Mission Trip to Bulgaria

Dear OES Family,

     We are back! What a wonderful and inspiring visit we had to Bulgaria. I can honestly say that it is a very long way to travel with no easy way to get there. Bulgaria is a very beautiful country with many mountains and poor road conditions, which makes traveling difficult. However, our efforts made 75 children and adults very happy and it made us feel good to know that we made some difference.

     As the orphanage at Davril Genovo is in the mountains, it took us almost three-quarters of a day to get there. Our intentions of seeing patients the day we arrived was impossible. We did however, set up all of our equipment in the Director's office in order to be ready for patients first thing the next morning. The first evening, after dinner, we gave oral hygiene instructions to the children and then went over brushing with them. We took the children by groups of six to the lavatory in order to show them the proper way to take care of their teeth. While Dr. Rayburn, Rey' and Elia were doing this, I continued to instruct the adults in proper brushing and flossing technique.

     It was really no surprise to me that many of the children never had a toothbrush, but they all had a brush, floss and toothpaste at the end of the day! They also had the belief that without toothpaste they could not brush their teeth, so we really had to stress that it was more important to use the brush than the toothpaste. Many of the children feared that someone might steal their new brush and paste, as petty thievery is a common practice among the children. We also distributed oral hygiene supplies to the employees of the orphanage for them and their families.

     The children had to attend classes in the morning so we decided to be productive and see employees, pre-school children and people of the village in the mornings. We would save the afternoons for the kids of the orphanage who ranged in age from 11 to 16 years old.

     It amazes me how many adults had never had their teeth cleaned in their lives. The stories they told us about their doctor's recommendations were unbelievable! For example, one man was told to rinse with sunflower oil twenty minutes a day in order to soften the deposits. I told him I would rather he spend twenty minutes brushing and flossing per day. It would do him a lot more good. One woman was told not to brush her gums or they would continue to grow around her teeth. We set her straight, or so we hope. She was pretty determined to believe that there was nothing she could do about it.

     Many of the very young children had rampant decay in most of their primary teeth. Evidently, they are kept on the bottle a long time and are given sugar water or yogurt with sugar in it. This, of course, is a very bad practice. The older children in the 11 to 13 age brackets had severe decay in their first and second permanent molars as well as many of their front teeth. The problem was so severe and the rate of decay so great, we did not really know where to begin on some of these kids. We decided to try to treat only areas of pain and front teeth that were severely decayed. I can't begin to tell you how much self-esteem the children gained when we fixed their front teeth. One little boy expressed his feelings in just one word "SUPER!" and he said it in English.

     One thing I noticed as a Dental Hygienist was that the older children, ages 14 to 16 tended to have much less decay and much better oral hygiene. It makes me think that the Bulgarian diet has changed considerably over the last ten years. Out of all the patients I saw, only one teenage girl showed no evidence of decay. A few others in her age bracket had a few areas of decay or amalgam fillings. Evidently, there is a dentist who comes into the city once a month to see patients on first come, first serve basis. Even the adults had bridges, crowns and restorations. They were nothing like what they would receive here in the United States, but at least they are trying to keep their teeth. The thing that amazes me is that they don't ever get their teeth cleaned. I think I was told at least ten times that nothing like this had ever been done to them before. They were also amazed that dentistry could be practiced so painlessly! You can’t begin to imagine the look of fear on almost everyone when they got into the chair. By the time they left, they almost all had a smile on their face! Some of them had never had local anesthesia before. I can't imagine this because that means that an extraction, amalgam filling, or crown and bridgework had been done without being numb. No wonder they were so fearful.

     We were fortunate to have interpreters who helped us communicate with the children. Without their assistance, we would never have been able to complete our work. They were able to let the children know that we cared and that we would try to be gentle. Almost every time I would ask if a child were in pain, they would shake their head "NO", however, the "NO" sign in Bulgaria means, "YES" and the "YES" sign means "NO". Pretty confusing isn't it? Apparently, Bulgaria is the only country in the world to shake his or her heads in the opposite direction of everyone else. I was told by a local resident that this practice started under Turkish rule hundreds of years ago as a silent protest of their control.

     I think the best thing that we did for the children was to show them that we cared. Even when we weren't doing dentistry, just spending time with them and taking their pictures with a Polaroid camera was enough to bring big smiles to their faces. We took over 16 packs of film and came back empty handed with the exception of the few we took to keep for our office memory book. We also took many pictures with our regular cameras and are enclosing a few prints so that you might share in the joy we had by serving these children.