic in Asossa.  There were many, many more people waiting to be seen and we were working hard to get them all in for the doctors and eyeglasses.  A really neat thing happened in the middle of it all though…this little guy showed up!  He is a little boy featured in the Doctor’s Giving Back promo video from 2009 and one of John & Jana’s patients from last year.  Their faces lit up at the sight of him & his family.  And he was equally as happy.  (This is something else I have a video of to show you!!!)

And this next photo is just to tease Kristin!  These glasses, as I was told by a native Ethiopian, are “old lady” glasses.  No body seemed to want to take them?!?!?!?

There will be a few photos to follow this story:  A little girl (11-13 yrs I think) came in with her mother.  Her leg was large & swollen around the bottom by her foot.  She had gotten a small cut on the heel of her foot that went unattended & became infected.  The infection was spreading up her foot causing pain & swelling.  Jana explained to her mother about the medications she would need to take over the next few days & then Tiffany cleaned her wounds while Kristin distracted her from any pain.

(I also have a sweet, touching video of Tiffany & Kristin working so diligently with this young girl)

And now, after lunch, we had our first village trip!  I didn’t really know what to expect from a village trip.  I rode directly behind our driver, Sentayu, and a helper, Nati.  I asked Nati how long until the village & he told me about 40 kilometers and that it would be “an uncomfortable ride.”  HAHA!  What he meant by that is that at a certain point the road through Asossa ends and becomes simply a dirt path.  We quickly learned that when other cars passed us along the road we needed to shut our windows or we would literally eat their dust.

Here is what we saw at the first village….

This was the one piece of medical “equipment” that we found where we were.  It was a pretty ancient scale.  These are our two helpers, Nati & Tola, taking people’s weight.

This next series of photos of this little girl may be a little hard to take.  I know that the first time I saw her I about lost it.  I wanted to just stop, go in the van, and cry.  I believe the condition she has is called Hydrocephalus.  You can correct me if I’m wrong.  One of the hardest things I learned was that she is the same age as my daughter – 5 years old!  These kind of things just grab your heart strings & make you want to leave your cushy life in America & help all of the people here in Asossa.

Sigh….and if your are squeamish, don’t look at the following sore…

Here is the one, dear, sweet, poor nurse we found in this village.  She has the necessary skills, but no supplies!

After we began treating some patients (and by “we” I mean the doctors…not myself), we lined up the children to hand out shoes.  This is the line before it got out of hand…

This next little guy was too adorable.  His father spoke very good English & was apparently a soldier.  He named his son Japan.

Here is some of the shoe distribution…

And while the majority of the kids were distracted with getting new shoes, Jana & Philippa & I handed out these knit bears to children on the village road.  They were so excited…grinning from ear to ear!  We almost started our own little mini riot with these things!

And finally, as we were ready to leave, the leader of the village stood up & thanked us for our efforts & supplies.  We left him with a soccer ball for the children.

As we left this village, we were taken to their water supply.  It was down a type of valley through some long grassy stuff.  The problem was, that on the way to the water supply, we passed many animals feeding &, subsequently, pooping.  When it then rains, the water runs through the animal feces & into the water supply.  This is a main reason why so many of these people are sick – their water is not clean!  Something so simple to us, but something so deadly to them!

Well, here is our looooooong March 10th….

We began with breakfast in the Upper Room, lovingly prepared by Anne from the Touching Africa Team.  I wasn’t a fan of oatmeal, so I quickly learned  the word for bread (daboe…I believe), and asked one of our dear helpers, Nati, to get me some bread at basically every meal.  I had a peanut butter sandwich for every meal that had milk or that I thought my stomach couldn’t handle.

After breakfast, and a potty break at the Bamboo, we headed off to our first clinic in the sanctuary of a local church.  Here we are having some prayer time before we opened the doors to the public.

This was the outside of the church where we held the clinic.  It has the tin roof, windows on both sides, a few fluorescent lights inside, and many benches for seating.  But that’s about it.  No carpet, no majestic sound system, no artwork, no glass in the windows, no heat or A/C.  People who came to this church came because they WANTED to, not because of what the church building itself had to offer.  It was beautiful to behold.

This is Elise.  The is the 13-year-old daughter of one of the team members who came along this year.  Here she is donning her “doctor” gear.  These were the typical things most of us wore throughout the day:  scrubs, gloves, and the occasional mask.

This table was one of three for reading glasses.  Here, Jessica is helping a woman choose frames in the reading strength she needed.

This is a view directly outside the front doors of the church.  These people are waiting to get into the clinic to be seen.  They sat here after they had gotten through the large gate at the front of the church.  We heard stories of people at the gate who had slept overnight and others who had walked as many as four days to be seen by the doctors.

Some more reading glasses magic by Michael Elliot….

And these people are ones who’ve gotten into the church and are now waiting to be seen by the triage team.  As I mentioned earlier, before people saw the doctors, we took a medical history on them along with vitals.

This is Alice.  She and Marie, were team members dedicated solely to prayer.  They would seat people after they’d seen the doctor and simply pray for them.  It was a sweet sight to behold.

And now, after morning and afternoon clinic, we move on to the BIG church.  This is the church where Pastor Califa preaches.  It just oozes over with people.  I tried my best in the next photo to show you how many people come to this place.  The lighting is very challenging, but in this photo, after you can’t see any more heads in the far back and it’s just light…well, that’s more people sitting outside the church in even more rows of benches.  It was just amazing to behold.

This little girl is one of many who were following me around during each and every church service.  Apparently it’s not a common thing to have an American girl with a large camera walking around during church.  I tried my best not to cause a stir, but some of these little darlings were too cute to resist snapping a photo of!

I had to shoot at 6400 ISO here, but it was the only way (I knew of) to capture all that I wanted to see.  This is Betty, the Ethiopian singer I mentioned earlier, leading worship.  I have some great video of this too that my husband is working on for me.  Can’t wait to share it!

And lastly, I’ll leave you with Elise.  This is during another late night pill sorting session.   She just couldn’t last the whole time & fell asleep on the hockey bags!

We had just landed in Asossa, a place, when mentioned on our plane ride over from America, native Ethiopians asked, “Why would you want to go there?  It’s hot!”  I wasn’t allowed to take any photographs of this airplane.  But for you airplane enthusiasts it was a Fokker 50 – aka REALLY STINKIN’ SMALL!  Normally I would snap a few photos & apologize later, but the large guns that the “airport” guards were carrying deterred my ambitions.  And I call it an “airport” in quotations because it was just recently paved…as in the runway was just recently paved.  I sure am a lucky girl to come the year that the runway was paved!

So after a whirlwind at the “airport” in Asossa, the loss of half our team’s bags, hugs & hellos between all the team members who went last year and the friends they had missed from Asossa, we loaded into three vans and rode off to our Bamboo Paradaise!  (Yes, I know I’m spelling this wrong, but wait til you see the hotel sign)

Here is another new friend, Sharon, enjoying some relaxation under the mango trees at the Bamboo.  This is where we typically sat to get our “coca” or Coke.  And they have REAL Coke in Ethiopia…the kind that comes in a glass bottle and has to be opened with a bottle opener, or your teeth if you’re really tough.

Here’s a renewed friendship that I was talking about!  This is Kristin & Mary.  Kristin is a Colorado girl with the Touching Africa team and in this photo she’s reuniting with Mary, the daughter of one of our contacts in Asossa.  It was so sweet to witness everyone reconnecting with friends they’d made last year!

This is the view directly outside of my hotel room.  Those trenches are for the rainy season, so things don’t get flooded.  They are precisely why flashlights are recommended at night!

Here we are trying to finish the longest recorded game in Phase 10 history!  It seriously isn’t over yet.  Mainly because all of the participants are now in Texas, California, and Maryland.  Maybe we can finish it in 2011?  What do y’all say?

Here is our hotel guard.  And I completely forgot to ask him his name, but he was there faithfully every day, all day, guarding us and our belongings.  At first, I have to admit,  I thought he was a little harsh with the children on the street who kept coming to the gate to see us.  But after I saw how they reacted when given things, I knew he was wise in handling them.  It’s very difficult to explain unless you see it for yourself.  There are a lot of homeless children begging on the street.  And when they see us, Americans, they come around in droves to see if we will give them something.  However, if you don’t have something to give to each and every one of them, and then to give to all the others that get wind of what’s going on and later show up, you will cause a mini riot.  Imaging having nothing.  Imagine having to beg & scrounge for all that you do have.  Imagine not knowing where your next meal is coming, or even when it is coming.  Imagine, then, your reaction at being given something by someone whose language you don’t understand.  Would you take it nicely and gently and wait in line to possibly be given something?  NO!  You’d fight for it, and probably fight for two of the things, just to know you’d be eating two meals or could get a meal for yourself and your friend.  It’s a tough life.  And these children are precisely the ones that John & Jana & Solomon are trying to get land and resources for.

Okay…enough on that rant…

On to our lovely hotel sign….

And this is how we ended the night…sorting more pills!

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